Glaciation Northern Scotland

Ductile Structures - You Tube

Moine Thrust - You Tube clip

How Earth Made Us 1. Why people live in tectonic areas

Bang Goes Theory - Iceland magma pressure explosion

Banda Aceh 10th January 2012

Indonesia quake triggers brief tsunami alert

• Praise for Aceh tsunami recovery
• Aceh five years after the tsunami
• New hope in Aceh, five years on

A powerful earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia's Aceh province, prompting officials to issue a brief tsunami warning.

Residents ran into the streets after the 7.3 magnitude quake struck 423km (262 miles) south-west of Banda Aceh. No damage has been reported.

Officials lifted the tsunami alert two hours later.

A quake off Indonesia in 2004 triggered a tsunami killing 230,000 people around the Indian Ocean. Half were in Aceh.

The latest quake struck shortly after midnight on Wednesday local time (18:37GMT Tuesday) and had a depth of 29.1km (18.1 miles), the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The USGS put the earthquake's magnitude at 7.3. Indonesia's earthquake agency initially estimated the quake at 7.6 but later revised it down to 7.1.

In Banda Aceh, sirens blared from mosques and people fled their homes, waiting outside or in some cases heading for higher ground in cars or on motorcycles.

Witnesses said about 100 people gathered on a bridge in the city to see if the quake triggered any significant change in its height.

Patients at a hospital in the town of Seumele were evacuated as a precaution.

Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" - one of the most seismically active regions on earth.

BBC Link Volcanic Vents

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16493787

Rhino Adaptation

Science & Environment

Rhinos' feet tested to see how they support heavy loads

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News

Rhinos are one of the heaviest land animals but one thing puzzles scientists: how do they carry this weight on their stumpy little feet?

Now a team from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) is trying to find out.
Rhinos at Colchester Zoo have been trained to walk across a hi-tech track that is packed full of sensors.
This will allow the researchers to measure the pressure and forces in the rhinos' feet to reveal how the weight is distributed.
Prof John Hutchinson, from the RVC's structure and motion laboratory, said: "Rhino feet are a bit of a mystery to us.
"There is a little bit known about their anatomy and their health, but nothing that is known about the mechanics of their feet, the physics, the physiology, the detailed anatomy or the behaviour of how they use their feet."
Under pressure
To find out more, the researchers went to Colchester Zoo, where the rhinos have been trained by their keepers.
The animals are given a signal - a gentle touch on the horn with a pole - then the idea is that they walk through a small, narrow enclosure, which has been fitted with the pressure track.
The scientists are looking for the rhinos to step directly onto the middle of each pad as they walk through.

Prof John Hutchinson explains how rhinos at Colchester Zoo have been trained to walk across a hi-tech track

Prof Hutchinson said: "The pressure pads measure the amount of force per unit area that the rhinos are placing on individual regions of their feet at a high resolution."
Dr Olga Panagiotopoulou, who is also working on the study, is interested in looking at the differences between how elephants and rhinos carry their weight.
Elephants have five toes that point forwards, giving them a tip-toed stance, as well as a recently discovered sixth "false toe" that points towards their heel, and a squishy pad at the back. Rhinos have three rigid toes, with a more evenly spread pad across their feet.
Dr Panagiotopoulou said: "Our preliminary results show that there is a difference in the distribution of weight between an elephant and a rhino's foot.
"Elephants generate the highest pressure on the outside part of the feet, whereas rhinos have the highest pressures on the inside part.
"The next step is to try to see if there are any anatomical differences or differences in the loco-mechanics to account for this."
Heavy load

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We could draw inspiration and understand how to build devices that can handle heavy loads”

End Quote Prof John Hutchinson RVC

The team is especially interested in finding out more about rhinos because animals in captivity frequently suffer with problems with their feet. Like cattle, their feet can be trimmed to relieve pressure - but not knowing where the highest pressures are generated makes this a process of trial and error.

Prof Hutchinson said: "The more we know about how their feet work, the more we can help them."
The RVC team also said that learning about how rhinos carry their bulk could also lead to interesting applications in the future.
Prof Hutchinson explained: "From understanding the feet of rhinos, as an example of a big land mammal, we could draw inspiration and understand how to build devices that can handle heavy loads and carry them around while moving."

 

USGS and Discovery News Volcano Articles Jan 2012

USGS (@USGS)
1/9/12 9:09 PM
Volcanoes both harass & help mankind. Benefits include fertile soils, new land, mineral resources, etc.: on.doi.gov/AEr9ed #GSVolcano
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/PlusSide/framework.html


Discovery_News (@Discovery_News)
1/9/12 10:37 PM
Which Volcanoes Are Ringing in the New Year? ow.ly/1gCK86
http://news.discovery.com/earth/volcanoes-2012-010912.html

Follow the links

Climate Change

Sun at North Pole

Sun north pole

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Climate Change Modern Anthropogenic Influences

Science & Environment

Carbon emissions 'will defer Ice Age'

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

The climate, if not species, of an Ice Age "ought" to return within 1,500 years

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Climate 'grave' security threat
• The moment Britain became an island
• 'Scary' climate message from past

Human emissions of carbon dioxide will defer the next Ice Age, say scientists.

The last Ice Age ended about 11,500 years ago, and when the next one should begin has not been entirely clear.
Researchers used data on the Earth's orbit and other things to find the historical warm interglacial period that looks most like the current one.
In the journal Nature Geoscience, they write that the next Ice Age would begin within 1,500 years - but emissions have been so high that it will not.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I don't think it's realistic to think that we'll see the next glaciation on the [natural] timescale”

End Quote Prof Lawrence Mysak McGill University

• 800,000 years of Earth history, animated

"At current levels of CO2, even if emissions stopped now we'd probably have a long interglacial duration determined by whatever long-term processes could kick in and bring [atmospheric] CO2 down," said Luke Skinner from Cambridge University.

Dr Skinner's group - which also included scientists from University College London, the University of Florida and Norway's Bergen University - calculates that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would have to fall below about 240 parts per million (ppm) before the glaciation could begin.
The current level is around 390ppm.
Other research groups have shown that even if emissions were shut off instantly, concentrations would remain elevated for at least 1,000 years, with enough heat stored in the oceans potentially to cause significant melting of polar ice and sea level rise.
Orbital wobbles The root causes of the transitions from Ice Age to interglacial and back again are the subtle variations in the Earth's orbit known as the Milankovitch cycles, after the Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovic who described the effect nearly 100 years ago.

Glaciation and its reverse are related to cycles discovered by Milutin Milankovic

The variations include the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, the degree to which its axis is inclined, and the slow rotation of its axis.
These all take place on timescales of tens of thousands of years.
The precise way in which they change the climate of the Earth from warm interglacial to cold Ice Age and back every 100,000 years or so is not known.
On their own, they are not enough to cause the global temperature difference of about 10C between Ice Age and interglacial. The initial small changes are amplified by various factors including the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as warming begins, and absorption of the gas by the oceans as the ice re-forms.
It is also clear that each transition is different from previous ones, because the precise combination of orbital factors does not repeat exactly - though very similar conditions come around every 400,000 years.
The differences from one cycle to the next are thought to be the reason why interglacial periods are not all the same length.

 

Using analysis of orbital data as well as samples from rock cores drilled in the ocean floor, Dr Skinner's team identified an episode called Marine Isotope Stage 19c (or MIS19c), dating from about 780,000 years ago, as the one most closely resembling the present.
The transition to the Ice Age was signalled, they believe, by a period when cooling and warming seesawed between the northern and southern hemispheres, triggered by disruptions to the global circulation of ocean currents.
If the analogy to MIS19c holds up, this transition ought to begin within 1,500 years, the researchers say, if CO2 concentrations were at "natural" levels.
As things stand, they believe, it will not.
Loving CO2 The broad conclusions of the team were endorsed by Lawrence Mysak, emeritus professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who has also investigated the transitions between Ice Ages and warm interglacials.
"The key thing is they're looking about 800,000 years back, and that's twice the 400,000-year cycle, so they're looking at the right period in terms of what could happen in the absence of anthropogenic forcing," he told BBC News.
Continue reading the main story

Climate change glossary

Select a term to learn more:

Adaptation

AdaptationAnnex I countriesAnnex II countriesAnthropogenic climate changeAosisAR4Atmospheric aerosolsBali action planBali roadmapBaseline for cutsBiofuelBlack carbonBoxer-Kerry billBusiness as usualCap and tradeCarbon capture and storage (CCS)Carbon dioxide (CO2)Carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalentCarbon footprintCarbon intensityCarbon leakageCarbon neutralCarbon offsettingCarbon sequestrationCarbon sinkCertified Emission Reduction (CER)Clean Coal TechnologyClean Development Mechanism (CDM)Climate changeCFCCO2Commitment periodCOP15Country in transitionDangerous climate changeDeforestationEmission Trading Scheme (ETS)EU Burden-sharing agreementFeedback loopFlexible mechanismFossil_fuelsG77Geological sequestrationGlobal average temperatureGlobal energy budgetGlobal dimmingGlobal warmingGlobal Warming Potential (GWP)Green Climate FundGreenhouse gases (GHGs)Greenhouse effectHockey stickIPCCJoint implementationKyoto ProtocolLDCsLULUCFMajor Economies Forum on Energy and ClimateMethaneMitigationMonitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV)Nairobi work programNatural greenhouse effectNon-annex I countriesOcean acidificationppm (350/450)Per-capita emissionsPre-industrial levels of carbon dioxideREDDRenewable energyStern reviewTechnology transferTipping pointTwenty-twenty-twenty (20-20-20)UNFCCCWaxman-Markey energy billWeather

Adaptation

Action that helps cope with the effects of climate change - for example construction of barriers to protect against rising sea levels, or conversion to crops capable of surviving high temperatures and drought.

Glossary in full

He suggested that the value of 240ppm CO2 needed to trigger the next glaciation might however be too low - other studies suggested the value could be 20 or even 30ppm higher.

"But in any case, the problem is how do we get down to 240, 250, or whatever it is? Absorption by the oceans takes thousands or tens of thousands of years - so I don't think it's realistic to think that we'll see the next glaciation on the [natural] timescale," Prof Mysak explained.
Groups opposed to limiting greenhouse gas emissions are already citing the study as a reason for embracing humankind's CO2 emissions.
The UK lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, for example, has flagged up a 1999 essay by astronomers Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who argued that: "The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the world's major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population.
"We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are erroneously advocating."
Luke Skinner said his group had anticipated this kind of reception.
"It's an interesting philosophical discussion - 'would we better off in a warm [interglacial-type] world rather than a glaciation?' and probably we would," he said.
"But it's missing the point, because where we're going is not maintaining our currently warm climate but heating it much further, and adding CO2 to a warm climate is very different from adding it to a cold climate.
"The rate of change with CO2 is basically unprecedented, and there are huge consequences if we can't cope with that."
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Tunnel Tiltmeters

http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/PozzuoliTiltmeters/Pozzuoli.html

Tunnel tiltmeters, Pozzuoli, Italy

Volcanic deformation near the Bay of Naples

The Earth's surface near Pozzuoli in the Bay of Naples lies above an active volcanic system that has erupted violently in the past and will do so in the future. See geological summary pdf article by Helen Brand. One million people live near a vast volcanic caldera and several smaller volcanic vents and cones.
Pozzuoli is famous for its archaeological evidence for uplift and subsidence. A reduction of magma pressure beneath the Roman port c.500 AD, flooded the coastal market to a depth of tens of meters. Several Roman villas remain submerged despite inflation of the region c.1500 which raised the coastline 2-5 m. The depth of submergence is recorded by barnacles on the pillars of the Temple of Serapis (now known to be the market place) in the present port of Pozzuoli (see picture at bottom of page). The most recent erupton occurred at Monte Nuovo, Sept.-Oct. 1538 which covered much of Pozzuoli with a thick layer of ash. The energy flux from Solfatara, a region of active gas emissons NE of the Pozzuoli harbour, is estimated currently to be 1 million megajoules/day (equivalent to a kiloton of TNT each day!).
Numerous sensors now monitor the region of subsidence and inflation near Pozzouli. They sense its vertical motion (GPS), surface tilts and flexure(tilt-meters and leveling) and subsurface strain (borehole strainmeters) as the region responds to changes in subsurface magma pressure. (click on map for enlarged views)

In the four decades culminating in 1985 uplift amounted to 3.5 m, inflation since then ceased until Nov 2004 when uplift renewed. Inflation since then has amounted 0.5 m. In early 2009 the harbour of Pozzuoli was rising at a rate of almost 0.4 mm each week according to the GPS unit at RITE (operated by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia Naples (see map above and data below).

A magma chamber is believed responsible for the current inflation. It is located 4 km below the Bay and can be modeled as a point source when allowance is made for distortion to the surface strain-field caused by caldera fractures.
This web page describes the long, water-pipe, tilt-meters that were installed 2008/9 by the Universita di Salerno and the University of Colorado.
The image below shows one of the columns of the market square with sea water corrosion assisted by barnacles indicating the 5 m depth of post-Roman submersion prior to uplift in the 15th century and recently.

Eastern column of the Temple of Serapis. THe stained areas indicate former levels of the sea.

View of north sensor and 241 m long pipe of the NS tiltmeter in the northern Pozzuoli tunnel. A distant horizontal light marks the half-way point of the pipe. The NE and NW arms are located behind the camera. Click to enlarge.

Tilt-meter Operation

A water-pipe tilt-meter consists of two sensors, one at each end of a sealed rigid pipe half-full of water. Under isothermal conditions the water surface is an equipotential reference, and tilt of the ground causes one end to fall and the other to rise an equal amount. Tilt is derived from the difference in height change detected by the two sensors, divided by the length between them. Temperature variations underground, and pressure variations in the pipe, are negligible, hence the water surface, in principle, provides a drift-free horizontal datum: tilt stability each year is typically 0.1 microradians and tilt precision at weekly periods is about 1 nanoradian. Tilt resolution at one minute intervals is 0.1 nanoradian
The sensors can detect water level changes of 0.1 micron (roughly 1/500 of the thickness of a human hair). Because the Pozzuoli tunnels are vented, temperature variations exceeding 1 deg C occur, which adds noise to the measured tilt signal. By adding a third sensor to the center of the water pipe it is possible to obtain three measures of tilt, permitting signal integrity to be verified. To further discriminate real tilt from local noise temperature is measured at each sensor to millidegree precision.

Clusters of tilt-meters have been installed in two tunnels. In the northern tunnel tiltmeters operate in three azimuths. In the southern tunnel three pipes measure two azimuths. Each sensor detects a combination of body tide, load tide and volcano inflation. Data are sampled 16 times per second and averaged for 90 s. The data are recorded each minute with 16 bit A/D converters on a local data logger. An independent 12-bit data logger averages the data for 30 minutes and these data are transmitted using the Iridium satellite every 120 minutes (programmable remotely). An email alert is sent to local scientists when the tilt signal exceeds a prescribed level, or in the event of a local power failure.

Data

Location of tiltmeters

click on map for enlarged views

Water level sensors

Each of the 12 sensors in the tiltmeter array consists of four 5-cm-diameter, chromium-plated, copper balls supporting a central ferromagnetic core whose vertical position is monitored to a precision of 0.1 micron by an LVDT fastened to a stable pillar 20 m underground.

Microwatt heaters prevent moisture condensing on the floats and lid, and a 6 micron thick flexure strip guides the core within the body of the LVDT. The tiltmeter sensors are calibrated to 1% accuracy. Intercalibration accuracy can be verified by adding or removing 1 litre of water to the pipe.

Pozzuoli Tiltmeters North, PTNO

Two 12 cm diameter pipes are strapped to the stone wall of the tunnel at 1.5 m intervals. The photo above shows the north water-level sensor at the end of the 241-m-long north/south pipe.
The figure below illustrates in map view the geometry of the three pipes and the sensor naming scheme in the northern Pozzuoli tunnel. A single pipe links the NW, SE & NE sensors, a geometry limited by the lengths of the side tunnels. The length of the north/south pipe is limited to 240.6 m by the slope of the tunnel and by the floor-to-ceiling height.

Pozzuoli Tiltmeters South PTSO

The figure below illustrates the geometry of the three pipes and the sensor naming scheme in the southern Pozzuoli tunnel. Separate pipes link the NW & CH sensors, the CL & SE sensors, and the NE and SW sensors.The steep slope of the tunnel down to the NW limits the longest horizontal pipe to 70 m. The CH (centre low) sensor is 1.5m below the CH (centre high) sensor.

Long Water-pipe tilt-meters monitoring volcanic inflation and deflation near Pozzuoli, Italy.

Razor Ridges

Plates V Plumes Powerpoint

As promised :)

The plate v plume theory

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Fault Types Powerpoint

Faults types

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Summer Work

@BritGeoSurveyBGS

Are you studying Earth Sciences? Fancy an opportunity to do some summer vacation work with the BGS? Then look... http://fb.me/17gmd1Gik

Partial Melting Link

A2 Geologists I will add more to this and will upload a powerpoint when I get some time :)

“@USGS: It's a universal misunderstanding! http://bit.ly/uloHrk The mantle is not molten!”

Page down and read. Ax

Competition - entry would look good on a UCAS form....

@geo_timesGeographical Times

 

@geoggeol  Angela will you be getting your students to submit work? They could be in with a chance of winning a lomography camera!

The #competition is here http://geotimes.org.uk/#/competition/4556843270 There's even a great video explaining it all on there!

@geo_timesGeographical Times

email geographicaltimes@gmail.com with anything that could be printed onto a newspaper format like: a poem, a song, an essay, a sketch, a photograph, a doodle, a diagram, or ANYTHING!

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Glacial Landscapes PowerPoint

Glacial landforms

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Careers in Geology (U.S.)