Author Archives: Chris Rowan

The intrusion of nature

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Chris Rowan

This morning, I found myself mesmerised by this astounding video of an avalanche in the French Alps, courtesy of Kyle House: Avalanches de printemps An appropriate demonstration on this Earth Day of the power of our planet. But it’s also … Continue reading →

Categories: geohazards, society

Echoes of Wenchuan: magnitude 6.6 earthquake shakes Sichuan province in west China.

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Chris Rowan

On Saturday morning local time (Friday evening for us in the USA), a magnitude 6.6 earthquake shook up Sichuan province in western China, about 35 km north of the closest city, Ya’an, and 115km west of the provincial capital Chengdu. … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, focal mechanisms, tectonics

A week of big earthquakes in Iran

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Chris Rowan

Squashed and squeezed between the Eurasian continent to the north and the northward-moving Arabian plate to the south, it is no surprise that Iran is a seismically active country, and in the past week it has been living up to … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, focal mechanisms, tectonics

The diminishing returns of lecture preparation

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Chris Rowan

It seems that like so many other things, lecture preparation expands to take up the time available. Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, teaching

We have a seismometer in our basement…

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Chris Rowan

Or, more accurately, my department does. And it rather handily picked up last week’s magnitude 8 earthquake near the Santa Cruz Islands (subject of the latest Friday Focal Mechanisms), all the way over in the southwest Pacific. Here’s the seismogram: … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, geophysics