My friend John Jamieson, who is now a prof in the geology department at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Canada Research Chair in marine geology and is also a former GeoSphere guest poster is currently on a research cruise near Fiji. John researches deep sea vents, aka. black smokers/seafloor massive sulphide deposits that are exhaling super …[Read More]
GeoSphere
Blast from the Past: It’s all about scales
It has often been said that geology is the study of scales. Time scales, large scales, small scales and many others. Indeed, one of the most crucial parts of any photo or map is the scale. Furthermore, geologic concepts can be applied from the planet scale to the atomic scale and every size in between. …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #52 – Looking from the past to the future
This weeks photo is a beautiful yet sad reminder that Arctic research and work is still a dangerous undertaking just as it was for the early Arctic explorers. The following text is by Vladislav Petrusvich: Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen by Beechey Island in 2013 after tragic event when a researcher (Klaus Hocheim), captain and a …[Read More]
Photo of the Week #51
I’m getting back in the bog saddle. After a brief hiatus as I was adjusting to the life of a real, productive member of the PGS (post grad school) world I am good to go for blogging again. Enjoy the photo of the week! The text that follows is a technical description of the photo …[Read More]
GeoPoll: Who do you think most deserves the title “Father of Geology?”
It’s been a while since the last geopoll/post. Too long. Life has been busy for me though. I am just concluding an extremely short post-doc at Health Canada’s Canadian Radiological Monitoring Network and am starting a new job at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission next week. Suffice to say blogging has sadly slipped a bit …[Read More]
Tracking the Fallout and Fate of Fukushima Iodine-129 in Rain and Groundwater
A recently published paper (by myself and colleagues from uOttawa and Environment Canada) investigates the environmental fate of the long lived radioisotope of iodine, 129I, which was released by the Fukushima-Daichii Nuclear Accident (FDNA). Within 6 days of the FDNA 129I concentrations in Vancouver precipitation increased 5-15 times above pre-Fukushima concentrations and then rapidly returned to background. The concentrations of 129I …[Read More]
Bubbling Merrily: Artesian Springs
Display "Artesian spring" from YouTube Click here to display content from YouTube. Learn more in YouTube’s privacy policy (opens in a new tab). Please enable JavaScript in your browser to load this content. Always display content from YouTube Open "Artesian spring" directly I recorded the video above on a recent field camp near Deep River, …[Read More]
My DEFENCE! Follow live tweets with #129I @ 2:30pm ET
My PhD defence is this week (Wednesday) at 2:30pm ET. I am feeling pretty good about the whole thing but at the same time nervous. I just don’t know exactly what to expect. I have a sort of idea of what the questions might cover and where my assumptions or conclusions might be challenged. However, …[Read More]
Photo of the Week #50
This week’s photo is brought to you from outer space! Indeed, this a beautiful cut section of a meteorite that fell in northwest Australia and was found in 1892 (ignore the label behind it). It is an iron-nickel meteorite and is composed entirely of metal. This crazy cross-hatching, which is most commonly found in such iron-nickel …[Read More]
From the GeoSphere Archives: The Wooden Wall
It is once again time to write about geology and classics and the incredibly important impact the geosciences had on the ancients and their way of life. My previous post on this topic can be found at my old blog location as the post: The Odyssey and Geology. I’ll begin by relating a story: The two fleets, …[Read More]