Accretionary Wedge #4

Posted on December 16, 2007 by Chris Rowan

For those who don’t keep an eye on the side-bar, the latest geoblogging extravaganza is up at GoodSchist. Go and find out about the pretty, pretty rocks that we all keep on our desks along with the unread papers, unmarked assignments and dirty coffee cups.

Categories: links

AGU on the interweb

Posted on December 14, 2007 by Chris Rowan

It’s been a somewhat frustrating week for this geoblogger, with many potentially interesting stories popping up containing some variant of “presented this week at AGU in San Francisco”. With 15,000+ Earth Scientists collected in the same place, it’s no surprise that if you’re looking for the latest interesting research California was the place to be – but even if some of my research was, I wasn’t, and aside from the odd web-cast, the official online footprint seems to be virtually non-existent.
The blogosphere is being represented, though. Andrew at About.com Geology is being wined and dined as a member of the press this year, but he’s still been hitting the conference rooms and filing daily dispatches about the sessions that have caught his eye:
Monday from AGU
My Nightmare Session
Cool stuff from AGU
Thursday at AGU
Friday’s AGU wrap-up
Brian is still in a bit of a daze from passing his viva last Friday, and had a presentation to worry about, but still found time to file a couple of dispatches:
Tuesday wrap-up
Wednesday wrap-up
The RealClimate folks have been the real stars, though, posting daily updates which explain in detail the implications of all the new data they’re reporting “hot off the projector”; they also give you a real feel for exactly why these big meetings are so fun and stimulating to attend:
Dispatch 1
Dispatch 2
Dispatch 3
Dispatch 4
Dispatch 5
Dispatch 6
Dispatch 7
All good stuff: here’s hoping that I can make it to the party next year.

Categories: geology, links

A deskcrop-full of komatiite

Posted on December 14, 2007 by Chris Rowan

The theme for the latest edition of The Accretionary Wedge is ‘my pet rock’. Unfortunately, most of the ‘deskcrops’ that I’ve amassed over the years are back in storage in the UK, but since arriving here in South Africa I have managed to pick up a couple of interesting replacements. I’ve been meaning to discuss this one for a while: even though it’s not the prettiest in my collection, it tells a very interesting story about the early Earth.

deskcrop1.jpg

Continue reading →

Categories: geology, volcanoes

Don’t put your faith in (no) sunspots

Posted on December 13, 2007 by Chris Rowan

My interest was piqued a few days ago by this story in the Independent by an astronomer called David Whitehouse, which was reproduced in one of the Sunday papers down here in South Africa. The article claimed that the roughly 11 year cycle of sunspot activity appears to have stalled – the present minimum, the end of solar cycle 23, has gone on for much longer than expected, and there are no signs of it ending. It then said that we are possibly witnessing the first signs of a repeat of the Maunder minimum, a 70 year period in the 17th and early 18th centuries when sunspots virtually disappeared, which also roughly coincides with the Little Ice Age. Here’s the concluding paragraph:

Perhaps the lateness of cycle 24 might even be the start of another Little Ice Age. If so, then our Sun might come to our rescue over climate change, mitigating mankind’s influence and allowing us more time to act. It might even be the case that the Earth’s response to low solar activity will overturn many of our assumptions about man’s influence on climate change.

Continue reading →

Categories: climate science, planets

Terry Pratchett ‘not dead’, thank goodness

Posted on December 12, 2007 by Chris Rowan

When I saw that one of my Facebook friend’s status was ‘very upset about Terry Pratchett’, my blood ran cold. Fortunately, I was wrong to fear the worst, but there’s still bad news: he’s been diagnosed with “a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s”.
Odd as it might seem, Terry Pratchett’s novels have been an important, and extremely beneficial, influence on me over the years (anyone out there who hasn’t read Small Gods definitely should). Here’s hoping that he’ll be continuing to make me laugh and think for many more years to come.

Categories: bloggery