The Geological Society has prepared an interactive website that pays a small tribute to the pioneers of plate tectonics: Alfred Lothar Wegener Harry Hammond Hess Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews John Tuzo-Wilson Dan McKenzie The website also features a Teacher Zone with good teaching material, a Glossary for nicely explained geological terms, and a Test Your Knowledge section with multiple cho ...[Read More]
Seismology
125 years since the first recorded seismogram
17th April marks the 125 anniversary of the first ever recorded seismogram from a distant earthquake. The widely recognised first teleseismic seismogram was recorded on April 17, 1889, in Potsdam, Germany by E. von Rebeur-Pacshwitz (Nature, 1889). The earthquake was in Japan and had a magnitude of about 5.8. Ironically the instrument was originally installed for astronomical purposes. The instrume ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Soil colors – what more could you want?
Nuno Simões University of Algarve, Portugal E-mail: nuno_simoes58@hotmail.com We can easily see that soil color varies from one site to another, with depth, with topographic position and composition. Even color may be light brown in one side of the road and dark brown in the other. Whether for scientific purposes, or just curious, you study the colorimetric interesting variations. Why does soil co ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Will drinking tea get us thinking about soils? Yes, but only if you help us spread the word!
Taru Lehtinen PhD candidate at the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland tmk2@hi.is The Tea Bag Index Project wants to create a global map on decomposition with the help of citizen scientists. We use teabags to collect vital information on the global carbon cycle. With our protocol (see our web page and our article: Keuskamp et al., 2013), citizen scientists worldwide c ...[Read More]
Seismology
Molding seismic surface waves
Following each major earthquake that occurs close to nearby cities many people wonder what scientist and engineers can do to minimise the seismic hazard on society. Whilst scientist try to understand the mechanism of each fault system on the globe, engineers try to find solutions for buildings to be more safe. One interesting experiment I came across lately is published in last month’s Physi ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Soils at Imaggeo: gully erosion in Swaziland
John Quinton, UK This post was also published simultaneously in G-Soil.
Soil System Sciences
Monday paper: Soil carbon stocks and their variability across the forests, shrublands and grasslands of peninsular Spain
Doblas-Miranda, E., Rovira, P., Brotons, L., Martínez-Vilalta, J., Retana, J., Pla, M., and Vayreda, J. 2013. Soil carbon stocks and their variability across the forests, shrublands and grasslands of peninsular Spain. Biogeosciences, 10, 8353-8361. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-8353-2013. Abstract Accurate estimates of C stocks and fluxes of soil organic carbon (SOC) are needed to assess the impact of climat ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Soils at Imaggeo: flying over the Saharan Cauldron
Carolina Cavazos-Guerra, Germany The Saharan desert has one of the most extreme climates on Earth. The dust loading and thermodynamics over this region are unique, and have major impacts on the climate of North Africa, Europe and the Atlantic. Fennec is a large-scale programme designed to tackle one of the world’s key climate regions by delivering the most comprehensive field campaign ever mounted ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Boring Soil Science strikes back
Many scientists are currently debating whether soil science is an academic field in which scientists are engaged in talking to each other, ignoring the rest of society. Of course, traditionally, the dissemination of soil science has been a difficult field. Among other problems, some scientists have reviewed the use of complicated jargon. Soil Science academics work in increasingly smaller and smal ...[Read More]
Seismology
Earthquake shakes Twitter users and geeks do some science (oh, and celebrities said they felt it too)
The ever increasing use of mobile phones constantly connected to the internet is bring on a new era in scientific research called crowdsourcing. On Wikipedia crowdsourcing is the defined as the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community. In recent years social media is being used as a re ...[Read More]