A while ago, I asked Twitter for suggestions of topics for future posts. A great one came from Brian Romans, a Prof at Virginia Tech and a long-standing pillar of the online geoscience community: How fast can rocks undergoing metamorphism be exhumed to the surface? How do we know (how can we measure/estimate)? https://t.co/qcsnxXKqhL — Brian… Continue reading Speed of metamorphism: cooling down
Category: Ireland
BRITICE-CHRONO: death of an ice sheet
Using many different techniques, dozens of scientists are studying the death of an ice sheet that once covered Britain and Ireland. They want to understand the future fate of modern-day ice. The phrase “ice sheet” doesn’t do justice to our subject: this is not something you shatter when stepping on a frozen puddle. Covering over… Continue reading BRITICE-CHRONO: death of an ice sheet
Granites and their space problem
Look at a large-scale geological map and, provided the area is not covered in recent sediments, there will be large areas of red showing outcrops of granite. There are many ways in which rocks can be melted to produce granitic magma. But it’s long been recognised that there is a ‘space problem‘: how do those big… Continue reading Granites and their space problem
Ireland: good terrain for terrane training
The word terrane has a very specific geological meaning. Usually short for tectonostratigraphic terrane, they’ve been defined as “fault-bounded crustal blocks that preserved a geological record distinct from that of adjacent terranes” (Jones et al., 1983). The concept was first coined as a way of understanding the rocks of the North America Cordillera. We know now… Continue reading Ireland: good terrain for terrane training