Author Archives: Chris Rowan

Accretionary Wedge #3 is up

The theme is ‘between a rock and a squishy face’ and is all about the intimate ties between things biological and the planet they call home. Some excellent posts from both sides of the disciplinary fence await your perusal at … Continue reading

Categories: links

The Rowan Sarchasmic Index

The World’s Fair invites us to make a bid for scientific immortality: … this meme asks that you come up with your own scientific eponym. What’s that exactly? Well, first read this excellent primer by Samuel Arbesman, which basically provides … Continue reading

Categories: bloggery

How the air we breathe became breathable

What geology tells us about the evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Categories: Archean, geochemistry, geology, paper reviews, past worlds, Proterozoic

Is ‘I don’t have an opinion on AGW’ a valid scientific position?

In amongst the sound and fury which accompanied last week’s fight to the death between Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy and Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit in the 2007 Weblog Awards (which was eventually declared a draw), I noticed an interesting attitude … Continue reading

Categories: antiscience, climate science

Mount Kelud calms down

The Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation has downgraded the alert level for Mount Kelud, and allowed villagers evacuated from the slopes of the mountain to return to their homes. Since I can’t translate Indonesian, I can’t give … Continue reading

Categories: geohazards, volcanoes