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Volcanoes
- It should be no surprise that lava flows…flow, but lava deltas are still very, very cool.
http://yeehowcentral.blogspot.com/2008/08/best-owyhee-example-of-lava-dam.html
http://geopathology.posterous.com/behold-the-owyhee-lava-deltapart-1 - A Delta Made of Lava post on Clastic Detritus had Anne wondering why lava deltas tend to collapse quickly. Thoughts?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/a-delta-made-of-lava/ - Why are the volcanic arcs behind subduction zones so narrow?
http://www.physorg.com/news205652605.html
(from @physorg_com) - Interesting: real time temperature data from geyser outlets and hot pools in Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/activity/monitoring/norris/index.php
Planets
- @NatureNews reports that ‘Martian’ methane may be an artefact of looking through the Earth’s atmosphere. Whilst this can’t explain the fact that Mars Express reportedly detected methane in 2004, that was in much lower concentrations, and the data were not unequivocal.
- Europa might be much more chemically active than thought
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-319&cid=release_2010-319 - Asteroid Lutetia is – like the moon – coated in a thick blanket of dusty regolith (impact soil!).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11470851
(by @BBCscience)
Fossils
- Tracks of dinosaur ancestors found right after Permian extinction.
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2010/10/06/earth%E2%80%99s-worst-extinction-may-have-been-key-to-dinosaur-origins/ by @laelaps.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/10/05/walking-with-dinosaur-ancestors-%e2%80%93-footprints-put-dinosaur-like-beasts-at-scene-of-life%e2%80%99s-great-comeback/ by @edyong209. - Leonardo da Vinci correctly interpreted trace fossils centuries before other European scientists.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827801.400-fossil-secrets-of-the-da-vinci-codex.html
(via @history_geek) - Even ‘simple’ stromatolites very diverse, with complex internal ecologies: not just cyanobacteria.
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3636/stepping-stones-through-time
(via @ComplexLifeNAI) - Grrr. Ignorance.: B.C. fossils in danger of being ground up for kitty litter
http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101005/bc_dinosaur_bones_101005/20101005
(via @Laelaps)
(Paleo)climate
- Aleutian volcano provides natural iron fertilisation experiment: large phytoplankton bloom but very little CO2 drawdown. Not the first indication that iron fertilisation is a dud, so this probably won’t dampen the geoengineering fervour. The plans are ‘simple’, but the planet (and its response) is inconveniently complex.
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/effects-of-volcanic-eruption-dash-promising-global-warming-theory/article1744583/ - Vance Holliday: [Younger Dryas] impact did not end the Clovis culture
http://arizonageology.blogspot.com/2010/10/vance-holliday-impact-did-not-end.html
(via @Geoblogfeed) - China’s ‘climate cave’: stalagmites record 1000s of years of monsoon history, poss. effects of climate change (video)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11473321 - End of season wrap-up: read details on the eventful 2010 Arctic ice melt season.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/100410.html
(via @NSIDC_ArcticIce) - Not so glacial in Boston during at least one of the Snowball Earth glaciations?
http://my.opera.com/nielsol/blog/2010/10/07/snowball-earth-or-not
(via @olelog) - Climate change will exacerbate social & economic inequality according to a London School of Economics study
http://www.unifem.org/partnerships/climate_change/facts_figures.php
(via @UN, @UNIFEM, @argillic)
Water
- The big water (pollution) news of the week was a flood of toxic sludge release from a tailing pond in Hungary. Incredibly caustic (pH of 13) and probably full of heavy metals, the sludge spill had devestating local impacts and threatened one of Europe’s most important rivers, the Danube. Here’s a couple of the stories from the spill news this week.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130396366&f=1007
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/10/a_flood_of_toxic_sludge.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/09/toxic-sludge-hungary-village-evacuated - Pakistani & USGS scientists battle arid Pakistan’s myriad water woes [It’s a lot more than floods.]
http://www.earthmagazine.org/earth/article/3a4-7da-a-5
(via @earthmagazine) - Malaria threatens 2 million in Pakistan as floodwaters turn stagnant
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/03/pakistan-malaria-floods
(via @guardianeco, @rivrchik)
Environmental
- Civilization’s Foundation Eroding: the linked threats of overgrazing, soil erosion & desertification.
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch02_ss2
(via @geographile)
General Geology
- Epic photoblog of Grand Canyon Rafting Trip. Both of us are jealous. Very jealous.
http://earthly-musings.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-2010-grand-canyon-rafting-trip.html - Earth’s rotation affects flows in submarine channels. I find this fascinating – I never would have thought Coriolis forces would have ever been dominant at those sorts of length scales…
http://www.agu.org/news/press/jhighlight_archives/2010/2010-10-05.shtml#three
(via @theAGU) - Pathological Geomorphology has kicked off a new month with the theme of interesting juxtapositions of human and natural landscapes. Check out some of the recent posts:
http://geopathology.posterous.com
Interesting Miscellany
- James Randi: ‘You can’t be ‘fair and balanced.’ You can only be fair *or* balanced’.
http://publications.mcgill.ca/reporter/2010/10/james-randi-amazing-pseudoscience-debunker/
(via @tvjrennie) - Have we solved all the questions in chemistry? The short – and unsurprising – answer is ‘no’. People claiming that all major problems in a scientific discipline have been solved are merely showing their ignorance of that discipline.
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2010/10/06/have-we-solved-all-the-questions-in-chemistry/
(via @BoraZ) - Science begins in the field. Follow the new group blog Journeys, created for short-term expeditions
http://journeys.southernfriedscience.com/?p=66
(via @kzelnio) - NSF will no longer fund NPR’s Science Friday, which means it may not survive.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-fruchterman/science-friday-funding-cr_b_748607.html
(via @seanmcarroll, @erinbiba, @mims) - WIN: new BBC guidelines say science news stories must link to the scientific paper
http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/win-new-bbc-guidelines-say-science-news-
stori
(via @bengoldacre)
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