The earth’s surface is not fixed. Oceans come and go and continents are constantly moving, breaking up and reforming like blobs of oil on the surface of a stock-pot. Since tectonic plates are not flat (they collectively form the surface of the not-flat earth), their movement over the surface of the earth is best described… Continue reading When continents rotate
Awe in the Arctic
Last Monday night I found myself standing in the dark, on a frozen beach wearing a padded onesie and a furry hat. This is not how I usually spend my Monday nights, to say the least. It was in fact a tremendous, moving experience. I was in Arctic Norway, near the city of Tromsø, with… Continue reading Awe in the Arctic
Mexican silver in Tudor England
Geology and history have much in common. Both seek to understand the past by objective analysis of the traces it has left in the present. Both arose from the application of hand and mind to the study of particular things (outcrops of rock, historical documents). Both now benefit from more technological forms of analysis, as… Continue reading Mexican silver in Tudor England
Dalradian – a Celtic Supergroup
Geology is such a great thing to study because it involves making so many connections through time and space, switching scales from the cosmic to the atomic. This means that challenge for this series of posts about the geology of the west of Ireland is going to be managing scope. So. Although I could start… Continue reading Dalradian – a Celtic Supergroup