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Meta
Category Archives: rocks & minerals
Weird rocky exoplanets
Obtaining the composition of rocky exoplanets from the spectral signature produced when their dying parent star eats them is already pretty mind-blowing. But the results – which suggest that on some of these worlds, quartz is substituted for olivine in their … Continue reading
How long was the last magnetic reversal – and why might subducting slabs have had a say in what it looked like?
A new paper on the chronology of the last magnetic reversal concludes it took 20,000 yrs, and there were two distinct excursions – where the field becomes weak and disorganized, but it recovers without reversing polarity – before the main event about … Continue reading
All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again: an introduction to How the Earth Works
For a couple of years now, I’ve been telling a story at the beginning of the introductory geology course I teach, called How the Earth Works. I like to think it gives a flavour of the kinds of stories you can tell about the Earth, if you know how to look: stories of how the world slowly remakes itself over hundreds of millions of years, of how the very high was once the very low, and will be again. This is that story. Continue reading
A land of basalt and chalk
We’ve just spent a great week exploring Ireland, which included very sunny days on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland. Anne sometimes teases me for picking holiday itineraries based more on the the prevailing geology more than the prevailing weather, … Continue reading
Scenic Saturday: a pilgrimage back to the grand granitic tors of Dartmoor
The high and rugged scenery of Dartmoor is as wild and untamed a landscape as you’re likely to find in the United Kingdom, and would seem to have more in common with the Scottish Highlands than the prim and proper … Continue reading