Weird Circularity

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Chris Rowan

About 15 months ago my current boss visited South Africa to sample the Neoproterozoic and early Cambrian rocks near the Namibian border, and I ended spending a week or so out in the field helping with the drilling – at very short notice too, when someone else took ill. The pay-off for my altruism was that when she found herself in need of a new post-doc, she got in touch to see if I would be interested in joining the project. As it turned out, I was. And today, I found myself in the rock cutting room, cutting up the samples that I helped to drill all those months ago – rocks that have been on the project longer than I have. Indeed, it could be argued that they helped to get me my job.
The key lesson from this: never pass up an opportunity to cultivate allies in your field of research.

Categories: academic life, bloggery

What I did on my weekend

Posted on March 1, 2009 by Chris Rowan

I took advantage of the fact I live in Scotland:

munro.JPG
Creag Leacach, 987 m.

Categories: bloggery, photos

Weekend reading

Posted on February 28, 2009 by Chris Rowan

Click over to Geotripper for the latest edition of the Accretionary Wedge: a compilation of wonderful suggestions for places to experience our planet at its most geologically awe-inspiring. Personally, I think Kim’s answer is the best, but there are more than enough ideas to keep the eager rock-hound going for a lifetime. Or perhaps longer: as Geotripper concludes:

Looking over these lists I found myself thinking: Is one life enough?

Which immediately begs the question – why aren’t there more zombie geologists?

Zombiegeologists.jpg

Perhaps this is why I shouldn’t blog on a Saturday morning.

Categories: bloggery, geology, links, outcrops

Weekend listening

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Chris Rowan

In case you missed the announcement earlier in the week, the geology podclast has returned. This weeks topics included sponge chemofossils from the Precambrian, palaeomagnetism, and creating online geology in Google Earth. Two tips though:
(a) skip the guy who ‘erms’ and ‘sort-ofs’ in the first part of the show. Or, at least, forgive him.
(b) listen past the closing theme for some bonus out-takes.

Categories: bloggery, links

The changing face of Titan

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Chris Rowan

ResearchBlogging.orgRemember when we could only guess what lay beneath Titan’s thick atmosphere? Thanks to Cassini and the Huygens lander, things are very different now. We have had a surface both strange and strangely familiar revealed to us, with mountains, rivers and lakes shaped by the flow of liquid ethane, and dunes of hydrocarbon sand. Furthermore, multiple flybys by Cassini in the past 5 years has allowed long-term monitoring of the surface, with consecutive observations of the same region enabling us to chart the evolution of Titan’s surface over time. Some recent publications in Geophysical Reseach Letters have spotted some rather interesting changes.
Firstly, Turtle et al. report the appearance of several dozen dark patches in the southern polar region between observations in July 2004 (circled region, left, below) and June 2005 (right).

Titanlakes.jpg

Continue reading →

Categories: geology, paper reviews, planets