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Geodynamics

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Advanced geodynamic models of giant earthquakes

and September 16, 2020
Advanced geodynamic models of giant earthquakes
Photograph source: https://pixabay.com

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]

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]

The Sassy Scientist – Picturing The Perfect Petting Zoo

September 11, 2020
The Sassy Scientist – Picturing The Perfect Petting Zoo

Kamal is happy, trotting around academia with a laptop in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, and a faint grin on his face as he contemplates how to tackle the next big questions in geodynamics. Amazed that others do not consider academia as a radiant beacon on the horizon of potential career pathways, he is curious: If you were not a scientist, what would you be? Dear Kamal, I suppose I would ...[Read More]

The two faces of Mars

September 9, 2020
The two faces of Mars
Credit: ESA & MPS for OSIRIS Team, MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

In this week’s blog post, we will learn more about the past of our neighbouring planet Mars. Kar Wai Cheng, PhD student at the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich, is talking about the Martian dichotomy and how it could have formed. Humans have recognized Mars for a very long time. One of the earliest records of Mars is seen on a skymap in the tomb of an ancient Egyptian astronomer. By tha ...[Read More]