I’m being nagged, because I promised fieldwork photos and have yet to deliver. The truth is that my beloved Olympus camera is currently in for repair having rather selfishly decided to malfunction in the midst of all the moving frenzy. I’m hoping to get it back soon…
In the meantime, in case you missed it on the sidebar, check out some rather nice shots from Brian’s recent fieldwork in Patagonia. Even I’m jealous – I wonder if there’s some paleomag that needs doing out there?
The new geophysics results from the spreading ridge on the East Pacific Rise, just published by Toomey et al., have already been mentioned on Deep Sea News: as guest poster Kevin Zelnio discusses, this new mapping of where the mantle is upwelling relative to the ridge axis offers some clues regarding why the distribution of volcanism and hydrothermal venting varies along the plate boundary. But it turns out that these results may also have important implications for our basic understanding of plate tectonics.
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Would you believe that up until last week, I hadn’t heard of this whole March Madness palava? Hence the lack of real comment on the Science Spring Showdown – I was basically having an ‘Englishman in New York’ moment until a handy North American explained the whole concept to me. So no, I wasn’t sulking because Plate Tectonics failed to qualify – although I had high hopes, it seems that only being able to move across court at a few millimetres per year is still a serious handicap. Maybe they should import Io for a bit more dynamism.
Anyway, now that I’ve been clued in, I can start doing all the annoying enthusiastic newbie things like cheering at inappropriate moments and asking dumb questions like ‘why doesn’t he just kick it?’ and ‘isn’t that offside?’. Without any geological contenders to root for, I’m placing all my hopes and dreams in the d-orbital, the source of all decent magnetism, and it’s been nice to see them making steady progress through the Mortar and Pestle Bracket to reach the ‘Sweet Sixteen’. The upcoming game with acid could be a nail-eater, though.
I was also rooting for plucky Pluto in the Chair bracket, but sadly they were vanquished by Theory. I just wish I could understand those American commentators and find out how they pulled it off… maybe Theory managed to formulate a description of solar system formation which definitively relegated the crowd favourite from the planetary table. If so, I suspect dirty tricks by the previously defeated IAU.
Looking over the other impending match-ups, I just look at the Invertebrates and get the feeling that any of the other Home Nations get when England are playing: the irresistible urge to root for the other side. Go Photosynthesis! But I think the real pick of the next round could be Phylogenetics vs HIV. Can the tree-builders match the AIDS virus’ legendary mutation rate?
My latest Naturejobs postdoc column is now available. In it I discuss some of my motivation for moving to South Africa – so you could argue that regular readers have got the widescreen technicolour version already, although the emphasis is a little different.
It may not be the right time to be plugging this, given that a recent editorial by the Naturejobs editor has caused a bit of a stir amongst some of my blogging colleagues. The piece is entitled “could blogs replace rèsumès?” I can’t say that I feel the two things are strictly equivalent to each other, but the article isn’t actually arguing that they are – it’s more a reflection on whether blogging can help or hinder your employability. It’s an interesting question, but some people felt that my blogging compatriot Iknownotwhattodo was rather unfairly singled out as an example of someone who has unwisely transcribed their complaints into the public sphere where potential employers can see them. He personally seems quite sanguine about it, but others are a little het up.
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Despite the sarcasm, I have been following the attempt to stem the flow of mud from Lusi with some interest, if only because the whole thing sounds like its been dreamed up by the Star Trek technobabble generator (not to mention the guilty schoolboy pleasure of seeing so many headlines containing the phrase ‘concrete balls’). However, reports on exactly what the situation was last week seemed heavily dependent on whom you talked to. For example, the two guys in this report didn’t seem to be on the same page:
“We are still evaluating. We are studying the volume of the flow, which has now increased from 125,000 cubic metres to 160,000 cubic metres a day,” said Rudi Novrianto, a spokesman for the government team tasked with dealing with what scientists dub the “mud volcano”.
He said pebbles, sand and stones the size of tennis balls had now been found in the mud, in addition to clay.
But Satria Bijaksana, a member of a separate team of scientists who initiated the concrete ball experiment, said mud pressure had eased after the balls were dropped.
“We have noticed an increase in hydrogen sulphide, indicating that pressure is decreasing,” Bijaksana told Reuters.
For lot's more videos on soil moisture topics, see Drs Selker and Or's text-book support videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoMb5YOZuaGtn8pZyQMSLuQ/playlists
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Nice plan for content warnings on Mastodon and the Fediverse. Now you need a Mastodon/Fediverse button on this blog.