Tag: tectonics
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The geology that holds up the Himalayas is not what we thought, scientists discover
Live Science has a story about the what is holding up Himalayas and it’s it isn’t what we thought. Scientists had theorized the crumpled region caused by the squeezing of Tibet by the tectonic forces of the Indian sub-continent colliding with the Asia had doubled the thickness of Earth’s crust beneath the Himalayas and Tibetan…
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The largest flood in Earth’s history burst through Gibraltar and Sicily and refilled the entire Mediterranean in just a few years
The Conversation has an article about the mother of all floods… the flooding of the Mediterranean about 5 million years ago. The Atlantic Ocean seeped it’s way through Strait of Gibraltar, which was blocked by the movement of tectonic plates. This caused the Mediterranean Sea to dry up and led to the formation of large…
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Here’s How Earthquakes Are Measured
The New York Times has an interesting article that explains the moment magnitude scale used to calibrate the strength of an earthquake. The logarithmic was proposed by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori in 1979. The method measures an earthquake’s magnitude based on its seismic moment. It replaced the older Richter scale because it saturates…
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PBS Eons: How the Himalayas Changed the World
There's a new episode of PBS Eons. This one explains how the Himalayan orogeny has affected the whole Earth over the last 50 million years. The rise of the Himalayas affected more than just the immediate area. Turns out, we may have them to thank for everything from the rise of giant flightless birds in…
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How Marie Tharp Changed Geology Forever
Forbes has a story about Marie Tharp and her contributions to geology. During the International Geophysical Year 1857, Marie Tharp noticed a series of valleys and ridges in the middle Atlantic Ocean. These “lines” are essentially the mark of the sea floor spreading at the tectonic plate boundary, although at the time, the concept of…
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We Could Be Witnessing the Death of a Tectonic Plate, Says Earth Scientist
Live Science has a story about the tectonic plates along the West Coast of the United States. The plate named Juan de Fuca (pronounced “wahn de fyoo-kuh”), which is about the size of Michigan, has a large tear. The plate is located off the coast of Northern California extending north past Oregon, Washington, up to…
