This week’s podClast is the Geobloggers in the Pub: San Francisco edition. We talk in a slightly intoxicated way about what makes a geologist, human exploration of the planets, the importance of primary research and more.

Participants (links in brackets are Twitter feeds)

Chris - goodSchist (@yorrike)

Sandra – Looking For Detachment (@sfoxx)

Dave – Geology News (@rockbandit)

Andrew – About:Geology (@aboutgeology)

Cian – @cbdawson

Brian – Clastic Detritus (@clasticdetritus)

Next Episode

We like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight. So episode 15 of the podClast will be recorded from at 2300 GMT the 17th of October 2009. Either comment in this post if you’d like to join me, or if you’re on my email list, I’ll send you the details cloder to the 17th.

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/2009/10/03/the-podclast-episode-14/ or http://bit.ly/fefXt and an archive of all podClasts can be found at http://www.goodschist.com/category/podclast/

(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/

Figure 1. A photograph of several types of the chocolite pseudomorph.

Figure 2. A detailed photograph of the chocolite pseudomorphs. a.) granite b.) obsidian c.) limestone d.) granite

Chocolite is a pseudomorph (Fig. 1), superficially appearing to be a range of rocks including obsidian, granite and limestone (Fig. 2). The pseudomorphic properties are, however, confined to a thin vineer (Fig. 3 a), revealing a reasonably consistent, non-indurated biologically-rich clay (Fig. 3 b) surrounding what looks like a calcite core (Fig. 3 c). Small inclusions made of peanite are present in the calcite core (Fig. 3 d).

Figure 3. A cross section showing the layered structure of a typical sample of chocolite. a.) the thing pseudomorphic vineer b.) a biologically-rich clay c.) the calcite core d.) a peanite inclusion.

The most surprising characteristic of chocolite is that it shares a property with halite and limestone in being 100% edible. This trait is more surprising given chocolite measures a perfect 10 on the deliciousness scale (Fig. 4). It’s smooth, creamy interior and sweet, crunchy outer shell make it a favourite for those who love rocks (Fig. 4 a).

Figure 4. Chocolite is delicious! a.) a geologist devouring a chocolite sample.

Episode 7 of the podClast is ready for download. You can grab the mp3 here (42.5 Mb, 46:24), or subscribe through iTunes here. Or you can listen to it right here:

This week’s episode discusses the ancient sponge biomarkers recently described in a formation in Oman, palaeomagnatism, geology on Google Earth and more. This is the first episode in 7 months and it’s the longest podClast ever at just over 46 minutes.

Participants (links in brackets are Twitter feeds)

Chris - goodSchist (@yorrike)

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

Chris –  Highly Allochthonous (@allochthonous)

Dave – Geology News (@rockbandit or @geologynews)

Jess - Magma Cum Laude (@tuff_cookie)

Ryan – Staff Geologist (@staffgeologist)

Sponges, Palaeomagnetism and Ophiolites

You can read this brief article on the ancient sponge biomarkers or read through the Google News results regarding these ancient Omani trace fossils.

Chris’s post at Highly Allochthonous on Magnetic Polar Reversals

Wikipedia on Ophiolites

Google Earth and Geology

Ron’s blog article on Building  a Google Earth Geology Layer

Jess on Using Google Earth to Visualize Volcanic and Seismic Activity

Kim on similar matters in Google Earth Explosion

The OneGeology project

Chris’s post on Geoaggregation

And a few other links

The Dibblee Geological Foundation

The HMS Beagle Project which Chris mentioned.

Ryan’s Staff Geologist page

Ron’s Geoblogosphere Search Engine

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/episode7 (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 8th of March 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.

During The Chronicles of Riddick, the petroleum-inspired Vin Deisel‘s sequel to Pitch Black, the story concentrates on a planet called Crematroia. So extreme are the conditions on this planet that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give it a once over with a geological eye.

To Vin’s credit, the movie is specific with its measurements including temperature, and the metric system seems to prevail (Vin’s character talks of grams and kilometres). The Crematoria field trip involves breaking the basic laws of physics. But if you can overlook that little problem and ignore heat dissipation as a naturally occurring phenomena there’s some alright, extreme geology to be had.

Figures

[Show as slideshow]

Crematoria – The Conditions

The portrayed gravity and atmospheric conditions require Crematoria to be an Earth-sized planet. The extreme temperatures of 700°C (973 K) on the day side and  -300°C (-26 K, below absolute zero) on the dark side, would require an orbital distance from its star (assumed by me to be sun-like), closer than that of Mercury’s (0.30 – 0.47 AU). That’s a diurnal temperature variation of 1000 degrees with a change of 200 – 700 degrees observed to occur over several seconds. That’s a hell of a lot of energy loss during the short (~3 hour) night.

In the movie the planet’s surface is dark, black, volcanic-looking rock, which bears a striking resemblance to your common basalt. Andesite would be possible, but not common given the slim change of crustal stability and the lack of plate tectonics causing hydration-melting of subducted slabs (and generating andesitic melts).

With Vin Diesel and other characters running over the jagged surface without breathing gear, it’s also a planet I’ll presume to have ~1 atm of atmospheric pressure, which undoubtably contains Oxygen, Nitrogen and other terrestrial gases (how could they breathe otherwise? Magic!?)

The Physics

I’m not a thermal physicist, but from what I understand, dropping 1000 K over the course of a few hours seems rather unlikely, especially when the lowest temperature is below absolute zero (this is, of course, impossible). A temperature drop of that magnitude in a heat-retentive atmosphere like the Earth’s is simply not going to happen. Case-in-point, last night, here at 41° South, the temperature fell to 14°C from 22°C during the day. And that was from ~8 hours facing and radiating heat into the cold, dark abyss of space. But let’s just assume for the case of the geology (won’t somebody please think of the rocks?), that all of this atmospheric physics is given a pass and we instead take a look at the rocks on the surface.

The Good Geology

Magma lakes would definitely be a feature on the surface (Fig. 5). Some basaltic magmas have been measured at temperatures as low as 750°C (in lava lake of Kilauea, Hawai’i)[1]. That’s a little above the maximum temperature cited in the movie with 700°C being the temperautre at the top of the volcanic clouds, rather than the bottom of the columns. The thermometer seen in the movie (Fig. 1) has a maximum reading of 700, so the temperature on the actual surface could be anything. You’d also get radioactive heating on a planet of that size, as well as an accumulation of heat energy and conversion of kinetic energy from the planet-consuming pyroclastic flows seen erupting along the planet’s terminator (Fig. 3 & 7). With that kind of heat energy, it’s a surprise the surface of the planet isn’t a magma ocean, but then again, that’d ruin the action sequences.

Speaking of those pyroclastic flows, I was delighted to see ash falling on the movie’s protagonists as they scurry across the surface during the night (Fig. 2). That kind of extreme temperature change probably would cause explosive surface volcanism, especially if there’s water and other volatiles around (as you get with a terrestrial atmosphere). Millions of cubic kilometres of ash would have to fall during the impossibly cool night, which is odd,considering most of the cooled material seen is not covered in white ash.

And on the topic of pure metals, when a space ship is exposed to the direct heat of the star, its metal partially melts (Fig. 8). Pure Aluminium has a melting point of 660°C, Titanium melts at a more hardy 1668°C, so it’d probably be a good idea for the bounty hunters who own the ship to re-plate it at some point.

The Bad Geology

This is a hell-like planet. It puts the conditions thought to have been common during the Hadean or on Venus (average temperature of ~460°C) to shame. However, despite the erosive power of planet-wide explosive volcanism occurring every 3 hours, jagged rocky outcrops and cliffs appear on the surface (Fig. 3, 4 & 5). Given that the gentle pitter pattern of rain over a few million years will eventually erode the Himalayas flat as they did to their predecessors [2], high, columnar basalt cliffs and wild jagged features are not likely to survive the erosive power of a massive volcanic explosion every 3 hours.

Despite their best efforts (to reasonably good effect), and ignoring the physics problems, Crematroia would be flat and covered in metres-deep ash deposits in the places it wasn’t a magma ocean.

References

1. http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/collectors_corner/arc/tempmagmas.htm
2. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031006071157.htm

All images used in this article, including the splash image on the front page/archives are © 2004 Universal Pictures.