Tectonics and Structural Geology

100 years of Marie Tharp – The woman who mapped the ocean floor and laid the foundations of modern geology

Derya Gürer July 30, 2020

An artists illustration of Marie Tharp (credit: Annique van der Boon)

Marie Tharp (July 30, 1920 – August 23, 2006) would have turned 100 on this very day and she continues to live through her legacy of having mapped the world’s oceans. Similar to famous painters, some of whom only gain appreciation after their death, Marie Tharp is one of the most underappreciated scientists in the history of the earth sciences. Marie was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Due to h ...[Read More]

Istanbul: The city across two continents

Derya Gürer July 13, 2020

Fig 1. A view of Istanbul from Anadolu Kavağı, the northern tip of the Bosphorus Strait. Credit: Durmuş Cebeci.

Istanbul – an economic, cultural, and historic centre. Its unique geography, natural resources and beauty have drawn the attention of not only geoscientists but also poets, merchants, painters, sculptors, architects, kings and emperors for centuries. Throughout its history, the city has witnessed the rise and fall of some of the world’s greatest empires. Owing to its geopolitically important ...[Read More]

Mind your head: The Imposter Syndrome

Anne Pluymakers July 3, 2020

Credit: Bich Tran. Distributed via Pexels

This Mind Your Head blog post is a follow-up from one of the talks during the online short course on mental health that aired during the last EGU General Assembly. Imposter syndrome is about the feeling of being afraid to be found to be an imposter. Note that I do not claim to be an expert; in the following, I simply list a few tricks that help me, and people I have talked to, to find their way i ...[Read More]

Patience Anne Cowie (1964 – 2020): A Geology Superhero

Anouk Beniest June 23, 2020

An artists illustration of Patience Cowie (credit: Annique van der Boon)

Welcome to the first post in a new series being hosted on the TS blog! This series “Influential women of Tectonics and Structural Geology” is aimed at highlighting women who have had a key contribution to the field of tectonics and/or structural geology. Patience’s contribution to the field of faults changed the way geologists looked at faults. Her work continues to be used to an ...[Read More]

The Makran accretionary wedge: an ideal natural laboratory to study accretionary processes.

Jonas Ruh June 16, 2020

Lower Miocene turbiditic (layered shale and sandstone) sequences of the Makran acretionary wedge. Credits: Jonas Ruh.

How does an accretionary wedge form? For this edition of Minds over Methods, we have invited Jonas Ruh, lecturer in the Structural Geology and Tectonics group of the Geological Institute at the Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zürich, to tell us about the Makran accretionary wedge, one of the largest on Earth. He explains how the use of field observations and numerical modelling helped him to bet ...[Read More]

Features from the Field: Chevron Folds

Samuele Papeschi June 12, 2020

Chevron folds in the radiolarites from Batain, Oman. Photo © Simon Virgo via Imaggeo

Folds are among the most strikingly beautiful structures we can observe in rocks. There are several ways folds may form in rocks. For instance, folds in sedimentary rocks may develop by liquefaction of soft sediments, but the most common way to produce folds – and also my favorite – is by deformation. When rocks are compressed by tectonic forces, layers (or foliations) bend and warp, p ...[Read More]

Must-read papers in tectonics and structural geology – Introduction

David Fernández-Blanco and The Must-read team June 9, 2020

The “TS Must-read papers” activity can be described as a virtual paper-discussion forum. A total of 103 voters within the TS community nominated 381 “Must read” papers researching topics within tectonics and structural geology, and we, early-career scientists with diverse backgrounds, a.k.a. the TS Must-read papers team (see below), promote in different media the contributions that were the most v ...[Read More]

Analog models for teaching and more, even at home

Ágnes Király May 26, 2020

Ágnes Király is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre of Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED) at the University of Oslo, Norway. Ági has a background in geophysics, incorporating natural observations with numerical and analog models to study subduction zone processes. Ági has simulated subduction systems mostly in the Central Mediterranean. Working this spring will probably be somewhat diffe ...[Read More]

Call for must-read papers!

David Fernández-Blanco and The Must-read team May 14, 2020

Have you ever read a paper and thought “Why didn’t I find this 3 years ago?!” ? Did you stumble upon TS early-career scientists or colleagues who are unaware of seminal or fundamental (old and new) articles? Or are you simply willing to give some good reading advice about tectonics and structural geology? IF YOU ANSWERED YES AT LEAST ONCE, THEN THIS IS FOR YOU! What’s t ...[Read More]

Features from the field: Volcanic rocks and landscapes

Sandra McLaren May 11, 2020

View of the volcanic landscape of western Victoria, showing craters and maar lakes (credit: Sandra McLaren)

This edition of ‘Features from the field’ is brought to you by Sandra McLaren, a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. She will be talking about the volcanic activity and rocks in the Tower hill complex in Australia. Volcanic activity is one of the most spectacular manifestations of our tectonically active planet. Volcanic eruptions can be highly dangerous when they oc ...[Read More]