Geodynamics

The two faces of Mars

Editorial Team 2 September 9, 2020

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]

The Sassy Scientist – The Cricetinae Model

The Sassy Scientist September 4, 2020

Despite workshops and seminars and conference sessions and Zoom colloquia, of which Geraldine has attended many, one big question remains in geophysics: What drives plate tectonics? Dear Geraldine, Slab pull? Ridge push? Mantle drag? Continental keels? Super plumes? Mantle wind? Expanding Earth? God? Nope, there is only one explanation that truly fits the data and passes the common sense test: The ...[Read More]

What happens when two worlds collide?

Editorial Team 2 September 2, 2020

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Why does the Moon have a very small core and Mercury one that makes up roughly 85% of the planet’s radius? Why are humans doing research in geoscience and not some evolved version of dinosaurs? In this week’s blog post, Harry Ballantyne, PhD student at the Department of Space and Planetary Sciences at the University of Bern, is talking about large-scale collisions and how they can answ ...[Read More]

The Sassy Scientist – Flavours of mantle rheology

The Sassy Scientist August 28, 2020

While drowning bacon in maple syrup, Eduardo has been wondering: Which rheology best describes the mantle? Dear Eduardo, You sound like a numerical modeller to me: someone who wants an equation (and one that actually works on top of it!) to describe the rheology of 84% of Earth’s total volume. You seem to seek one glove that fits all, and I am afraid to disappoint, but our planet does not wo ...[Read More]