Author Archives: Chris Rowan

How I (mostly) slept through the one of the largest earthquakes to hit NW Europe in 200 years

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Chris Rowan

In the early hours of 13 April 1992, the border region in western Europe where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet was shaken by a magnitude 5.4 earthquake, caused by northeast-southwest extension in the Roer Valley Graben. The shaking was … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, earthquakes

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Welcome to the first Highly Allochthonous Sunday link-fest of 2012. We realise that technically this is the second Sunday of the new year, but we trust that you’ll forgive us… Other posts on All-geo Metageologist discusses How stone walls reflect … Continue reading →

Categories: links

How useful are lectures, really?

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Chris Rowan

There has been an interesting discussion amongst the geologists on Twitter, that I’ve archived over on Geotweeps Discuss…, over the role of the lecture in undergraduate education. This was in response to an NPR story claiming that in physics at … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, science education

Geological mayhem and destruction in 2012: not the end of the world, just business as usual

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Chris Rowan

We don’t live on a boring planet. 2012 will be plagued by natural disasters, but so is every other year. Continue reading →

Categories: antiscience, climate science, earthquakes, geohazards, palaeomagic, public science, volcanoes

Our Highly Allochthonous travels in 2011

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Chris Rowan

As 2011 draws to a close, ’tis the season for retrospectives, and we’re surprised that no-one this year seems to have started up the travel meme that has been so popular in the geoblogosphere in the past. After all, it … Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, fieldwork, photos

Two more earthquakes shake Christchurch

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Chris Rowan

Just as it seemed that seismic activity was finally dying down in Christchurch, the city has been shaken by two more earthquakes. The USGS currently has the first shock pegged as a magnitude 5.8, and the second as a magnitude … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, focal mechanisms, geohazards

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Chris Rowan

A good crop of links for your Sunday reading pleasure this week – and some new geoblogs to check out, too. Other posts on All-geo Geology word of the week has to be ‘geospeedometry’: Metageologist asks, how fast do metamorphic … Continue reading →

Categories: links

Friday(ish) Focal Mechanism: a kinky slab beneath Mexico

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Chris Rowan

A quick look this week at the magnitude 6.5 earthquake that shook southern Mexico last Sunday. It caused a fair amount of shaking in Mexico City, and a few deaths, but apparently no major structural damage. The depth of the … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, focal mechanisms, tectonics

Struggle and Serendipity (or: Yay! I’m in Open Lab!)

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Chris Rowan

For some reason I wasn’t exactly keeping up with my e-mail last week – or much else that wasn’t Big Geology Conference related. So, although I did take note of the e-mail containing the glad tidings that my post ‘Ten … Continue reading →

Categories: bloggery

All the blogging from AGU

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Chris Rowan

One thing I’ve been doing in free moments since the end of the AGU Fall Meeting is catching up on what cool science other geobloggers who attended the meeting had unearthed whilst wandering the poster hall and lecture halls. Below … Continue reading →

Categories: bloggery, conferences, links