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GeoLog

Colour deficient vision and the geosciences; just another way of looking at things

September 18, 2020
Colour deficient vision and the geosciences; just another way of looking at things

Like a reasonably large proportion of the population, I have colour vision deficiency (also known as colour deficient vision or colourblindness). I’m not going to get into the technical aspects of what this is like as they are covered well here and here, and you can do an Ishihara test, and other tests here, to check your own vision. The other reason I’m not going to discuss the technicalities of ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – What darkens snow and ice?

September 18, 2020
Image of the Week – What darkens snow and ice?

“Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow”. Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1 (W. Shakespeare) Snow and ice are not always as pristine as one may think. If you have ever walked on a glacier or on a snowfield during summer, you might have already noticed that. In fact, both snow and ice are often darkened by impurities. In this blog post, you will learn about the main processes leading to ice and snow darkeni ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

The Sassy Scientist – The Story of Plate Tectonics

September 18, 2020
The Sassy Scientist – The Story of Plate Tectonics

As a new coping mechanism with reality, Sascha has been digging into some science history and asked: How did scientists discover plate tectonics? Dear Sascha, I do enjoy a good walk on the memory lane of scientific discoveries. You might know by now that great insight is gained when we look at data with fresh eyes. Hence, lots of advances in certain narrow scientific fields come from outsiders. In ...[Read More]

AS
Atmospheric Sciences

Atmospheric research in the middle of the Amazon forest: The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory celebrates its anniversary

September 16, 2020
Atmospheric research in the middle of the Amazon forest: The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory celebrates its anniversary

It looks like a spike, orange against the blue sky, sticking out the green ocean of the Amazon forest: Standing 325 m tall, the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) is the highest construction in South America. This tower celebrates its 5th anniversary this year, while the ATTO research site, located ~150 km northeast of Manaus, Brazil, has been in operation for 10 years. During the past 5 years, ...[Read More]

SM
Seismology

Earthquake of the month: Bengkulu – Indonesia M 6.8-6.9

September 16, 2020
Earthquake of the month: Bengkulu – Indonesia M 6.8-6.9

August was not highlighted by a large event (> M7) and the choice for the earthquake of the month was a bit tricky. Four events were available to choose from: An intraplate EQ in the US (M5.1), the largest event in this region since 1916, an M6.6 in the Philippines, a deep earthquake (~620 km) M6.9 in Indonesia, and a doublet earthquake (M6.8 – 6.9) in Indonesia. After some discussion, we ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

Advanced geodynamic models of giant earthquakes

and September 16, 2020
Advanced geodynamic models of giant earthquakes

Though giant earthquakes are disastrous, they provide essential information to investigate earthquake physics. In this week’s news and views, Thyagarajulu Gollapalli, a PhD student jointly from the Monash University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, discusses our present understanding of such big earthquakes and how advanced numerical models will help to get a more precise picture of ...[Read More]

TS
Tectonics and Structural Geology

TS Must-Read – Wilson (1965) A New Class of Faults and their Bearing on Continental Drift

September 15, 2020
TS Must-Read – Wilson (1965) A New Class of Faults and their Bearing on Continental Drift

In 1965, JT Wilson published “A New Class of Faults and their Bearing on Continental Drift” (https://doi.org/10.1038/207343a0). This is one of the papers that led to a paradigm shift in Earth Sciences and would become one of the bases of plate tectonics. The concept of the transform fault, introduced in this paper in a very smart way, is fundamental in tectonics textbooks nowadays. Indeed many of ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo On Monday: Emoji from meteorites; impact spherule

September 14, 2020
Imaggeo On Monday: Emoji from meteorites; impact spherule

This is a crossed polarized light photomicrograph of an impact spherule; a small mineralisation made when a meteorite hits the Earth and melts the rock at the point of impact, from Barberton Greenstone Belt, in South Africa. These spherules are the only remnants of Early Earth’s meteorite impact history, from between of 3.2 and 3.5 billion years ago. In this photo you can see the K-feldspar ...[Read More]

NH
Natural Hazards

Natural Hazards 101 – What is a – natural – hazard?

September 14, 2020
Natural Hazards 101 – What is a – natural – hazard?

We often talk about different natural hazards, how researchers investigate them and solutions to mitigate their effects on society, infrastructures and the environment. However, we have never really stopped for a moment to define a hazard, a natural hazard and much of the terminology in the field that can sometimes be evasive and not so straightforward to understand. Thus, we start this series of ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

Locking people up to program — or: “What is a hackathon?”

September 12, 2020
Locking people up to program — or: “What is a hackathon?”

This week the seventh yearly hackathon of the geodynamics code ASPECT is taking place. But what actually is a hackathon, why is it useful and how did it get started in the first place? This week, Wolfgang Bangerth, one of the founders of ASPECT, explores all these questions for us. Due to the intensity of a hackathon, he wrote this article before the start of the hackathon. It’s really not p ...[Read More]