Author Archives: Chris Rowan

The Earth weathers another geomagnetic storm

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Chris Rowan

A couple of days ago, the sun got a bit excitable: This large flare produced what is known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), a blob of gas and radiation hurled at high velocities from the surface of the sun … Continue reading →

Categories: geophysics, palaeomagic, planets

Scenic Saturday: a special place

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Chris Rowan

A purely scenic one this week, but this is a place that is very special to both Anne and myself. It’s not surprising that we can both find things to appreciate about this overlook: after all, as the cliche goes, … Continue reading →

Categories: photos

New at Erratics: the challenges of teaching geology in high school

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Our newest Earth Science Erratics blogger, Erin Parker, is a teacher at an urban public high school in Wisconsin, who every semester is presented with the task of teaching “150 boisterous students” about earth science. In her first post, she … Continue reading →

Categories: links, teaching

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Volcanoes From Callan Bentley comes the “xenobomb”: an amazing natural mash-up of deep earth and surface magmatic processes. http://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway/2012/02/18/the-xenobomb/ Although his neologism has kicked off a small terminology debate in the geoblogosphere: http://ron.outcrop.org/blog/?p=1492 Earthquakes Clever. China tests active subsurface monitoring … Continue reading →

Categories: links

Scenic Sunday: a hike across Hawaiian lava

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Fortunately, the schedule for my recent trip to the Big Island of Hawaii included a couple of days of field excursions – I think the conference organisers realised that they would happen regardless, so they decided to make them official … Continue reading →

Categories: outcrops, photos, volcanoes