Blogs in motion
- All star geo-tweeter @cbdawson has decided to join the blogosophere with Point Source, quaquaversal musings on the geosciences and public information.
- Deep Sea News has welcomed Rick Macpherson into the aquatic fold.
Earthquakes
- Much of the quake-related tweeting this week has understandably been about the Darfield earthquake, and have been added to Chris’s post.
- A nice validation of GPS in hazard assessment: following February’s magnitude 8.8 in Chile, the largest offsets occurred where GPS had indicated the most strain building up.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100908/full/news.2010.456.html
(via @NatureNews) - The same event also validated the reliability of Twitter in distributing accurate information after the disaster – analysis showed that false reports were challenged far more often than accurate ones
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/08/18/twitter-after-a-disaster-is-it-reliable/
(via @CPPGeophysics)
Volcanoes
- An excellently written and photographed feature by @alexwitze on volcanoes in Iceland (glaciovolcanism):
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/63177/title/Fire_%2Bamp;_Ice - Video footage of ash clouds erupting from Sinabung, Indonesia – Erik Klemetti is, as ever, keeping tabs on this one for us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr6p1Inkfm8 - Webcam shots of Ruapehu crater lake at the moment a tephra dam collapsed, generating a lahar mud flow, in 2007.
http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Media-Releases/Dam-cam-films-Crater-Lake-outburst
(via Dave Petley, of course)
(Paleo)climate
- Brilliant opening sentence to a news article about using seafloor creatures to reconstruct West Antarctic ice history: “Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom.” These prophets suggest that the West Antarctic ice sheet may have been at least partially melted in last long interglacial, 125,000 years ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/05/climate-change-ice-caps-antarctica
(via @kejames) - Proper corrections for isostatic rebound suggest that ice sheets are only losing mass in response the anthropogenic climate change ‘fast’, rather than ‘bloody fast’. Apparently south Greenland is subsiding because rebound on North America is sucking away the mantle beneath it. That’s pretty cool.
http://www.physorg.com/news203066251.html - Two posts on climate sensitivity. A detailed look at climate sensitivity from Skeptical Science and what’s the most important number to combat climate change?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/detailed-look-at-climate-sensitivity.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=right-number-to-combat-climate-change
(via @dbielo) - How Should We Think About Extreme Weather Events? by Pew Center’s Jay Gulledge
http://www.pewclimate.org/blog/gulledgej/how-should-we-think-about-extreme-weather-events
(via @NEMWIUpperMiss) - What are climate models? How do they work? A beginner’s guide:
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/08/26/a-beginners-guide-to-climate-models/
(via @rivrchik, @earthinstitute) - Lonnie Thompson in Papua Watches Glacier Melt Beneath His Feet
http://n.pr/ckDPJy
(via @mareserinitatis, @nprnews) - Two pieces on the melting of Collier Glacier, Oregon’s Largest (and in Anne’s PhD field area)
http://geology.com/press-release/collier-glacier/
http://www.outdoor-science.com/?p=800
(via @glacial_till, @VivRaper)
Water
- Twisted History: The Wily Mississippi Cuts New Paths [A lyrical ode to the powerful but fettered river, made even better with wonderful historical maps]
http://www.npr.org/blogs/inside/2010/07/14/128511984/twisted-history-the-wily-mississippi-cuts-new-paths
(via @nprscience) - Dendritic Drainage, Braided Channels and Self-Similarity [Great fluvial teaching images]
http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2010/09/dendritic-drainage-braided-channels-and-self-similarity.html
(via @EarthPic) - Flooding in Pakistan is not over yet and Pakistan will be in need for a long time. See why in photos
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/pakistan_in_need.html - NPR: Why We’ve Given Less To Pakistan’s Flood Victims [Have you given?]
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129605789
Environmental
- Scientists find Gulf oilspill settled to seafloor in thick layer that stretches for miles:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129782098&ft=1&f=1025
(via @climatebrad, @craigtimes) - The 8 failures that caused Gulf oil spill, according the BP’s report on the disaster. It excludes the 9th failure: of so poorly overseeing an operation that 8 things could fail at once because they weren’t properly checked or tested.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19425-the-eight-failures-that-caused-the-gulf-oil-spill.html
(via @newscientist) - What’s the biggest myth in the ocean today? Maximum (un)Sustainable Yield –
http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=7409
(via @SFriedScientist) - Is there really a sustainable Orange Roughy fishery or is Lowes Foods guilty of greenwashing? [Yup, they are (poorly) greenwashing.]
http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=6979
(via @SFriedScientist) - Sheril Kirshenbaum on Ocean Acidifi-WHAT?! What we don’t know, don’t understand, and often ignore can hurt us
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/09/08/ocean-acidifi-what/ - How Big Oil will stop my kids from driving electric cars. Also why: because electric cars remove dependence on filling stations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/10/children-electric-cars - According to @WanderingGaia, guinea pig poo is great for making biogas and fertiliser.
http://wanderinggaia.com/2010/09/05/guinea-pig-power
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ko1wJUj26s - A challenge to anyone who ever used the phrase “tree-hugger”
http://underthebanyan.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/a-challenge-to-anyone-who-ever-used-the-phrase-tree-hugger/
(by @shanahanmike, via @PaoloViscardi)
Planets
- Results from the Phoenix Lander suggest that Mars may have been recently active, geologically and hydrologically. Astounding, if true
http://arizonageology.blogspot.com/2010/09/ua-phoenix-lander-team-mars-recently.html
(via @Geoblogfeed) - Even more astounding is the notion that we might be able to spot the reflections of oceans on planets outside the solar system and possibly volcanic eruptions too, if they’re big enough.
Fossils
- Lots of palaeontological goodness in the 1st edition of the rebooted Boneyard. Kudos to @anatotitan for providing the boot.
http://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2010/09/boneyard-21.html?spref=tw
General Geology
- A beautiful story of geological inspiration by @Dhunterauthor: The Crash of Continents, the Whisper of Water
http://entequilaesverdad.blogspot.com/2010/09/crash-of-continents-whisper-of-water.html - Video of a debris flow of cars (anthropogenic megaclasts!) and flooding in Antrani, Italy
http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/italian-debris-flood-video.html
(via @clasticdetritus) - Two footprints on a 4 million year journey from the Earth to the Moon
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2010/09/02/129609085/one-small-step-for-man - Oops. 11 September, 1881: The landslide of Elm: An artificial disaster
http://historyofgeology.blogspot.com/2010/09/11-september-1881-landslide-of-elm.html - Can’t wait to read the ‘encyclopedia of the Cretaceous’ – a detailed core record from a 2.5 km borehole into a Chinese paleolake.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100908/full/467150a.html
(via @NatureNews) - The see-saw intellectual battle continues: last week nanodiamonds from Younger Dryas ‘Impact’ debunked; this week they’re found in Greenland ice sheet
http://tw.physorg.com/203178758
Interesting Miscellaney
- Interesting musings on why the "draw a scientist" test of stereotypes is of limited value.
http://wordsofscience.blogspot.com/2010/09/stereotypes-behind-labcoat.html
(via @dr_andy_russell) - Model suggests a few bad referees can undermine peer-review. No accommodation for editor browbeating though.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/43691
(via @SmallCasserole) - Watch: Tom Lehrer’s Elements song according to Google Instant. Instant search now *totally* justified, even if Chris didn’t think that typing and pressing return for your search results was especially slow…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgFh6IAQoDA
(via @alicebell) - Babbage for the 21st century – nano-mechanical computation for high temperature applications )
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19440-steampunk-chip-takes-the-heat.html
(via @newscientist) - Cockroach and locust brains are a rich source of antibiotics powerful enough to tackle MRSA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11182437
(via @tvjrennie, @mocost)
Nice plan for content warnings on Mastodon and the Fediverse. Now you need a Mastodon/Fediverse button on this blog.