Since 2022, the annual FrenSZ workshop has been bringing together a vibrant and interdisciplinary community around subduction zones in France. In this week’s blog post, we dive into how FrenSZ is organized, highlight its scientific outcomes and how it is opening new connections on the international stage. A large French community. In France, a fairly large community of Earth Scientists devote thei ...[Read More]
Mantle convection may unfold the hidden stories of planetary interiors over billions of years, but geodynamic models can crash in milliseconds. While figures in papers often show smooth convective flows with elegant plumes and slabs, the path to those results is not very easy. This week, Prachi Kar, a PhD candidate at Arizona State University, shares her honest thoughts on the part of geodynamics ...[Read More]
Have you ever wondered what common thing connects fault surfaces and their characteristics with your… squeezy sneakers on a wet surface or the required frequent change of your car tyres? Well, the answer is simple. The fundamental principles of stress and friction can significantly cause this behaviour in our everyday lives. However, these two factors can also be responsible for the slip behaviour ...[Read More]
Although often daunting and discouraging, every academic must navigate the inevitable process of peer review. In this week’s post, Jean-Baptiste Koehl, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo (Norway), reflects on what the future of peer review might be. Author disclaimer: The reflections presented here reflect my perspective grounded in my own experience. While peer review is a key mech ...[Read More]
Snowy days are here! Between two slides and snow ball (kind and consented) fights with colleagues, let’s see what’s in my mailbox… Well, this one is pretty topical, let’s go! Dear Sassy scientist, I think I lost all motivation for research but I need to work! What do I do? Please help me! My sweet cute pie, Let me ask you a quick question, when was the last time you took va ...[Read More]
The huge amount of data produced in Geosciences is increasing exponentially, and numerical modelling has become a key tool for understanding tectonic evolution over time, which also increases the volume of data produced. Here, I, João Bueno (PhD student at University of São Paulo, Brazil) will present how a machine learning technique known as Self-Organising Maps can be used to understand the int ...[Read More]
Mathematics is certainly not every scientist’s cup of tea. Despite the latter, they are, for the most part, very important, since most problems, regardless of their complexity, start and end with a mathematical equation (or set of equations). In this week’s blog, Dimitrios Papadomarkakis (student at the National Technical University of Athens), discusses the subject of closed-form (analytical) sol ...[Read More]
Building the Earth in a sandbox The Main Ethiopian Rift stretches for hundreds of kilometers through Ethiopia, a massive fracture where Africa is slowly tearing apart to birth a new ocean. However, the processes driving this continental breakup remain hidden deep beneath layers of volcanic rock and millions of years of geological history. Today, in a laboratory in the heart of the be ...[Read More]
The 4.5 billion years of geologic evolution has shaped the tectonic processes in Earth we see today. Over the span of time, Earth has changed from being a magma ocean to a tectonically active planet, by transitioning through different tectonic regimes. A silent witness of this journey have been cratons which have survived for billions of years. Therefore cratons preserve clues of past tectonic pr ...[Read More]
