Volcanoes
- It’s been 1 year since Eyjafjallajokull closed European airspace. Here’s a great retrospective from Erik Klemetti:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/37870 - Meanwhile, over at volcano1010, John Stevenson reports on the latest results from scientists who are studying the eruption, especially the tough problem of tracking/predicting ash clouds.
http://all-geo.org/volcan01010/2011/04/eyjafjallajokull-anniversary/
Earthquakes
- This Nature opinion piece is pretty scathing about the inadequacies of earthquake hazard assessment and preparedness in Japan
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10105.html - More information on the hidden fault that caused Christchurch’s February 22nd earthquake
http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Media-Releases/Most-damaging-quake-since-1931/Canterbury-quake/Hidden-fault
(via @gnsscience) - Rockfall impacts from the Christchurch Earthquake: includes eye-opening photo of a fallen rock embedded in the road surface
http://juliansrockandiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/rockfall-impacts-from-christchurch.html - Op-Ed by Lucy Jones on Earthquakes: Lessons for California in the Chile, New Zealand and Japan quakes – latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-jones-earthquakes-20110408,0,1313099.story
(via @CPPGeophysics)
Fossils
- That’s not my Velociraptor!: Brian Switek on the growing gap between pop culture dinosaurs and what paleontologists are discovering
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704628404576264790430954966.html - In a similar vein, a great piece by Robert Krulwich on Triceratops and the permanency of science knowledge in the public mind.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/04/14/135351303/the-triceratops-panic-why-does-science-keep-changing-its-mind - Fossil footprints of early modern humans found in Tanzania
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=fossil-footprints-of-early-modern-h-2011-04-14 - Congrats to blogger and tweeter Leila Battison on her Nature paper on Earth’s earliest non-marine eukaryotes:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature09943.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110414#/
(Paleo)climate
- Interesting guest post by Bill Ruddiman at RealClimate: the latest research on the possible climatic impacts of early Holocene farming/forest clearance.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/an-emerging-view-on-early-land-use/ - Grrr. This is so, so dumb: weather Satellites on the Chopping Block:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/weather-satellites-on-the-chopping-block/
(via @HeidiCullen) - Solar variations can’t fully explain the ‘Little Ice Age’.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.rss.html?pid=33293
(via @ProfAbelMendez) - A nice short, if depressing, summary of some recently published climate research on jet contrails and ice sheet melting.
http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2011/04/10/weekend-climate-tid-bits/
(via @theAGU) - Nice essay from Andrew Freedman in WaPo on Congress voting down amendment that agreed with climate change science
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/congress-turns-a-blind-eye-to-climate-science/2011/04/12/AFxAqQQD_blog.html
Water
- Water is quite resilient stuff: so much so that Every Pot Of Coffee You Make Is Dinosaur Pee.
http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2011/04/every-pot-of-coffee-you-make-is.html - Floodwater from the 2010 monsoon season in Pakistan still lingers in 2011
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49995 - When cities are a little *too* close to their water tables…
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/two-water-tables.html - Columbia is launching a new Global Flood Initiative, described in the post: Before the Flood: Predicting the Deluge
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/04/12/before-the-flood—predicting-the-deluge/
Flooding on the Red River has crested in both Fargo and Grand Forks. Now it’s on its way north to Manitoba, and farms and towns in Minnesota and North Dakota are left to clean up the mess it left behind (and take down all those sandbag levees they worked so hard to put up just a few weeks ago).
- Amazing picture of traffic on flooded Interstate 29, near Fargo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/forum_photography/5606581541/in/photostream/
(via @ianfurness, @mareserinitatis) - Temporary dikes, permanent levees, or abandoning a town of 129 people? Choices ahead for Red River valley.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/04/11/georgetown-buffalo-river-flooding/
(via @ARL_11) - Slider before-during photos of Red River flood in Fargo-Moorhead via
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/2011/floods/beforeafter/index.html
(via @RiverLifeUMN) - Near Winnipeg, the Red River’s flood may crest at same time as the flood on the Assiniboine River to which it flows.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prairies/manitoba-awaits-red-rivers-wall-of-water/article1979318/
(via @rivrchik) - Time-lapse video from of current flooding on the Red River at Grand Forks. 4.58′ below record flood level now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkR-IowawY&feature=youtu.be
Environmental
- Why Do Earthworms Surface After Rain? [It’s not to avoid drowning!]
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-earthworms-surface-after-rain
(via @DrHolly) - Cold hard data vs warm baby dolphins: A must-read for those worried about events in in Gulf of Mexico.
http://deepseanews.com/2011/04/cold-hard-data-vs-warm-baby-dolphins/ - Numbers, targets, but no compelling narrative: why people have yet to embrace a low carbon future.
http://climatesafety.org/life-without-carbon-a-play-with-no-script/ - BP sustainability report: ‘it’s really uncertain how much oil we spilled in Gulf, so we’ll approximate it as 0’
http://www.fastcompany.com/1742432/bp-greenwashes-its-way-through-post-deepwater-horizon-csr-report - Worth a listen: ‘Challenged by Carbon: the Oil Industry and Climate Change’, a podcast featuring Geological Society of London president Brian Lovell.
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/podcast12
(via @geosociety) - New study finds solar panels are ‘contagious’.
http://www.good.is/post/new-study-finds-solar-panel-installations-are-contagious/?utm_source=supr
(via @GOOD)
General Geology
- “Geoscientists’ brains are necessarily helicoptery.” Matt Hall on scales of thinking in geology
http://www.agilegeoscience.com/journal/2011/4/7/the-scales-of-geoscience.html - Image of electrical conductivity beneath Yellowstone shows plume that is wider, less steeply dipping than seismic image
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-16.shtml - Some pretty cool pictures here: Geologic Folds and Intrusions as seen from Space
http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect2/Sect2_6.html - Fault breccia-tastic! Alan goes off in search of the Blue Ridge Thrust Fault, and finds it
http://notnecessarilygeology.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/in-search-of-the-blue-ridge-thrust-fault/
(via @callanbentley) - Yo-Yo subduction! Rocks now exposed in Italian Alps may have been subducted into mantle twice in less than 20 million years
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo1124.html - Could subduction polarity be shifting in the Mediterranean? via
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13015252
(via @eruptionsblog) - Glacial sediments + people not prepared for drilling through glacial sediments = lots of sinkholes! Great post by @dhunterauthor.
http://entequilaesverdad.blogspot.com/2011/04/local-geology-kicks-projects-arse.html - Rapid coastal wetland expansion during European settlement & implication for survival. New Geology paper, looks neat.
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/39/5/507.abstract?etoc - Fluvial geomorphology has lost another of our giants. Stanley Schumm passed away Sunday.
http://www.tributes.com/show/Stanley-Schumm-91254580
Planets
- Chandrayaan-1 and Clementine measured the same thing & got slightly different results. Why? A window into the difficulty of calibrating an instrument from hundreds of thousands of miles away.http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002995/
(via @elakdawalla) - NASA scientists argue there is no good evidence for ice volcanoes on Titan. So where does all the methane in the atmosphere come from?
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/m/news/index.cfm?release=2011-111 - A fascinating what-if: what if the Soviet Union had beaten the US to the Moon?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-13041326
(via @BBCscience)
Interesting Miscellaney
- The Break-Up, Scientific style: Lab Lemming is through with his hypothesis. Hilarious.
http://lablemminglounge.blogspot.com/2011/04/dear-hypothesis.html
(via @clasticdetritus) - Fascinating video interview with Steven Sasson, inventor of the digital camera (in 1975!)
http://www.davidfriedmanphoto.com/blog/2011/04/inventor-portrait-steven-sasson.html - Aside from its inability to remember where your keys are, the middle-aged brain is allegedly smarter & happier.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/p/2zbtc/tf - A sad tale, with a happy-ish end. One woman recounts her odyssey through academia and beyond. “According to the tenure committee, I … had allowed childbearing to dilute my focus.”
http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/hewlett/~3/yaEDdJin500/flaming_out_and_fighting_back.html
(via @AWISnational) - April 12 marked Equal Pay Day, which represents the number of extra days women needed to work in order to earn as much as men, on average. Check out resources and fact sheets on Pay Equity & Discrimination.
http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/pay-equity-and-discrimination
(via @AWISnational, @IWPResearch) - Unfortunately, Fair Pay is still an aspiration – not a reality. "Why Young Americans Should Care About Equal Pay Day":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melody-barnes/why-young-americans-shoul_b_847957.html
(via @AWISnational) - Is elite higher education the next bubble to burst? Probably.
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2011/04/12/is-higher-education-the-next-bubble-to-burst/
(via @stressrelated, @jfleck)
Nice plan for content warnings on Mastodon and the Fediverse. Now you need a Mastodon/Fediverse button on this blog.