Have you ever heard of “analogue modelling”? In solid Earth science, directly observing the Earth’s interior is challenging, and the analogue modelling approach often overcomes this limitation by using alternative systems analogous to natural phenomena. By identifying fundamental mechanisms in these tractable systems, we can apply physical scaling laws to understand processes deep within the …[Read More]
The Aegadian or Egadi islands (not to be confused with the Aegean islands situated between present day Greece and Türkiye) is a small archipelago of islands around 20 km off the Western coast of Sicily. These islands are most known for their historic industries, namely for a type of rock quarried from the largest island …[Read More]
To kick off the New Year, we have invited a guest author, Takafumi Maruishi, a researcher in the Research Division for Volcanic Disasters / Center for Volcano Research Promotion, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience, Japan. He explains the scaling law of lava dome growth and its physical insight. Effusive eruptions—when magma …[Read More]
Faults and fractures can sometimes be confusing, especially for students taking their first geology courses. When they go hiking in the mountains and see a crack in the rock, they often wonder — is this a fracture or a fault? Even scientists sometimes mix the two terms, so it’s good to understand the difference. Since …[Read More]
What does a seismogenic fault look like? We can sometimes observe surface earthquake faults, which propagate ruptures from the hypocenter to the ground surface. In 2016, intense seismicity was observed during the Kumamoto earthquake sequence in Japan. This sequence consisted of many shallow earthquakes, including a strong foreshock and the subsequent mainshock with numerous aftershocks. …[Read More]
The region around the Pic Saint-Loup is a popular destination for many European universities to teach mapping field courses – and there is a reason for it, even besides the great landscape, good food and nice weather. Let’s take a tour to discover why! The Pic Saint-Loup itself is indeed so impressive that some former …[Read More]
This edition of ‘Features from the field’ is brought to you by Faris Beg, a masters student on the EU Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s program in planetary geosciences—GeoPlaNet. This blog is a result of a geological field excursion carried out collectively in groups by students, organized by the GeoPlaNet consortium in Alcañiz, Spain. He will …[Read More]
What does an insect eye, Saturn’s North pole, beeswax, and a rock formation called columnar basalts all have in common? They are all hexagonal in shape. Why is this the case? Hexagons are the most efficient way to fill a space with the least amount of material The science of bubbles and bubble sculptures is …[Read More]
Volcanoes are everywhere along plate margins and on hot spots on the planet’s surface. Just in the past 2 years, we have witnessed enormous explosive eruptions such as that of the Hunga Tonga volcano which released an amount of energy equivalent to hundreds of atomic bombs, and massive lava flows, as at the Cumbre Vieja …[Read More]
This guest post was contributed by Afroz Shah who is an Assistant Professor of Structural Geology at the Department of Geosciences, Universiti of Brunei Darussalam (UBD). He has completed Ph.D at James Cook University, Australia in 2010, post-doctorate at Earth Observatory of Singapore in 2013 and joined the first academic job as a Senior Lecture …[Read More]
