I am not sure if the geoscience community has realized that astronomy made three steps forward recently, so I’ll start out of topic. Three major astronomical problems have been solved! Really!
- The Pioneer anomaly (the spacecrafts are descelerating) has been known for a long time, but no one could explain it. Until now (preview paper)! A team of three student’s from Munich finally solved the problem (PDF, German).
- NASA reports that Einstein’s space-time vortex is proven. We waited long for the results of the epic Gravity Probe B experiment. Now it turned out that Einstein was right. Again.
- A student from Monash has found the Universe’s missing mass. Congratulations for solving one of the greatest problems in Astronomy.
What else happened? Well, a UK company had to stop drilling for shale gas in Lancashire after hydrofracturing (most likely) caused a M2.3 earthquake on April 1.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute published a press release, saying that the M9.0 Tohoku earthquake has increased the probability for large events in some parts of Japan. Furthermore, Stanford scientist reported on the unusual fault rupture mechanism of that event.
There are exciting news about Thescelosaurus.
Did you know that there are already seven Darwin Awards related to geology? I didn’t, but this one’s great. Geology strikes back.
A great landslide video caught my eye, showing the Snake River landslide in Wyoming:
Have a nice weekend!
Jim Lehane | 2011-06-09|15:50 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to the Darwin Awards stuff I have been working on. There is far more than 7 I am sure, these are just the ones I have come across at this point.