The podClast – episode 13
Episode “unlucky” number 13. We have a talk about nuclear waste, MIS:TIQUE (helping physically challenged geology students), the Gigapan project and a few others things.
|
The podClast – episode 12
It’s the Geobloggers in the Pub episode of the podClast. We talk about the KT boundary, including new research relating to it – and how difficult mass extinctions are to study. Plus we lay into creationism in a pub-style chat fest.
|
Reminder: Geobloggers in the Pub is Tomorrow!
Just a quick reminder to all of you lovely Londoners, that the Geobloggers in the Pub meetup is tomorrow afternoon (May the 2nd), 2pm onwards at the Cittie of Yorke tavern in London (22 High Holborn, Camden, London, WC1V 6BN, United Kingdom (map) – a short walk from the Chancery Lane tube station).
More thorough details can be found in this post, I’ll be placing an piece of A4 paper on the table which looks like the following image so you can find us (or just me, depending on turnout).
See some of you there!
|
The podClast – episode 11
Episode 11 of the podClast discusses the L’Aquila earthquake in Italy and the associated earthquake predicition, more on Mt Redoubt in Alaska, geology in the movies and more.
|
Geobloggers in the Pub -London May 2nd
Attention geologists and geobloggers alike: mark your calenders for Saturday, May the 2nd for the first ever Geobloggers in the Pub in London. Come along for an afternoon of drinking and a live podClast recording. Here are the details you’ll need:
Time: 2pm onwards
Date: Saturday the 2nd of May 2009
Place: Cittie Of Yorke Tavern, 22 High Holborn, Camden, London, WC1V 6BN, United Kingdom (map) – it’s a short walk from the Chancery Lane tube station, and it looks like this:
In order to find us, I’ll place a piece of A4 on the table which will look like this:
Hopefully see some of you lot there.
|
The podClast – episode 10
The podClast reaches double figures! Episode 10 discusses the eruption of Mt Redoubt in Alaska and whether geolphysicists are geologists. Plus the GSA timescale including a discussion on why the Quaternary exists and details on palaeomagnetics.
|
Manitude 6.3 Earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy
The medieval city of L’Aquila in Central Italy suffered a magnitude 6.3 earthquake this morning at 0132 GMT. Below is the shake map of this quake from the USGS. Full details can be found at the USGS.
Earthquakes in Italy are not unusual. The collision of the African tectonic plate with the European portion of the Eurasian plate cause these seismic events just as in any other tectonic collision. What IS unusual about this particular event, however, is the strength of the quake. Below is a map of all earthquakes in this area between 1973 and today from the USGS.
- The earthquakes in Italy of >M6 (left) vs M4-M5.9 (right)
So since 1973, there have been 11 earthquakes in the Italy/Northern Africa region of magnitude 6 and above (0.5%), vs 2,234 earthquakes between M4 and M5.9. This is also expected, as smaller earthquakes are simply more common than large ones, but there’s a stark contrast here as all of the strongest quakes are extremely shallow (<33 Km in depth) while weaker quakes vary across the entire lithosphere/upper mantle (due to the nature of this collision). As a contrast, here’s the same segmented data from New Zealand:
Earthquakes in New Zealand >M6 (left) vs M4-M5.9 (right)
That’s 46 earthquakes of M6 or greater (1.25%), and 3660 quakes between M4 and M5.9. You’ll notice there’s a spread of depths with both quake groups in the New Zealand case, due to the subduction-related interactions of the Pacific and Australian plates (with a patch of ≥M6, 300-500 Km, purple, earthquakes at the start of the Kermadec arc, a classic case of back arc volcanism).
If you’re interested in the human side of this story, the BBC has an article about the 27+ deaths and building damage which includes video.
|
Geolbloggers in the Pub: London
As many of you may know, I’ve been in the UK for a couple of months, and I’ve got a couple more to go before jetting off to Europe in June and California in July.
On the first weekend of May I’ll be stomping around the mighty city of London and in between catching up with the 7 million kiwis who live there, I’d like to initiate the first Geobloggers in the Pub (calling it “Geologists in the Pub” would have set off my redundancy meter – but either will do). Before announcing official times and a location, I’d like to just get a show of hands from geologists or geo-interested persons who’d be willing to sit around a table in the mid afternoon in a pub in central-ish London on Saturday, May the 2nd.
Since it’ll be a podclasting weekend, I’m intending on doing a recording with whoevers there too, getting opinions on whatever geonews is around for 20-40 minutes. That’ll make it the first “live” podclast.
So, who’s up for drinks and some light conversation?
|
The podClast – episode 9
Episode 9 of the podClast is ready for download. This week’s episode discusses the latest rumbling, shaking and eruptions in Tonga, global warming and the ozone layer and dinosaurs – small and feathered. Plus a reading recommendation.
|
Geoblogosphere Call to Arms: The Wikipedia Mantle Page
The geoblogosphere is fantastic. We tweet (a lot now), we have carnivals and we even podcast once a fortnight. One thing we don’t do, though, is pool our combined centuries worth of geological knowledge in unified, constructive ways. At least not all that often.
I would like to make this post a call to arms of sorts to all geobloggers and internet-savvy geologists out there to help with something. This particular page, Wikipedia’s entry on the mantle, is an absolute shambles. Not only are things like the Mohorovičić discontinuity only mentioned in passing without much description:
The top of the mantle is defined by a sudden increase in seismic velocity, which was first noted by Andrija Mohorovičić in 1909; this boundary is now referred to as the “Moho.”
(The page on the Moho is equally as vauge), but the figures, links and some of the references and suggestions in this page are simply stupid. Look at this bit of the extremely brief section on temperature:
Modern observations suggest that the mantle is cold.[15][16][17][18][19]
The mantle of Mars is also cold.[20]
This has very serious implications for those who believe the mantle is convecting hot fluid.
That has a very serious whiff of the EEdiots about it. Especially considering that every single reference given about the “cold mantle” is either in regards to an underlying section of the equatorial Atlantic MOR being colder than expected, or other areas of other MORs or spreading regions being cooler than expected (for the record, references 16 and 17 are the same). Not a single one of those references suggests the mantle is cold. The reason being that the mantle isn’t “cold” (whatever that means anyway, cold compared to what? Very unscientific). Any layperson reading this page would, however, be left with the impression that there’s serious debate regarding whether the mantle can flow at all.
I hereby kindly request that anyone out there with sufficient expertise in the mantle or associated sciences to please help in righting this travesty. I’m not asking for this to be done today, but over the next year we should endevour to pretty much rewrite this entire Wikipedia entry (lest the EEdiots take it upon themselves to do it for us and misinform the public even further). Wikipedia is fickle, however, and the formatting can be difficult to master, so getting a grasp on it now would be advantageous if you intend to contribute.
I’ll be doing some of my own research and clean-ups, but it’d be great if other concerned parties could help out too. After all, we blog about our science because we want to inform the layperson about how cool it is and to advance public awareness. Ensuring the go-to website for basic scientific facts is accurate can only help our cause.
|
Original content shared 
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (details)