Category: Around the Web
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New Theories on Midwest Banded Rocks
Via R&D: A study appearing today (Oct. 11) as an advance online publication in Nature Geoscience offers a new picture of how these colorful bands developed and what they reveal about the composition of the early ocean floor, seawater, and atmosphere during the evolution of the Earth. Previous hypotheses about band formation involved seasonal fluctuations,…
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Researcher uncovers oldest amber ever recorded: The Mystery of Illinois Amber
Via NYTimes: Hat tip: Mark White
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Highest Mountains
Geology.com provides a list of the highest mountains by continent. Photo: Vinson Massif in Antarctica as provided by NASA.
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Now You Can Have an Earth Science Image A Day
Good for bookmarking: Earth Science Image of the Day. Also, many members have photos that would be great for this site. (Photo: George Higginson)
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Torosaurus Challenge
Scientific American reports on one of the important papers presented at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: “A rare horned dinosaur known as Torosaurus may not be a distinct species after all, according to a presentation given Friday at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Bristol, England….” Photo of Triceratops skeleton at…
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Presentation by Jack Wittry
Thanks to Andy Jansen for putting Jack’s slides from his talk last week into a file format that could be easily downloaded. Click here to download (.pdf) (only 5 MB). This document will also be kept on the Mazon Creek Reference page.
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News for the Younger Members
A gift idea for those with younger people in their life… the Paleobet poster via Scienceblogs. On the same subject of paleo for the young, the popular band, They Might Be Giants (TMBG), has a fun video and song named “I am a paleontologist”… (this and other songs by TMBG are the Schoolhouse Rock! of…
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Science Friday Has 2 Earth Science Interviews
Science Friday, a weekly radio show about science, provided two interesting interviews this week for those interested in the earth sciences: University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno talks about the new tiny T-Rex. Abstract available here. (Photo: Paul Serano via Science Friday.) Don Brownlee, Principal Investigator, NASA’s Stardust Mission and Professor, Department of Astronomy, University…
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Report that NPS Has Fewer Geologists
Arizona Geology posts about an interesting issue (via geology.com): … The NPS [National Park Service] Geologic Resources Division was not established until the late 1990s and instead of growing, they are shrinking. They are now at 20 people, down 9 in the past few years. Most parks that were designated so because of their geologic…
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Rock Slide Site
Rock slide site, rock slide site, sock rock lite… (just try to say Rock Slide Site three times and get it right.) From David Petley’s blog, On the Slide, interesting articles and photographs about rock slides via Geology.com Photo on the left: A long runout landslide from Sichuan in China taken by kenner116.
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Largest Crystals in the World
Description of exploration of the Crystal Cave of Giants. The explorer, George Kourounis, has other photo galleries as well. From the site: … The crystals themselves are made of selenite which is crystallized gypsum, the same material used in drywall construction. Except these crystals formed over a span of about half a million years in…
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Scott’s Rock Trips
Interesting web site displaying photos and descriptions of this person's rock hunting trips. The latest trip was to an open pit mine on Rainbow Ridge in Virgin Valley Nevada for opals. (via geology.com)
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World Faces Possible Shortage of Technology Minerals
Via the Telegraph: A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global…
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NASA Goes Inside a Volcano
From NASA JPL via geology.com: PASADENA, Calif. — Scientists have placed high-tech “spiders” inside and around the mouth of Mount St. Helens, one of the most active volcanoes in the United States. Networks such as these could one day be used to respond rapidly to an impending eruption. On July 14, 2009, these spider pods…
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Calling on Women Geoscientists
Via ScienceBlogs Over the past several years, the geoscience blogosphere has blossomed so much that this fall, the Geological Society of America (GSA) will be convening a Pardee Keynote Symposium called “Google Earth to Geoblogs: Digital Innovations in the Geosciences.” Kim Hannula started wondering how blogs serve women geoscientists. Kim recruited the rest of us…
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Photos from Flickr
One can see many beautiful photos on Flickr. Here is a beautiful photo of a pyrite crystal as taken by cobalt123.
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(broken link) Iron of Earth’s Past
Via Geology.com from Science News: Scientists are decoding the geological secrets of banded iron formations, By Sid Perkins: …. BIFs, as they’re known to geologists, are enigmatic. All seem to have started out as sediments on ancient seafloors, and by some estimates the oxide mineral accumulated in all known BIFs contains about 20 times as much oxygen…
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Boy Hit By Meteorite
German boy sees light, feels burn as pea sized meteorite bounces off his hand, gets knocked down, stands up and sees foot wide crater next to him… he couldn’t hear so well for awhile but lives to tell about it…. Update: It may be a hoax… the Bad Astronomy blog argues both ways and some…
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Top Dollar Paid for Dinosaur Skulls
Article from BBC News via Geology.com: “…A giant 65-million-year-old Triceratops skull sold at Bonhams’ Natural History auction for $242,000 (£148,000). A skull from a cousin of the T. rex, the Alioramus remotus, went for $206,000 (£126,000). Both sold for almost double the original estimates…” Photo: peter_e_lee.
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The Role of Collapsing Mountains in Italy’s Recent Earthquake
NPR Podcast: “The quake that struck L’Aquila in central Italy early Monday morning is a symptom of an unusual phenomenon: collapsing mountains…” Photo of Gran Sasso and Campo Imperatore:Ekki01 via Wikipedia.
