Now the holidays are over, it’s back to your regularly scheduled link-fest.
New Geoblogs
The new year has already seen some new voices added to the geoblogosphere
As part of Chris’s New Year’s resolution to update the allgeo combined geology blog feed, he’s also added a couple more geoblogs that you may not have come across yet:
For those who are tempted to dip their toes into the geoblogging waters, we’d like you to consider writing for our Earth Science Erratics blog, which we introduced to the world this week.
Also in blogging news: the composition of the latest OpenLab blogging anthology has just been announced. Congratulations to all the exemplary bloggers, and @jgold85 and the judges for the hard work of putting it together. However, aside from Brian’s excellent post on rapid canyon formation, geology is once again poorly represented, which is probably a reflection of the small number of geoblog posts that were nominated. Perhaps we should all make it our new year’s resolution to submit more of the excellent geology writing we come across in the next year.
Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Landslides
- A fascinating idea that will be v. hard to prove either way: Can hurricanes trigger earthquakes?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/can-hurricanes-trigger-earthquakes/ - 365 days of volcanism in a single post! Check out the 2010 Volcanic Year in Review – eruptions, science, media, more:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/26416
(by @eruptionsblog) - Who won the @eruptionsblog 2010 Pliny for volcanic event of the year? It was closer than you think:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/26402 - Attabad – one year on.
http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/01/04/attabad-one-year-on/
Water
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Some of the impact of the current flooding in Queensland is revealed by stunning satellite photography (the city of Rockhampton has suddenly found itself in the middle of a river). Some can’t help unfavourably comparing the response here to the response to flooding in (much poorer) Pakistan last year, although Australia is fortunate that the affected area has quite a low population density. However, there are likely to be significant economic & environmental impacts.
- Comprehensive discussion of how Iowa’s flood risk is rising because of climate & land use change
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110102/NEWS/101020341/River-rage-Why-Iowa-s-flood-risk-is-rising
(via @climatebrad)
Environmental
- The big news this week was the release of directly implicated cost-cutting at expense of safety, saying that the ‘root causes are systemic’ in industry. Of course, it is society’s demand for oil that ultimately drives risky drilling.
- Good post – and interesting discussion in comments – on why we should conserve hydrothermal vents.
http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=8900 - A great discussion of Climate Change, Natural Disasters & Human Vulnerability: preparation will always trump prediction/prevention.
http://sciblogs.co.nz/shaken-not-stirred/2011/01/06/climate-change-natural-disasters-and-human-vulnerability/
Fossils
- Comment & reply, scienceblog style: critique of possible 770 Ma Ediacaran fossils, author responds in comments (also an example of how papers can be wrong in interesting ways: possible some Ediacaran fossils have been misinterpreted)
http://ediacaran.blogspot.com/2011/01/770ma-ediacara-fossils-from-kazakhstan.html - Nice article on evolution of biomineralisation (skeletons) in Ediacaran/Cambrian )
http://www.astrobio.net/index.php?option=com_exclusive&task=detail&id=3733
(via @ProfAbelMendez) - X-rays of ammonite mouthparts suggest they ate plankton & other small marine organisms; may explain KT extinction?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-12127790
(Paleo)climate
- Very interesting post on the early study of glaciers on the Alps today on the Guest Blog )
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-discovery-of-the-ruins-of-ice-t-2011-01-03
(via @sciam, @BoraZ)
Planets
- Reprocessing of data from Apollo-deployed seismometers reveals Moon has a solid inner & molten outer core
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/01/at-long-last-moons-core-seen.html
Brian Shiro has an excellent in-depth write-up of this discovery:
http://www.astronautforhire.com/2011/01/lunar-core.html - Could seasonal methane on planet Mars just be an observational artefact?
http://www.economist.com/node/17797286
(via @jorge_salazar) - Good discussion of the ‘Rare Earth’ hypothesis. We don’t yet know if Earth is ‘rare’ in any sense of the word.
http://lifeunbounded.blogspot.com/2011/01/ten-most-important-questions-for.html - Nice framing of the Drake Equation as an organising principle of SETI.
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jul-aug/03-alien-seekers-of-seti-just-getting-started - Some fabulous astronaut pics of Earth from ISS – 5, 15 & 23 especially awe-inspiring )
http://triggerpit.com/2010/11/22/incredible-pics-nasa-astronaut-wheelock/
(via @_ColinS_)
General Geology
- Fabulous post from Silver Fox discussing how she visualises deep time:
http://highway8a.blogspot.com/2011/01/deep-time.html - [365 days, 365 photos of rocks. An epic achievement!] : Rock365: The Postscript
http://hypocentral.com/blog/2011/01/02/rock365-the-postscript/
(via @hypocentre) - @cbdawson explains the hydrologically incorrect geology cake (and why he cares). Anne says “At least they connected it to surface H2O”
http://cbdawson.com/blog/2011/01/cake/ - Ooh, only just seen this: switching between plain and polarized light for virtual microscopy
http://gmcgeology.blogspot.com/2010/12/openlayer-and-virtual-microscopy-part-1.html - Russian team prepares to (very carefully) penetrate Lake Vostok But no sample retrieval until next year.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/07/russians-penetrate-lake-vostok - You can watch a bunch of talks from the AGU Fall Conference online.
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/lectures/videos.php
(via @clasticdetritus)
Interesting Miscellaney
- From writer China Mi\u00e9ville, a geography toy that really should exist:
http://chinamieville.net/post/2568127546/new-worlds-of-play
(via @jetjocko) - You might not be able to see the Great Wall of China from space, but you can see Fermilab
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/01/03/scientific-artifacts-from-the-sky/ - Cheese: a whole microbial ecosystem in one tasty package. Fascinating inaugural blog post by :
http://claireainsworth.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/whos-for-port-and-ecosystem/ - Trying to Keep Women in Science on a Tenure Track: Women PhDs 27% less likely to get Tenure than Men.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/keeping-women-in-science-on-a-tenure-track/?src=tptw
(via @AWISnational) - Something to cheer you up: Charlie Stross on changes for the better in the last decade
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/reasons-to-be-cheerful.html - I probably shouldn’t be finding this ‘My Blackberry is not working’ sketch as funny as I do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI - Why social software for scientists is hard to do – we don’t like sharing, it seems.
http://takeoneonion.org/archives/2011/01/leaving-nature-now-freela.html
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