Christmas is approaching – as are annoying relatives you want to hide from, big meals to induce lazy afternoons and evenings on the sofa, and cold weather you snuggle indoors to avoid. All of these activities will be greatly improved with some good reading, which your friendly Highly Allochthonous bloggers are happy to provide!
Other posts on All-geo
- At Volcan01010: What controls explosive rhyolite eruptions in Iceland, and explosive eruptions generally:
http://all-geo.org/volcan01010/2012/12/gas-makes-subglacial-rhyolite-explode/ - At Metageologist: Why does some continental crust just hang around for billions of years? Simon explores the origins of cratons.
http://all-geo.org/metageologist/2012/12/cratons-old-and-strong/
Volcanoes
- Some spectacular images of the year’s global volcanic activity, courtesy of In Focus at The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/12/2012-the-year-in-volcanic-activity/100423/ - Great post by Erik Klemetti on how rocks melt on Earth. Often, it’s not so much about meeting the melting point as changing it.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/12/why-do-rocks-melt-volcano/
(via @eruptionsblog)
Earthquakes
- Newspaper Clippings from the 1964 Alaska Earthquake, observed by in an Anchorage restaurant.
http://blogs.agu.org/georneys/2012/12/18/newspaper-clippings-from-the-1964-alaska-earthquake-at-gwennies/
(via @GeoEvelyn)
Fossils
- Good stuff: Kate Wong lists some of the more fascinating scientific stories from the field of human evolution in 2012
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/12/19/the-most-fascinating-human-evolution-discoveries-of-2012/ - Fascinating: Charles Walcott’s early experiments in taphonomy, trying to understand how jellyfish fossils could form.
http://ancientshore.com/2012/12/15/the-dawn-of-experimental-taphonomy/ - Specimens in Field Museum “face a slow and sad scientific death” as result of budget cuts.
http://blogs.plos.org/paleo/2012/12/21/the-field-museum-faces-a-real-threat/
(via @AndyFarke, @sarahwerning) - Defending Collections: Josh Drew on the importance of museums as scientific institutions:
http://labroides.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/defending-collections/
(via @highlyanne, @Drew_Lab)
(Paleo)climate
- It was the 36th consecutive November and 333rd consecutive month (!) with global temps above the 20th century average.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/
Water
- Dec 18 Drought Monitor Update: moderate to exceptional #drought covers 61.8% of contiguous U.S.
http://www.drought.gov/drought
(via @NOAANCDC)
Environmental
- Is natural gas going to get us off coal and help us to avoid dangerous climate change? Not likely.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jim-ball/clean-coal_b_2287183.html
(via @KenCaldeira) - New study suggests a renewables+storage could power national grid 99.9% of time, at prices comparable to today.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/renewables-storage-121211.html - Previous long-term government, industry oil forecasts badly overestimated supply; why should we listen now?
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2012/12/previous-long-term-government-industry.html
(via @Geoblogfeed) - Scottish National Party’s over-reliance on oil and gas revenues to fuel independence has always been a little worrying. A new report concludes supplies are becoming erratic and hard to predict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20777300 - Speaking of politics trumping reality of falling stocks: EU fishing quota talks seem stuck in usual miasma of denial.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20794728
Cities
- Do Places Seem Farther Away When You Have to Walk to Get There? –
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/12/do-things-seem-farther-away-when-you-have-walk-get-there/4198/ - Fascinating. The evolution of urban planning: 10 diagrams that changed thinking about urban spaces
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/11/evolution-urban-planning-10-diagrams/3851/
(via @TNatureOfCities) - Controversial urban reforestation project moves ahead in Detroit, would be nice if being done with more local support
http://www.freep.com/article/20121211/NEWS01/121211061/detroit-city-council-hantz-woodlands-land-sale - Designing cities for 6 billion: Sustainability in the new urban age.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121214-greening-the-concrete-jungle
(via @WanderingGaia)
General Geology
- Deep Sea News is on a 12 days of Christmas roll: marine biology is now joined by a physical oceanography edition. Show your geek credentials by singing them out loud!
http://deepseanews.com/2012/12/the-twelve-days-of-christmas-a-marine-biological-edition/
http://deepseanews.com/2012/12/twelve-days-of-christmas-the-physical-oceanography-edition/ - A peek at the new Global Lithological Map. Fun, but needs a Google Earth layer…
http://www.dramsch.net/archives/79-A-Global-Lithological-Map.html
(via @Geoblogfeed) - Friday 21 Dec saw the final departure of RRS Discovery, a ship that has served UK marine science for the past 50 years:
http://noc.ac.uk/news/final-farewell-discovery
(via @NOCnews) - Caught on camera: landslide derailing freight train near Seattle. It looked quite innocuous until it wasn’t.
http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2012/12/19/unbelievable-a-video-of-a-landslide-striking-and-derailing-a-freight-train-in-everett-near-seattle-usa/ - Anne just learned that Charles Darwin wrote a book on earthworms as geomorphic agents. So. Cool.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Chancellor_Earthworms.html - Anne’s previous tweet promoted @AitchTwoJoe to share the following: “Stone Zones! DL Johnson has a fantastic paper combining Darwin and soil geomorphology in Geoarchaeology.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gea.10001/abstract - A soils map made from soils! This is amazing. I want one.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/design/2012/12/u_s_soil_map_a_map_made_with_dirt_samples_from_each_state.html
(via @msanclem)
Careers
- Do you have TT phone interviews coming up? Don’t talk yourself off the short list, by @ProfLikeSubst
http://scientopia.org/blogs/proflikesubstance/2012/12/18/tt-phone-interviews-dont-talk-yourself-off-a-short-list/ - good advice here: Ph.D. application hints from @Drew_Labu201d
http://labroides.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/ph-d-application-hints/
(via @JacquelynGill, @kzelnio)
Interesting Miscellaney
- Just in time for Christmas, National Geographic brings to us: a brand-new and very handsome blog network. Phenomena is a pretty good collective term for the grouping of Ed Yong, Brian Switek, Carl Zimmer and Virginia Hughes:
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/ - Perfect response to “Science, It’s a Girl Thing” from all-female scientific expedition in Greenland:
http://now.dartmouth.edu/2012/12/is-being-a-scientist-all-about-the-science-actually-it-is/ - Numerologically significant dates also occur in non-Maya calendars. Why is 20.12.2012 so special? That, plus more Gregorian calendar geekery at the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/19/why-20-12-2012-special-numbers
(via @guardianscience) - Check out some truly excellent replies to Ed Yong’s ‘describe PCA in 1 tweet or less’ challenge:
http://onaquasirelatednote.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/principal-component-analysis-almost-explained-on-twitter/ - Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013 seeks bloggers, all contributions welcome. Get in early:
http://mpe2013.org/2012/08/22/call-for-mpe-bloggers/
(via @aboutgeology) - Cyclones, caffeine crystals and dwarf chameleons are amongst the sciency ‘Images of the Year’ picked by Nature News.
http://www.nature.com/news/366-days-images-of-the-year-1.11996 - Isotope short courses in June 2013 at UU sound amazing. Info here:
https://itce.utah.edu/courses.html - A year-end best-of list you can find your way around – 2012 in maps:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/12/2012s-year-maps/4196/
Nice plan for content warnings on Mastodon and the Fediverse. Now you need a Mastodon/Fediverse button on this blog.