News & Views

Planetary Boundaries: A Framework against Geodynamics?

Ilan Kelman and edited by Kleoniki (Lydia) Theodoridou January 25, 2023

The risks of crossing the Planetary boundaries for our planet Earth illustrated by Prachi Kar.

How can we determine a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity? In this week’s blog, Professor Ilan Kelman from University College London shares his thoughts about Planetary boundaries, and whether this framework will be successful for the next generations to come. The planetary boundaries framework (Rockström et al. 2009ab; Steffen et al. 2015) might be useful for communicating some of humanity’s im ...[Read More]

Arc and Intraplate Volcanism in Northeast Asia Since mid-Miocene: Numerical model studies

Changyeol Lee and edited by Giridas Maiti January 11, 2023

Locations of the Quaternary arc and intraplate volcanoes in Northeast Asia, depicted as black triangles, with major plate boundaries. Modified from Kim et al. (2015).

Northeast Asia may be one of the best natural laboratories to investigate both arc and intraplate volcanisms which have developed since the mid-Miocene. The arc volcanoes have occurred above the sinking young (Philippine) and old (Pacific) oceanic plates in Southwest and Northeast Japan subduction zones, respectively. The intraplate volcanoes across the Korean Peninsula and China have occurred abo ...[Read More]

Holiday movies to watch

edited by Arushi Saxena December 21, 2022

A scene from the movie, "The Little Prince". Image taken from an article in the New York Times.

Iris and Menno have made fantastic science movie recommendations in the past couple of years – covering the base for bad-science movies. Since the AGU frenzy is finally over and the upcoming holidays beckon us, I went in a different direction and prepared a list of some of my feel-good holiday movies. 1. The Little Prince This is a fantasy movie based on a popular children’s book. The movie is cen ...[Read More]

The Tectonic Memory of the Mantle

Robert Marks and edited by Gokul V.S. December 7, 2022

A cross section through the optimised mantle convection model of Müller et al. 2022, showing non-dimensional temperature anomalies through the mantle underneath South America along the 10° south parallel.

The study of the mantle aids in our understanding of the Earth’s tectonic evolution. In this week’s news and views, honours student Mr. Robert Marks shares his thoughts. Mr. Marks received his Bachelors (Hons) degree from the University of Wollongong under the supervision of Dr Nicolas Flament. The Earth’s mantle is filled with subducted slabs, which are remnants of tectonic plates tha ...[Read More]