Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Earthquakes

• Chinese earthquake record shows that away from plate boundaries, seismic activity jumps around between different faults
  http://news.discovery.com/earth/china-quakes-give-us-temblors-pause.html
  The paper can be found here. Seems to be follow up to a paper I blogged about in 2009
  (via @geosociety)
• The New Madrid earthquakes, by the numbers: good background from a cool-looking new blog, +/- Science: )
  http://plusorminusscience.blogspot.com/2011/02/abbreviated-history-of-earthquakes-in.html
  (via @kuchtam)
• A couple of interesting stories on seismic activity not driven by plate tectonics – what Brian Romans poetically calls ‘Earthnoise’:
  • Puzzled Ohio residents report "cryoseisms" — frost quakes– generating odd booms and shaking during cold snap.
    http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/02/12/cold-snap-creates-odd-frostquakes.html
    (via @psaffo)
  • Identifying large hurricanes through seismology –
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110210184415.htm
    (via @tpenews)

Volcanoes

• Lots of excellent volcanic photography at this site:
  http://www.photovolcanica.com/PhotovolcanicaFullIndex.html
• Great post by Erik Klemetti on the 1886 eruption of Mt. Tarawera, New Zealand, that buried the recently rediscovered Pink Terraces beneath Lake Rotomahana.
  http://bigthink.com/ideas/26859
• The perils of sulphur mining [by hand!] in an active volcano in Indonesia
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12301421
  (via @volcanotweet)@volcanotweet

Planets

• Lab Lemming thinks Kepler results mark our solar system out as weird. Not sure data are there yet, but interesting…
  http://lablemminglounge.blogspot.com/2011/02/our-planets-are-weird.html
• TV and radio signals we’ve leaked into space are almost certainly too weak to be detected from other stars. Presumably the converse is also true, which has some implications for SETI
  http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=16765

Fossils

• Think you know what a Dodo looked like? You should probably think again
  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/the-dodo-is-dead-long-live-the-dodo/
• BBC News – Secrets of Antarctica’s fossilised forests
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12378934
  (via @Camz99)

(Paleo)climate

• Coral records show frequency of extreme weather (droughts, floods) in Australia highest for 300yrs )
  http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-07.shtml
  (via @thirstygecko)
• It’s good to see economist Paul Krugman discussing how the economic impacts of climate change might already be making themselves apparent, first looking at the current spike in global food prices driven by droughts and flooding:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/opinion/07krugman.html
  and clearly explaining the connection between rising temperatures and the probability of extreme weather events.
  http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/gradual-trends-and-extreme-events/
• In a similar vein, a great post at Grist on the overlooked tensions between climate science and economic scenarios.
  http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-09-smackdown-climate-science-vs-climate-economics
  (via @tvjrennie)
• Important insights into peer review and the climate change ‘debate’, with a nice analogy at the end: ‘Disagreement about how to model the flight of a Frisbee correctly doess’t imply that basic aerodynamics are wrong.’
  http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/on-peer-review-and-climate-progress/
• A scientific ranking of the worst #snow storms in US history (last week was #19)
  http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=651&MediaTypeID=1
  (via @HeidiCullen)

Water

• Record-Breaking Amounts of Snow Raise Problems for Cities [But don’t dump it in the river/lake/harbor!]
  http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/02/11/record-breaking-amounts-of-snow-raise-problems-for-cities
• New satellite tools for flood monitoring aren’t bothered by high waters
  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20111-satellites-could-keep-an-eye-out-for-floods.html
  (via @clasticdetritus)
• Spring flood forecast in Minnesota is dire, towns getting ready
  http://www.startribune.com/local/116006464.html?page=2&c=y
  (via @ugrandite)
• Flooding in Caprivi, Namibia
  http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=49237&src=twitter-nh
  (via @NASA_EO)
• If you’ve eaten a salad recently, you might want to pay attention to Southern California’s water issues:
  http://www.npr.org/2011/02/10/133624969/fighting-for-water-in-the-arid-imperial-valley
  (via @nature_org, @npr)
• EPA revokes Clean Water Act permit for mountain top removal coal mine. Usual suspects cry foul re: precedent.
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/science/earth/14coal.html
• From Jeff Masters, a nice summary of renewed flooding in Sri Lanka that is affecting 1.05 million people
  http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1743

Environmental

• This week’s notable Wikileaks cable story suggests Saudi Arabia has exaggerated its oil reserves and potential future capacity. The fact that official Saudi oil figures may be a little suspect is common knowledge to those who follow energy issues, but the general public may not be so aware.
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks
  The Oil Drum provides some nice background to this story.
  http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7465
• This was sadly inevitable. White Nose Syndrome found in North Carolina, threatening bats.
  http://www.fws.gov/southeast/news/2011/11-011.html
  (via @jbhathaw, @tdelene)
• Five fascinating facts about the Suez Canal through #Egypt from @watercrunch
  http://www.watercrunch.com/2011/02/5-truths-about-suez-canal.html

General Geology

• Georneys’ Geology Word of the Week: O is for Ophiolite [And Oman. Some great pictures]
  http://georneys.blogspot.com/2011/02/geology-word-of-week-o-is-for-ophiolite.html
• Some impressive pictures of a massive landslide in Turkish open pit mine on The Landslide Blog
  http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/02/12/two-public-lectures-in-australia-and-an-amazing-open-pit-landslide-in-turkey/
  (via @theAGU)
• Ooh, Shiny: NASA’s Aqua satellite catches a rare cloudless view of Alaska in the grip of winter.
  http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49209

Interesting Miscellaney

• ‘When it comes down to it, science is often about persistence.’ Why good scientists don’t always need to geniuses.
  http://georneys.blogspot.com/2011/02/scientific-perspiration.html
• Undergrad interested in Geosciences and Engineering? Apply to SURGE! Summer research program, open to all U.S. schools:
  http://oma.stanford.edu/surge.html
  (via @Stanford)
• wow : Which 2 undergraduate schools produce most of the students getting PhD’s in USA? #science
  http://www.kansascity.com/2011/02/05/2634923/science-can-help-pull-america.html
  (via @Etheostomatt, @Revkin)
• Not yet for Skynet: total global computer power = 1 human brain. An interesting discussion of changes in the changes in how society has stored ever increasing amounts of information, with an amusing example of how we scientists like to quantify: a 6cm squared picture is worth 1,000 words.
  http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/02/adding-up-the-worlds-storage-and-computation-capacities.ars
• Encouraging a conference backchannel on Twitter: (Chron. of Higher ed blog)
  http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/encouraging-a-conference-backchannel-on-twitter/30612
  (via @geosociety)
• This looks useful! CUAHSI gives guidance on the new NSF data management plan requirement
  http://www.cuahsi.org/his-dmp.html
• Educators: Check out this new resource for easy-to-implement lessons on science in current events -resources
  http://sese.asu.edu/teach