Perhaps enamored by such “scientific” “triumphs” as The Core and 2012, the main stream media decided to employ superlatives, overtly panicky headlines and outright lies to gain hits and advertising dollars. Had they simply asked a geologist what to expect, perhaps this page wouldn’t have been necessary. The time for giving a pass for scientific ignorance and lying is over. If your organisation appears in the list below, which has been amassed by a massive range of geologists and other scientists online, you should be absolutely ashamed.

Reuters – Tsunami brings flooding to Australia (as it appeared on stuff.co.nz) – If you read the article, it says nothing of the sort. (via @Yorrike / www.goodschist.com)

Garry at Geotripper bemoans the expectation of the MSM with What? You Were Expecting This? (via Geotripper)

Erik at Eruptions posts Chilean earthquake fallout: MSNBC implies nature is “out of control” – which is an astonishing headline for MSNBC to post. Astonishing in it’s stupidity (via Eruptions).

Lockwood posted this staggering video of CNN reporter Rick Sanchez asking “9 Meters In English Is What?” It’s 9 meters you twit. Or for a rough calculation in feet times it by 3 (via Outside the Interzone). There’s a takedown of Sanchez at Phreatic: Anchorperson Science Stupidity Award.

Reuters (again) – reports that Japan nuclear plants continue ops after tsunami. The height of the Tsunami waves that his Japan? 0.6 metres (22 inches in English). What a pointless article. A more interesting article would have been along the lines of “Japan shuts down nuclear plants in preparation for tsunami,” but then again, that’d be a worthwhile thing to read about.

The Mirror is so blasé about the whole topic, it’s reports on the Millions in fear of tsunami that never came following Chile quake. Yeah. All of us who live around the Pacific look pretty stupid being prepared for a natural disaster.  Here’s a quote for that article:

They battened down the hatches or simply prayed after one of the planet’s most powerful earthquakes struck South America.

But experts’ predictions of huge waves sweeping across the Pacific and smashing 53 countries proved to be a false alarm last night.

[...]

California, Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand there were small waves and flooding with little damage. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology cancelled its tsunami warning last night.

Really? Experts predicted that? I have to be honest, I have serious doubts you actually listened to an expert on the topic. And a false alarm? “There’s a possibility of large, damage-causing event happening in the coming hours” is a false alarm now? It’s not a real alarm unless it happens? It’s not a false alarm, it’s a triumph of scientific intrigue, investigation and monitoring which could have resulted in saving millions (MILLIONS!) of lives. And the last quoted line there – I live in New Zealand, there was NO flooding and NO damage, liars.

The Associated Press notes that it’s now necessary that Scientists defend warning after tsunami nonevent. Again, it was a warning and something that’s only been possible in the last 50 years. You’d prefer nothing? This story does have a good point at the end, though:

But Okamoto said his family understands the tsunami threat better than most because some of his relatives lived through the tidal surge in 1960. They remember how the water was sucked down the beach moments before the wave hit.

“My uncle was on the top floor when all the water washed away and all the kids ran out to grab the fish and before they could get back, the wave came. He was way up top, he saw all his friends get washed away and none of them were found, ever,” Okamoto said, as he sat with his father in a hotel lobby. “They did the right thing.”

And that’s the only conclusion you can reach on this story. There was a warning, luckily it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but had it been the worst case scenario, you’d be thankful there was a warning at all. Perhaps the article should have been titled “Scientists pleased with warning system and response, urge countries at risk not to become complacent”.

Have you seen any other panic-inducing anti-scientific howlers like those above? Post a link int he comments section here, or Tweet it with the hashtag #tsunamistupid

Now I realise that many of my readers are experienced scientists with either undergraduate degrees or published research papers behind them, and this article is not for you. For those of you out there who may have a passing interest in science or geology and find yourself intimidated by the overwhelming barrage of terminology I tend to stuff into my articles, I thought I’d lay out some basics for future reference.

Today, it’s a pretty easy concept with far reaching and extremely important consequences, and that is the concept of an isotope.

Hopefully you know what an atom is. If not, there’s plenty of resources online to help you. Every atom, except your standard Hydrogen nucleus, contains both positively charged protons and neutrally charged neutrons. The chemical element an atom is, is dependent entirely on the number of protons. Hydrogen has one proton, Helium 2, Lithium 3, for example. What can vary, however, is the number of neutrons, and this variation in neutrons in an atomic nucleus is what defines an atom’s isotope.

Take Helium for example. Your standard Helium atom, such as the one many people would have inhaled, contains two protons (making it Helium) and two neutrons. This combination makes it a ⁴He, pronounced “Helium 4,” isotope. It’s 4 because that’s the total count of protons and neutrons in the nucleus: 2 protons + 2 neutrons = ⁴He. The nuclei of these atoms can be visualised like this (blue are neutrons, orange are protons):

Helium also comes in the form of ³He, which has two protons and one neutron. How and why there are different isotopes is due to the process which formed the atom in the first place, be it a big bang, the nuclear decay of bigger atoms, or the fusion of smaller atoms (in this case, two hydrogen atoms will fuse, in a process, to form Helium). ³He can be visualised like this:

Both ³He and ⁴He are what’s know as stable isotopes. This means they’re quite happy sitting in the 3 or 4 isotopic states for ever and ever without decaying, i.e, having sections of the atomic nucleus splitting away. Helium has 8 know isotopic states, but none of these 6 other isotopic states are physically stable, and tend to split into lighter Helium isotopes and eventually Hydrogen and a hail of neutrons after a very short amount of time. ⁵He, for example, has a halflife (the time it takes half of any given quantity to decay away) of 0.7 zeptoseconds, which is 7×10^-22, or 0.0000000000000000000007 seconds. That’s incredibly quick, meaning ⁵He, whenever it happens to form, isn’t around long enough to do anything before effectively exploding into two Hydrogen atoms.

These unstable isotopes, such as ⁵He or ²⁶Al (Aluminium is stable with 13 protons and 14 neutrons, i.e, ²⁷Al) and big, heavy elements like Uranium and Plutonium (which are unstable simply due to their large nucleus size) are not able to hold together their atomic nuclei and after a time, each atom does something called decay – i.e, split into smaller atoms by radiating away parts of their atomic nucleus (hence, nuclear radiation). This is the basis of nuclear power – as the splitting of Plutonium, Uranium and Thorium atoms into smaller atoms releases a lot of energy.

And this is where the really useful part of isotopes comes from. The decay of unstable isotopes is constant, predictable and measurable. After 0.7 zeptoseconds, half of all ⁵He atoms produced 0.7 zs previously, would have decayed. Guaranteed. So if you know the ratio of ⁵He produced in a reaction in relation to the quantity of something stable like ⁴He, produced in that same reaction, and you can measure them both, you can very easily work out how long it’s been since the reaction took place. That’s the basis radiometric dating, and the subject of a future science basics post.

Bart Hanson (09:08 pm Sep 18 2009) This article epitomizes my disgust for experts who cannot tell us when the next huge natural disaster will hit and merely being in a particular place at that moment will decide who lives and who dies, but still we are being told not to be complacent? Like hell, get stuffed I’ve got better things to worry about.

You are beyond ignorant if you think the experts can even start to accurately predict earthquakes or many other major natural disasters. Even having a basic grasp of geology of seismology will tell you that these things are not predictable to within a useful accuracy or precision. We had a discussion about the dangers, and inadequacies, of earthquake prediction in Episode 11 of the podClast.

Other things science can’t do: accurately predict when the next killer asteroid will strike the Earth. The reasons are the same, there’s not enough data on either scenario in order to make an accurate, down to the minute-, hour-, month-, year- or decade-accurate forecast or as to exactly where either event will exactly occur.

The best geologists can do is look to the past, i.e, the old geology phrase “The past is the key to the future.” If a fault has ruptured roughly once every 100 years (and you’d be able to see this in the geological record), you should expect it to do so again in 100 years since the previous event. Or 150 years. Or 80 years. Earthquakes don’t run on a precision clock, and thus are never “early” or “overdue”. They occur when they occur.

If you’re caught out by having “better things to worry about”, Mr Bart Hanson, don’t go crying to others for food, shelter or clean water when you are caught in a natural disaster. Obviously the tiny amount of effort it takes to store some water, canned food and other supplies somewhere (details here at the USGS) is far outweighed by your necessity to spend time complaining on the internet.

Being prepared for natural disasters is important. Like not paying tax, not taking medication or indulging in smoking, you may think you’re getting away with it, but after a while, it could catch up with you, and the results could, literally, be deadly.

If you live in an earthquake zone, like I and many others do, the seriousness of being prepared cannot be overstated. Again, a list of the things you need can be found at the USGS. It’s not difficult and it could well save your life.

(I’m not going to be offering zip version anymore in order to save on server space)

This week’s podclast concentrates on nuclear waste, helping physically challenged students with the MIS:TIQUE project, and a whole lot of geo-technology.

Participants (links in brackets are Twitter feeds)

Chris - goodSchist (@yorrike)

Ron – Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion Blog (@rschott)

Jess – Magma Cum Laude (@Tuff_Cookie)

Ian – Hypo-Theses (@hypocentre)

Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste

You can read about Yucca mountain on the Wikipedia page. And there’s the extensive page on the nuclear waste storage project too.

And Lee Allison talks about Yucca Mountain ‘stalemate’. which refers to the Chicago Tribune article arguing to Keep Yucca Mountain Project Alive.

And there’s an article about France’s nuclear waste storage program, and its problems, at Energy Priorities.

MIS:TIQUE

You can read about the MIS:TIQUE project over at Ian’s blog.

And, of course, Gigapan gets a few mentions too : )

Next Episode

We like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight. I will be away in Edinburgh next recording day, however, so episode 14 maybe early, or late. I’ve yet to decide.

Contributing

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode, either leave a comment below or email chris [the at symbol] goodschist.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast. If you don’t have the time to join us but would like to contribute a 3-5 minute audio clip to the show simply record it, make sure it’s an mp3, and send it to the address above.

Credit

The intro and exit music was Roots Fi Cool by Burning Babylon.

Text Addresses

The post that accompanies this podcast can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/2009/05/22/the-podclast-episode-13/ or http://is.gd/Cabz and an archive of all podClasts can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/category/podclast/

This week’s podclast is the Geobloggers in the Pub episode. We talk about the KT boundary, including new research relating to it. Plus we lay into creationism in a pub-style chat fest.

Participants (links in brackets are Twitter feeds)

Chris - goodSchist (@yorrike)

Julia – The Ethical Palaeontologist (@morphosaurus)

Michael – Through the Sandglass

Dhiresh – A friend of mine and a geologist/geophysicist

The K-T Boundary and What Caused It

The paper we were discussing is by G. Keller et al. in Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. 166, 2009 [of London]. I can’t find the full name of the paper but I’ll keep looking.

Kim at All My Faults are Stress Related has a post on K-T extinction debates: cranky “skeptics” or reasonable science?

And the press release is available in various mass-media-filtered forms at Time, and the BBC.

Ethan Siegel’s Starts with a Bang has an article called What Wiped Out the Dinosaurs?, which is a superb run-through of the Chicxulub/KT impact. And you may want to read up on the Deccan Traps and how they relate to the KT extinction too. Also of interest, not because it explains the extinction, but because it’s another narrowly thought-out idea (or at least that’s how it’s been presented) is Insect Attack May Have Finished Off Dinosaurs which talks about the research from the book What Bugged the Dinosaurs?.

Creationism

You can look up Answers in Genesis yourself, as I won’t be linking to them, however the Talk.Origins Archive is a great place to look for basic questions and answers regarding the Evolution/Creationism debate.

Extra Note

The fossil of the seal ancestor is called the Pinniped, and information on the find can be found at the BBC and Eureka Alert.

Next Episode – Geoblogger in the Pub

We like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight. The next episode will be recorded at 1900 GMT on the 16th of May.

Contributing

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode, either leave a comment below or email chris [the at symbol] goodschist.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast. If you don’t have the time to join us but would like to contribute a 3-5 minute audio clip to the show simply record it, make sure it’s an mp3, and send it to the address above.

Credit

The intro and exit music was Roots Fi Cool by Burning Babylon.

Text Addresses

The post that accompanies this podcast can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/2009/05/07/the-podclast-episode-12/ or http://is.gd/xB3V and an archive of all podClasts can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/category/podclast/

This week’s episode discusses the L’Aquila earthquake in Italy and the associated earthquake predicition, more on Mt Redoubt in Alaska, geology in the movies and more.

Participants (links in brackets are Twitter feeds)

Chris - goodSchist (@yorrike)

Ron – Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion Blog (@rschott)

Jess – Magma Cum Laude (@Tuff_Cookie)

Italian Earthquake

The USGS has the raw details of the M6.3 earthquake.

Chris from Highly Allochthonous discusses the tectonic setting of the quake as well as the foreshocks and aftershocks.

Kim from All My Faults Are Stress Related talks about earthquake predicition, including that made by Iben Browning.

Ole from Olelog also discusses earthquake prediction in L’Aquila Earthquake – Followup.

Andrew from About:Geology calls the prediction irresponsible,  and so does the New York Times.

And the report from the BBC concerning the destruction that occurred is worth a look too.

Mt Redoubt

There’s a good summary of rticles regarding the previous set of eruptions from the podClast episode 10.

This is the picture Ron mentioned of the growing lava dome from the Alaskan Volcano Observatory.

Next Episode – Geoblogger in the Pub

We like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight. The next episode, however, will be recorded live at the Geobloggers in the Pub, in London on the afternoon of Saturday the 2nd of May. We’ll be drinking at the Cittie of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6BN from 2pm onwards. If you’re in the London area and would like to join in, check out this post for details (http://is.gd/tpFI).

Contributing

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode, either leave a comment below or email chris [the at symbol] goodschist.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast. If you don’t have the time to join us but would like to contribute a 3-5 minute audio clip to the show simply record it, make sure it’s an mp3, and send it to the address above.

Credit

The intro and exit music was Roots Fi Cool by Burning Babylon.

Text Addresses

The post that accompanies this podcast can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/2009/04/20/the-podclast-episode-11/ or http://is.gd/tpI9 and an archive of all podClasts can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/category/podclast/

This week’s episode 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 .

Participants (links in brackets are Twitter feeds)

Chris - goodSchist (@yorrike)

Chris –  Highly Allochthonous (@allochthonous)

Ron – Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion Blog (@rschott)

Eruptions of  Mt Redoubt in Alaska

The Big Picture, yet again, has beautiful pictures of the eruptions.

Eruptions has details about Mt Redoubt here, here and here. Plus details on the Oil Terminal and there securing thereof.

The Volcanism Blog also has details here, here and here.

Webcams of Mt Redoubt can be found at the Alaskan Volcanic Observatory.

Geologists and Geophysicists

Maria from Green Gabbro asks Are Geophysicists Geologists? and follows up with Are Geophysicists Geologists? Part II.

The GSA Timescale

You cand find details about the updated GSA timescale at All My Faults Are Stress Related and at About:Geology.

Palaeomagnatism

Chris’s posts on Palaeomagnatism can be found here.

del.icio.us/podclast

We have a del.icio.us account which can be found at http://del.icio.us/podclast. All the web pages and resources we’ve found and used in the discussions on the podclast can be found here. A convenient way to browse per episode is to go to, for example, http://del.icio.us/podclast/episode10 (for this episode).

If you find a link to a topic that you’d like to hear discussed on the podclast, or have a link to a topic that’s already been discussed, you can add links to the podclast page through your own del.icio.us account.

When saving a link, include the tags for:podclast and episodeX (where X is the episode number – for example episode10). You can add more than one episode tag if the link applies to multiple episodes.

Next Episode

We like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight, so the next episode will be recorded on Sunday the 19th of April at 2000 GMT.

Contributing

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode, either leave a comment below or email chris [the at symbol] goodschist.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast. If you don’t have the time to join us but would like to contribute a 3-5 minute audio clip to the show simply record it, make sure it’s an mp3, and send it to the address above.

Credit

The intro and exit music was Roots Fi Cool by Burning Babylon.

Text Addresses

The post that accompanies this podcast can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/2009/04/08/the-podclast-episode-10 or http://is.gd/rv9W and an archive of all  podClasts can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/category/podclast/

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?

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.

Participants (links in brackets are Twitter feeds)

Chris - goodSchist (@yorrike)

Chris –  Highly Allochthonous (@allochthonous)

Julia – The Ethical Palaeontologist (@morphosaurus)

Eruptions of  Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai and Earthquakes in Tonga

The Big Picture has some beautiful pictures of the eruptions, including a sequence of photos showing an eruption in progress.

Eruptions has details on the M7.9 quake in Tonga and details on the eruption plus some pictures and video of the eruption.

Maria at Green Gabbro assures us that the eruptions and earthquakes are probably unrelated.

The BBC has a pretty sweet video of the eruption too.

Here’s the NOAA map of seafloor age.

Ozone Modelling

Universe Today tells of the Ozone Success Story: NASA Video of Enviro Action That Worked.

The Nanoraptor

Geology.com talks about this Cat-Size Dinosaur Found in Alberta.

Science Centric tells of how Mini dinosaurs prowled North America.

Featured Dinosaurs

Not Exactly Rocket Science has the scoop on the Tianyulong confuciusi and has a word to say about the 4-wing microraptor.

Extras

The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham, as recommended by Chris R and Julia.

del.icio.us/podclast

We have a del.icio.us account which can be found at http://del.icio.us/podclast. All the web pages and resources we’ve found and used in the discussions on the podclast can be found here. A convenient way to browse per episode is to go to, for example, http://del.icio.us/podclast/episode9 (for this episode).

If you find a link to a topic that you’d like to hear discussed on the podclast, or have a link to a topic that’s already been discussed, you can add links to the podclast page through your own del.icio.us account.

When saving a link, include the tags for:podclast and episodeX (where X is the episode number – for example episode8). You can add more than one episode tag if the link applies to multiple episodes.

Next Episode

We like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight, so the next episode will be recorded on Sunday the 5th of April at 2000 GMT.

Contributing

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode, either leave a comment below or email chris [the at symbol] goodschist.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast. If you don’t have the time to join us but would like to contribute a 3-5 minute audio clip to the show simply record it, make sure it’s an mp3, and send it to the address above.

Credit

The intro and exit music was Roots Fi Cool by Burning Babylon.

Text Addresses

The post that accompanies this podcast can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/2009/03/21/the-podclast-episode-9/ or http://is.gd/otDZ and an archive of all  podClasts can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/category/podclast/

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.