Volcanoes
- It’s that time of year again – cast your ballot for the 2012 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/12/nomination-time-for-the-2012-pliny-for-volcanic-event-of-the-year/
(via @eruptionsblog)
Earthquakes
- How combining GPS sensors with seismometers can speed up identification of large/dangerous earthquakes, and emergency response.
http://www.insidescience.org/content/hybrid-gps-seismic-system-can-accelerate-earthquake-response/869 - Very cool video of seismic waves from nearby earthquakes rippling across dense seismic array in CA.
(via @paleoseismicity) - Rates of microseismicity on creeping part of Sand Andreas Fault waxes and wanes in synchrony with a neighbouring fault.
http://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2012/12/12/californias-faults-have-synchronized-bursts-of-movement/
This story is part of the excellent AGU Fall Meeting coverage on their GeoSpace blog, featuring write-ups by a herd of science communication grad student. Good stuff.
Planets
- Want to know what GRAIL has discovered about Moon’s structure & geological history? Read Emily Lakdawalla’s brilliant post.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/12110923-grail-results.html - GRAIL will apparently end with an eeeeeek-BOOM! Looking forward to seeing the final surface-skimming gravity data.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/12131338-grail-end-of-mission.html - A river of hydrocarbons flowing on Titan.
http://clasticdetritus.com/2012/12/12/a-river-of-hydrocarbons-flowing-on-titan/
Fossils
- Evidence for a key step in the evolution of photosynthetic organisms found in 2.4 billion year-old South African rocks.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628944.500-captured-the-moment-photosynthesis-changed-the-world.html - New Nature Geoscience paper suggests Permian extinction may have been a one-two (flood basalt-impact?) punch. Paleomagnetic data suggest that flood basalt eruptions are quite pulsed, but two extinction waves affecting different species=different causes?
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1649.html
(via @kwinkunks) - New Nature paper suggesting Ediacara are terrestrial lichens rather than enigmatic marine beasties. But hold on: Brian Switek explains that neither theory nor author are new.
http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/nature11777
http://www.nature.com/news/controversial-claim-puts-life-on-land-65-million-years-early-1.12017
(Paleo)climate
- UK Environment Advisor’s talk on climate change, over at the Volcan01010 blog:
http://all-geo.org/volcan01010/2012/12/environment-advisor-climate-talk/ - Hard to really grasp scale of calving ice in this clip from Breaking Ice, up at the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/p/3ccgd/tw
(via @rivrchik, @DavidGrann) - Forecasting Denial: Why Are TV Weathercasters Ignoring Climate Change?
http://m.rollingstone.com/?redirurl=/politics/news/forecasting-denial-why-are-tv-weathercasters-ignoring-climate-change-20121205&seenSplash=1 - Good morning! Is Earth F**ked? Slate’s take on scientists climate concerns at #AGU12
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/12/is_earth_f_ked_at_2012_agu_meeting_scientists_consider_advocacy_activism.2.html
Water
- Good article: River in retreat – Mississippi faces shipping freeze as water levels drop.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/14/mississippi-river-shipping-levels - Chicago River has become invasive species super highway – can it be blocked? and soon?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/183670741.html
Environmental
- BBC report suggests some faltering progress at Doha climate talks, but emphasis is on ‘faltering’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20653018 - Good analysis at Earth Magazine by Michael Webber: near-term future of US natural gas production, consumption and prices.
http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/highlights-2012-outlook-natural-gas - Is UK shale gas viable? Some good points here, but calling proponents ‘frack-heads’ hardly a cue for rational debate.
http://m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/09/shale-gas-frackheads-dubious-dream - Invasive cheatgrass fans US wildfires
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20612161
General Geology
- Mountains are geological sculptures: tectonics provides the blank stone block, but rivers & landslides do the carving. Good stuff from Metageologist.
http://all-geo.org/metageologist/2012/12/erosion-mountains-beautiful/ - A very nice video demo of how smooth plate motions turn into jerky earthquake ruptures from GNS Science:
(via @davidmpyle) - It’s not just Mars: robotic rovers are helping explore the icy wastes of our own planet.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/12/yeti-cool-robot-polar-rovers/
(via @earthmagazine) - Ionian Sea may be 220 Ma oceanic crust, oldest known. Note: based on magnetic anomaly modelling, not direct dating.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012JB009475.shtml
(via @clasticdetritus) - Understanding the geological structure of the UK has just become easier: new 3D geology map resources from the British Geological Survey.
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/ukgeology/nationalgeologicalmodel/gb3d.html
(via @BritGeoSurvey) - Dave Petley has some spectacular images of a railway in W Canada completely buried under a rockslide:
http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2012/12/14/images-of-a-railway-landslide-in-the-canadian-rockies/
(via @davepetley) - She wanted to study geology & was told, “You should be learning to cook.” That didn’t stop Dr. Ursula Marvin
http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/documenting-geologists-adventures
(via @smithsonian)
Interesting Miscellaney
- Why We Let the School Shootings Continue: ‘Children will continue to pay for a freedom their elders enjoy.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/opinion/why-we-let-the-school-shootings-continue.html
(via @BoraZ) - Some illustrative statements of fact about guns and gun control laws.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/
(via @GenAnthropocene) - Nice summary by Liz Neely on some of the ways Twitter was used to enhance the AGU 2012 Fall Meeting experience:
http://compassblogs.org/blog/2012/12/10/wading-into-a-conference-tweet-stream/
(via @LizNeeley) - And as Top 10s go, this is a good one: Top 10 reasons to love the AGU conference (and yes, the free beer is mentioned).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-anderson/top-10-reasons-i-love-agu_b_2248942.html - Oman is certainly different, although I found it a little more friendly than this writer did.
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/daniel-tammet-playing-sudoku/ - Blogquake! Ed Yong, Brian Switek, Carl Zimmer and Virginia Hughes joining new National Geographic science blog network.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/12/11/im-moving-my-blog-to-national-geographic-next-week-and-look-whos-coming-too/ - Life as an NSF program officer: the process of funding (Part 3, follow the links backward for the rest of this must-read series)
http://scientopia.org/blogs/proflikesubstance/2012/12/14/life-of-an-nsf-program-officer-part-3-the-process-of-funding/
(via @scicurious) - Community engagement before publish or perish:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/dec/11/flipped-academic-research-community-engagement
(via @KateClancy, @ReaderMeter)
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