» What’s up? The Friday links (70)

2015-02-13 | Andreas Rudersdorf in The Friday Links

UPDATE: Now another link inside! What have you done this week? Been busy all the time? Did you manage to finish everything that you’ve planned? I hope you did. Today is Friday and here are your links!

UPDATE: I totally forgot to link this article by Edwin Cartlidge on the L’Aquila case: Why the Italian earthquake scientists were exonerated.

After a great week full of improving my skills and knowledge on earthquake deformation on various scales, I am happy to have met such a large number of decent scientists during Deform2015. Today is already the last day of the thematic school. If you are interested in digging deeper, take your time and read what @ruthamey posted on the speakers and our field trip. Also, see the group shot.

Happy Darwin Day! Oh no, that was yesterday. All over the world people were celebrating the foundation and success of Charles Darwin’s work – or they were just happy he eventually joined their society.

The Outreach and Communications section over at the EGU Blogs wrote a brief history of science communication, which is defenitively not just a recently growing issue. Bridges between scientists and basically everybody else from pope to politician have been built and rebulit since a quite long time.

Also, the EGU Blogs are still growing: Welcome to the Geoblogosphere, Atmospheric Sciences! Dasaraden Mauree has just published the first post of many to come. They aim to address the major challenges related to the atmospheric sciences, and start with some hurdles the scientific community is trying to overcome.

Speaking of atmospheric sciences, let’s jump to this stunning photograph of a lightning-illuminated eye-wall of a cyclone I found over at the AGU Blogopshere, originally taken by @AstroSamantha.

You don’t want to go mapping, because it’s raining? Or snowing? Or because it’s too far away? Any good excuse? Metageologist prepared this great how-to on mapping from above: Great Geology in Google Maps.

Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal pointed me to this USGS press release which says that the 2011 DC Area Earthquake may have been felt by more people than any other known US earthquake. Being felt over much of the Eastern U.S. and Southeastern Canada, it also triggered the automatic shutdown of a nuclear power plant.

The Landslide Blog linked this impressive landslide stop motion video from Val Parghera spanning a time frame of almost two years. And Petley added:

When viewed at this speed it becomes clear that the behaviour of the Val Parghera landslide is very much like a fluid flow, even to the extent of seeing higher velocities in the lower, narrow part of the landslide. Second, there is a very complex coupling between the main body of the landslide and this lower portion. At times it appears that the lower part slides first, removing the support for the main body of the landslide, whilst at others it seems that the main portion moves, loading the lower part of the slope. And third, the most impressive movement event occurs at the end of March 2014.

This landslide is being investigated by a Swiss team using LiDAR, InSAR and webcams since 2013.