Coastlines globally are immensely diverse: from the beautifully topical and sun kissed beaches of the Caribbean, to the wet and misty British coastline, through to the raw and wild Alaskan shores, they are home to scores of flora and fauna; rich habitats shaped by powerful forces of nature. In stark contrast, some coastlines, (28,000 km worldwide to be precise) are dry almost barren places, where ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Deep in the Himalayas
The Himalayas: vast, formidable and home to the Earth’s highest peaks. The mountain range stretches inexorably through Indian, Bhutan, Nepal, China (Tibet) and Pakistan separating the Tibetan Plateau to the north from India’s alluvial plains to the south. India, as we know it today, started life much further south, as an island not far off the coast of Australia. It was separated from ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Do coastlines have memories?
Did you know that the shape of coastlines is determined by the angle at which waves crash against the shoreline. It has long been thought that fluctuations in the wave incidence angle are rapidly felt by coastlines, which change the shapes of their shores quickly in response to shifting wave patterns. Or do they? Researchers at the British Geological Survey, Duke University (USA) and Woods Hole Oc ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Tones of sand
With rocks dating as far back as the Precambrian, mountain building events, violent volcanic eruptions and being covered, on and off, by shallow seas, Death Valley’s geological history is long and complex. Back in the Cenozoic (65 to 30 million years ago), following a turbulent period which saw the eruption of volcanoes (which in time would form the Sierra Nevada of California) and regional uplift ...[Read More]