Author Archives: Chris Rowan

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Welcome to the weekly links fest from your friendly Highly Allochthonous bloggers. If you’re thinking the format looks a bit different this week, it’s because Chris has been tinkering a bit with the script that generates the links in an … Continue reading →

Categories: links

Friday Focal Mechanism: M 7.4, Oaxaca, Mexico

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Chris Rowan

The largest earthquake to hit the planet this week was in Mexico, which was shaken on Tuesday by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake. The epicentre was in the Oaxaca region about 300 kilometres southwest of Mexico city, and the rupture was … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, focal mechanisms, geohazards

Geological maps: still interesting even when there’s only one rock type

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Chris Rowan

The USGS, in collaboration with NASA, have just released a geological map of Jupiter’s ultra-volcanically active moon Io, based on images from the Voyager and Galileo probes. It is a thing of beauty. The sheer variety of different geological units … Continue reading →

Categories: geology, planets, volcanoes

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Other posts on All-geo On Earth Science Erratics, Erin Parker talks about the challenge of making geology relevant to students. Join the discussion! http://all-geo.org/erratics/2012/03/making-it-relevant/ At Metageologist, Simon Wellings shows how there is more of geological interest in Sicily than just … Continue reading →

Categories: links

Scenic Saturday: from desert to verdant grassland in 10 miles (and 1000 m)

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Why large climatic contrasts occur over short distances on Hawaii – and why this is scientifically important. Continue reading →

Categories: geomorphology, outcrops, photos, volcanoes

The humbling legacy of the Tohoku earthquake

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Chris Rowan

A year ago on Sunday, one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded ruptured the subduction megathrust that dips beneath the east coast of Japan. The rupture displaced the seafloor by tens of metres and generated tsunami waves up to 20 … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, geohazards, tectonics

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Other posts on All-geo On Earth Science Erratics, Erin Johnson tells us about the surprising lessons you learn when teaching Earth Science, including the willingness of students to boldly put their tongues where dozens of dirty hands have been before. … Continue reading →

Categories: links

Now that’s what I call a geomagnetic storm!

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Chris Rowan

It appears that I was a litte premature with yesterday’s post. Look at what happened to the ambient magnetic field at the two observatories at Boulder and Deadhorse today (the dotted line represents about where the plots I put up … Continue reading →

Categories: geohazards, geophysics, palaeomagic, planets

The Earth weathers another geomagnetic storm

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Chris Rowan

A couple of days ago, the sun got a bit excitable: This large flare produced what is known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), a blob of gas and radiation hurled at high velocities from the surface of the sun … Continue reading →

Categories: geophysics, palaeomagic, planets

Scenic Saturday: a special place

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Chris Rowan

A purely scenic one this week, but this is a place that is very special to both Anne and myself. It’s not surprising that we can both find things to appreciate about this overlook: after all, as the cliche goes, … Continue reading →

Categories: photos