On today’s show we have long and involved discussions regarding the recent volcantic activity on Chaiten in Chile, and the Gigapan project.

Participants

Chris Town - goodSchist

Ron Schott - Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion

Brian - Clastic Detritus

Ralph Harrington - Volcanism Blog

Show Notes

Websites that pertain to this episode can be found at http://del.icio.us/podclast/episode3 (details on our del.icio.us links can be found further down the page).

The video of the lightning generated by the Chaiten eruption can be found at the beginning of this video.

The Google Maps link to Chaiten can be found here.

The Gigapan project can be found at www.gigapan.org.

And here are the details of the Yosemite Extreme Panorama Imaging Project.

del.icio.us/podclast

We have started 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 conveniant way to browse per episode is to go to, for example, http://del.icio.us/podclast/episode3 (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 episode3). 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 Saturday the 25th of May at 2300 GMT.

Contributing

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode (we’d really like a few more voices in there), either leave a comment below or email podclast [the at symbol] podclast.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast.

Credit

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

The splash image onthe homepage and the album art is from National Geographic.

On this Pangea Day, as a geologist, or simply as a geologically minded person, or even someone mildly interested in deep time (and passing by YouTube’s event), I proposed you post an image showing where on or about Pangea the bedrock that currently underlies you was sitting. More precisely, where would you be living now if Pangea hadn’t broken up.

Here’s my submission (Mid to late Triassic about 220 million years ago):

My bedrock was almost as far south as you could get, while still having land to stand on.

Where was your bedrock? There’s a fantastic resource for paleogeography at Dr. Ron Blakely’s (of Northern Arizona University) Global Paleogeography project page. Here’s a quick link to the rectangular paleogeography maps - but be sure to take a good look at the other resources there (including the regional paleo maps).

An apology is necessary. Firstly, I’m sorry this is up late. We’re pretty new at this and we had some major teething problems with episode 2. We had some network problems, I was half asleep, and we did ramble on in places. With all the network crashing and choppy Skype audio aside, I’ve edited together something listenable. We’ll be putting safeguards into place for the next show so we don’t get these problem again.

So, in today’s episode, Ron Schott, Dave Schumaker and I chat about plagarism, Earth day, alternate energy, oil shales, the price of petrol and Where on Google Earth

Participants

Chris Town - goodSchist

Ron Schott - Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion

Dave Schumacher - Geology News

Show Notes

Christie at the Cape’s original post regarding plagiarism can be found here. Kim’s post on the topic of plagiarism can be found here.

Andrew Alden was hosting this month’s Accretionary Wedge. You can find out about the next edition at “Who’s Hosting the next Accretionary Wedge?”

An article on the prototype wave generator being tested in Wellington can be found here.

There’s also Ron’s Gigapan shot of the Kansas wind farm being erected.

And then there’s the latest Where on Google Earth (#118).

Credit

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

Next Episode

We like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight, so the next episode will be recorded on Saturday the 3rd of May at 2300 GMT.

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode (we’d really like a few more voices in there), either leave a comment below or email podclast [the at symbol] podclast.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast.

Geologists normally have a slightly unfriendly attitude towards floral biota. It is, after all, one of the major obstacles normally preventing the viewing of outcrops. Geologists are also the people who look for, find and then think up fantastic new ways of mining petrological resources, like petroleum, natural gas and coal. The use of these products normally releases CO₂ and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and unless this is your first interaction with the modern media in the last 20 years, I’m sure you’ve heard why this is problem. In a way, geologists have made it easier to use these products. But I’m hardly going to start laying blame for climate change, because this is a positive article. This is how I think geologists, scientists in general, and everyone else can help save the world. And it comes down to a single problem.

The Biggest Problem

The biggest problem with climate change and what’s causing it is very simple. The solution is also very easy (objectively). You literally don’t have to do anything. It’s a topic that no one (including the IPCC, overview here) seems to want to talk about. The main problem with climate change and the biggest problem currently facing the biosphere of the Earth is there are too many human beings. The solution is for humans to stop having so many children. It’s that simple. And I’m hardly the first to suggest it. With a universal one-child attitude and over a mere four or five of generations, we could quarter the human population (through absolutely non-violent means) to a more sustainable level. This would help to ensure the continuation of the species. Want to save humanity? Stop it from growing in size.

Suggesting this as a political goal or by the way of policy would be nothing short of political suicide, unless you’re at the helm of a totalitarian communist state (and even then, it doesn’t really work). The only way to achieve this is to make having one child the universal fashion (and keep it that way for a few centuries) and that somewhat runs against basic human nature.

The political problems surrounding that suggestion, have placed it firmly into the “too hard” box (no double entendre intended). But if you look at the problem objectively, the overpopulation of the planet is the root cause of the problem, and that’s one of the many fronts it should be tackled from (in a fair, humane manner, mind you. I’m a humanist after all and am most often in utter awe of some of humanity’s achievements and disgusted by its ill deeds).

In today’s episode, Ron Schott and I have a chat about the recent volcanic activity on Kilauea, Hawaii. We discuss the pros and cons of peer-reviewed papers and we have a quick talk about the career opportunities for people entering the professional geology world.

Participants

Chris Town - goodSchist

Ron Schott - Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion

Show Notes

The Webcams looking into the crater at Kilauea can be found at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Obervatory Site.

On the topic of blogging on peer-reviewed research, Chris Rowan’s (of Highly Allochthounous) article “Bloggers and blogging in Nature Geoscience” and Kim Hannula’s (of All My Faults Are Stress Related) “Is it unethical to blog about peer-reviewed research?” are good places to start if you’re interested in the controversy.

Kim Hannula has another article entitled “Job-hunting Suggestions“, which Ron mentions during the show.

Credit

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

Next Episode

We’d like to have a new episode of the podClast every fortnight, so the next episode will be recorded on Saturday the 26th of April at 2300 GMT.

If you’re keen to hear a specific topic talked about, or would like to join the discussion during the next episode (we’d really like a few more voices in there), either leave a comment below or email podclast [the at symbol] podclast.com. You’ll probably also do well reading the details on joining the podclast.

Technical and Time Details
My intended time for recording at the moment is 2300 GMT on the 12th of April (work out your own timezone from there). Since this is first episode, I’d prefer to keep it short at around 30 minutes.

I intend to use Skype so everyone can talk to each other. If you haven’t got a Skype account, download Skype from the previous link, run through the setup, and make sure you have headphones and a microphone hooked up to your computer. External or USB microphones are preferred (especially on laptops), since you can get a lot of fan noise with internal microphones. USB-powered microphones or headsets are also a good idea, as microphones often need amplification in order to get good sound quality.

If you want to be part of the panel
Comment below before the 9th and I’ll email you the details you’ll need to join the conference call. I’d like to run a test recording a little before the real recording so it’d be good if you could be available to start at around 2230 GMT. We’ll hopefully be able to iron out any technical problems people maybe having with skype, and get to know one another a little beforehand. If you want to test out your Skype or microphone setup at any point between now and the beginning of the show (I’d recommend that), let me know (via comment or through chris [the "at" symbol] goodschist.com.

If you’d like to contribute and not be part of the panel
We’ll be discussing a few subjects of recent geology news and topics we can just have a chat about. Subjects like the recent activity on Kilauea will likely be discussed, but we need more than that, so throw some ideas out if you have any. If there’s subjects that are interesting but not timely, we’ll probably hit on them in future episodes.

…and that’s it. Comment below. I’m looking forward to this.

I’m interested in getting a geoblogosphere round-table podcast going (be it called the podclast or otherwise) and I’d like to know who else is keen. Ideally it’ll be once a fortnight or once a month (in a similar vein to The Accretionary Wedge). It’ll be fairly conversational and accessable to the general public, and it’ll feature 3-4 regular contributors.

If you’re interested in helping, contributing or just have some ideas, drop me a comment below (in order to avoid spam I have to approve all first-time commenters), or email me at chris [the regular sysmbol] goodschist.com. Let’s get this thing rolling.

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.

I’m obsessed with science. However, once I’m done with my MSc, I’m off into the workforce for a time (potentially a long time). I haven’t ruled out diving into a PhD at some point, and in the mean time I want to continue to stay abreast with current research and I want to talk about research on this blog. Though subscriptions to the usual suspects (Nature and Science) aren’t out of my grasp, accessing articles from large journal databases such as Elsevier’s Science Direct will cost me US$30 per journal article. And frankly, that’s just ridiculous. I know how much work goes into research papers - but $30 each? So far as I’ve been able to tell, research isn’t funded from journal sales.

So, my question to the geo-blogosphere, and the science blogosphere in general is, what’s the best way of getting full-text journal papers from a range of publications for reasonable money when you’re not within easy reach of a university or well-equipped public library? Preferably without resorting to illegality.

Update: In a case of blissful geoblog serendipity, Andrew Alden of About: Geology has just published a blog entry on open online journals within minutes of me publishing this article. Do great minds ponder alike?

In the image, from south to north are Mt Ruapehu, Mt Tongariro and Ngauruhoe, the volcanics associated with Lake Taupo (a caldera lake), the volcanics associated with Lake Rotorua, White island and then a string of sub marine and sub aerial volcanics that make up the Kermadec arc. All of these are marked with red stars. The white arrow-line shows the subduction trench that’s the result of the Pacific subducting underneath the Australian plate. The orange triangle is the outline of the Taupo Volcanic Zone. Then there’s Mt Taranaki marked with a “?“. It is this particular andesitic volcano that makes me, and many, many others go “hmmm”.

[Show as slideshow]

It’s a rather large feature (see satellite imagery above. The dark green is the rough outline of the surrounding national park), having produced a classical almost-circular flank. It’s still active (last eruption, though minor, was around 1800), and it’s young, having commenced eruptive activity ~130 Ka. The really weird part is, it’s not geographically in-line with the rest of the TVZ volcanics, being ~100 Km west of the TVZ (even Maori legend makes note of this). And it’s not geochemically linked with the TVZ, being enriched in Potassium and other Large Ion Lithophile Elements. For a volcanic zone that’s popped up through an established continent, it’s also rather lacking in enriched, assimilated continental material, resulting in a fractionated elemental makeup (Here’s a thorough Journal of Petrology article detailing Taranaki and contrasting it with Ruapehu). But the big question that really gets to me, and one I haven’t found a satisfactory answer to is; why is Taranaki there at all?

You can check out other “geohmmms” at this month’s Accretionary Wedge.

Images in this article were taken from Google Maps and Wikipedia.