Tectonics and Structural Geology

Sendai, living on the edge!

Daniel Pastor-Galán January 22, 2020

View of Sendai from Hirose river. Credit: Daniel Pastor-Galán.

Sendai and its people live on the edge. The city and its citizens learned to live over a subduction zone. Sendai has survived 500 years of hazards; it is a resilient and industrious city. People know disaster will strike again, but also that they will rise up when it does. Japan, ‘the sunrise country’, would be much better named ‘the land of sinking tectonic plates’. Above the point where the Paci ...[Read More]

Features from the field: Bedding/Stratification

Samuele Papeschi December 27, 2019

Inclined bedding planes in Ladakh (India). Photo credits: Arjun Datta (Imaggeo)

Bedding (also called stratification) is one of the most prominent features of sedimentary rocks, which are usually made up of ‘piles’ of layers (called ‘strata‘) of sediments deposited one on top of another. Every stratum is characterized by its own lithology (composition), sedimentary structures, grain size and fossil content that make it unique and different from the stra ...[Read More]

Civita di Bagnoregio – the dying town

Elenora van Rijsingen December 4, 2019

Civita di Bagnoregio - The Dying Town. Credit: Elenora van Rijsingen (distributed via Immageo)

On top of a steep cliff standing out from the surrounding countryside, lies the small town of Civita di Bagnoregio, one of the most famous villages of Italy. It is often called the dying town, although more recently people have started to refer to it as fighting to live. What this little town is fighting against is the threat of erosion, as its walls are slowly crumbling down. Located in central I ...[Read More]

Bangor and Snowdonia, a natural laboratory for geologists of the scientific revolution

Hannah Davies November 20, 2019

Bangor Pier with a snowy mountain backdrop Credit: Crown copyright (2012) Visit Wales

Bangor, once a tropical paradise on the coast of Gondwana, then a volcanic wasteland at the foothills of an immense mountain chain. The region would then be buried under glaciers for thousands of years before finally developing into an unassuming Welsh University town. Wales’ place in modern geology Perhaps you have looked at the chronostratigraphic chart of Earth history and wondered what ...[Read More]

Geothermal Energy and Structural Geology?

Anne Pluymakers October 25, 2019

Green pipelines and cooling towers of geothermal power plants in the hills of Tuscany. Credit: Anne Pluymakers.

Fieldwork is a necessity to expand the brain, to kick-start 3D thinking. Field studies with a specific application in mind have – until now – usually been geared towards hydrocarbon reservoirs. However, with the increasing use of the subsurface, for example for CO2 storage and geothermal energy, alternative field studies gain importance. Here, we will focus on geothermal energy, which is in ...[Read More]

Trieste, where the word Karst originates

Simon Blondel October 16, 2019

The Gulf and city of Trieste viewed from the Strada Napoleonica. Credit: Simon Blondel.

The city of Trieste lies in north-eastern Italy along the border with Slovenia. It is positioned at the corner point between the Romance, Germanic and Slavic worlds and serves as an important seaport in the region. It is fascinating for both its history and geology. My relationship with Italy’s town of Science, as Trieste is often referred to, started about a year ago. I got the opportunity to st ...[Read More]

Features from the field: Ripple Marks

Samuele Papeschi October 11, 2019

300 million year old ripples next to 300 minute old ripples. Photo credits Ian Kane

Earlier this year, Ian Kane, geologist at the University of Manchester, captured the iconic snapshot shown above. The picture reveals ripples, developed due to waves and currents in the sand of White Strand (near Killard, county Clare, Ireland) right next to Carboniferous sandstone that contains ‘petrified’ ripple marks! The image is powerful, because it shows the basic principle of geological act ...[Read More]

Beyond Tectonics: Can only tectonically active planets sustain life?

Hannah Davies September 23, 2019

Earthrise, image source: Wikipedia

This edition of “Beyond Tectonics” is brought to you by David Waltham. David is a professor of Geophysics at Royal Holloway who studies Geology, Astronomy and Astrobiology. His current research focus is on whether the Earth is “special” because it is habitable, or if the Earth is one of a vast amount of life-bearing planets. “Is Earth Special? Do we live on a typical rocky ...[Read More]

Beyond Tectonics: How the tectonic events of 1783 were perceived by the population of Europe

Hannah Davies September 4, 2019

A contemporary print of the first of the 1783 Calabrian earthquakes. Image source: Wikipedia

This edition of “Beyond Tectonics” is brought to you by Katrin Kleemann. Katrin is a doctoral candidate at the Rachel Carson Center/LMU Munich in Germany, she studies environmental history and geology. Her doctoral project investigates the Icelandic Laki fissure eruption of 1783 and its impacts on the northern hemisphere. “A Violent Revolution of Planet Earth” – The C ...[Read More]

Features from the field: Foliation

Samuele Papeschi August 30, 2019

Jurassic slate in La Grave (Hautes-Alpes, France). These rocks easily split along foliation surfaces that dip towards the left of the image. Don’t believe me? Try to hammer them! Photo © Samuele Papeschi

Have you ever walked on a mountain trail, passing past outcrops of rocks and noticed that many rocks appear to be split along a well-defined orientation? If you have, you might have seen one of the most important structures in metamorphic rocks – called foliation. The term ‘foliation’ derives from the Latin folium, meaning ‘leaf’. A rock with a foliation looks like a pile of R ...[Read More]