Every week, The Sassy Scientist answers a question on geodynamics, related topics, academic life, the universe or anything in between with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Do you have a question for The Sassy Scientist? Submit your question here. Sylvie asks: What would you say is the main problem you encountered during your research career? Dear Sylvie, Easy: time management and focus. Doing scientific ...[Read More]
Continents are essential for the development and survival of life on Earth. However, as surprising as it may sound, there did not exist a planetary scale numerical model to show the formation of the oldest continents until the recent study ‘Growing primordial continental crust self-consistently in global mantle convection models‘ in Gondwana Research by Jain et al., 2019. Hot off the p ...[Read More]
This is the first post of “Featured Catchment”, a series of posts in the HS Blog that present experimental catchments across Europe and beyond. Here, the authors of the posts will explain the main characteristics (e.g., climate, geology, topography, land use) of their catchments, why hydrologic research is important in their study areas, describe the applied methodologies (field instrumentation an ...[Read More]
Fieldwork can take geoscientists to some of the most remote corners of the Earth in some of the harshest conditions imaginable, but stories from the field hardly make it into a published paper. In this blog post, Raffaele Bonadio, a PhD student in seismology at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in Ireland, shares a particularly formidable experience in the field while aboard a research ves ...[Read More]
This picture was taken at Bandon beach, Oregon. Bandon is well-known for its memorable seascape of stacks of all shapes and sizes. These rock formations are known to geologists as ‘knockers’ and carry nicknames like ‘the Wizards hat’. They date from the Jurassic period – about 200 to 145 million years ago – and are what remains from the great mélange during tectonic subduction processe ...[Read More]
Technically speaking, the Netherlands isn’t really a city, even though it is the most densely populated country in the European Union and one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 488 people/km2. It is a delta, and for many people geology is not the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about the flat countryside. Large parts of the country have been more often below ...[Read More]
#mineralmonday: your weekly* dose of obscure mineralogy, every Monday** [*not guaranteed; **or possibly Tuesday-Sunday] What is it? emmonsite, Fe2Te3O9.2H2O What’s it made of? Iron (Fe), tellurium (Te), oxygen (O) and water (H2O) I think I remember tellurium from chemistry class – remind me what it is? We can more or less divide the elements into the metals and the non-metals – t ...[Read More]
After three succesful first years of the Tectonics and Structural Geology blog, it is time to bring our platform to the next level! To provide you more frequent content over a wide range of topics, we invited some new people to join our team. We are still always on the lookout for new guest authors and/or team members, so let us know if you want to contribute! So, what will you be reading on our b ...[Read More]
The mysterious appearance and disappearance of the Weddell Polynya, a giant hole in the ice, has long puzzled scientists. Recent work reveals that it is tightly tied to energetic storms. Read on to find out more… The eastern side of the Weddell Sea is a region known for its low concentration of sea ice due to the presence of a seamount, an underwater plateau called the Maud Rise. The seamount infl ...[Read More]
Every week, The Sassy Scientist answers a question on geodynamics, related topics, academic life, the universe or anything in between with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Do you have a question for The Sassy Scientist? Submit your question here. Meghan asks: Why is your research relevant? Dear Meghan, Because I like it. My supervisor is in my office every day to talk about my results. I talk to people ...[Read More]
