Dear fellows,
please stop littering the beaches all over the world. Seriously. I like beaches and I guess so do you, so please, take your trash with you. Last week I’ve been to Oman and worked in the Al Sawadi area, where you have a great coast line (which will be spoiled by a huge hotel-apartment-something complex, soon). The only thing was, you almost couldn’t see the sand because it was covered with oil cans, plastic bags, bottles, tires, more oil cans, buckets, toilets (!), packaging shit, cups, and oil cans. Please, stop that.
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Klaus, Ben, Sascha and me went to visit our colleague Gösta at the GUtech in the Sultanate of Oman. We did some fieldwork for our project which deals with coastal changes. Parts of the Omani coast subside, others appear to be stable or are even uplifted. This might be due to large scaled crustal movements (the Makran Subduction zone is nearby) and/or regional effects. We are trying to find good proxies for reconstructing the Holocene sealevel and climate changes. Additionally, we need to get a grip on the neotectonics that affect the coastal areas. more
Now that the abstract submission deadline has passed you might be interested in somehow paleoseismicity-related sessions at the EGU2012. I decided to group the session by topic and my choice is absolutely based on personal interests. Sorry if I don’t mention every earthquake-related session.
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The sun dominated the geo-news this week. A very strong coronal mass ejection (or was it a sunquake…?) occured and hit Earth’s magnetic field on 24 January. A geomagnetic storm (Kp=5) lead to intense and beautiful northern lights around the Arctic Circle. The web is full of great images, the best ones that I came across can be found here at spaceweather and at National Geographic. more
The University of Oklahoma has set up a “Global Geo-Referenced Field Photo Library“. Once registered, users may upload and geotag their (geological) field photos. Additionally, you can provide information on the geology/geomorphology. This could become a nice database if more people start uploading their images. Imagine you have a braided river system and you can compare different years and seasons. It’s up to you if you want to make your pictures public or if you prefer to keep them private.
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Job Description
The Geosciences Center at the National Autonomous University of Mexico invites applications for Assistant Professor/Researcher Position with expertise in Paleoseismology and Neotectonics. Applicants are required to have a PhD, basic knowledge of Spanish (no fluency is needed), and expertise in field-based Paleoseismology or closely related fields. Applicants with some experience in Landslides effects and evaluation are particularly encouraged.
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Recently, scientists from Switzerland came up with the news that fractured bedrock might amplify earthquake shaking. The say they observed an increase by factor 10, which seems huge. I knew amplifying by sediment basins, but this is new to me.
100 years ago on 6 January, Alfred Wegener presented his continental drift theory for the first time. The Blogosphere was full with articles, among them: more
Matthew chose to take us to the Baikal Rift with his WoGE #326. The Olkhon island is almost as large as Madeira and has some fascinating tectonic features, thanks again for pointing me to that great spot, Matthew! Now it’s time for a new challenge. Find the following feature on GoogleEarth, post the location and a brief description of the geology in the comments, and all the fame will be yours. more
Today’s post is about Whiskey. And Whisky. More precisely, about how to cool it adequately as a geoscientist. I received a great Christmas gift from Andreas – ice cubes made up of “Nordic Rocks”. The manufacturer promises a perfect way of cooling drinks by adding one to three pieces of 400 million year old swedish bedrock. No thinning of the drink, no pollution. more
This beautiful, isolated rock stands in the Alkyonides Gulf, the northwestern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It has some beautiful notches, which indicate recent uplift. It is situated right on the footwall of an active fault, which was activated during the 1981 earthquake sequence. It is not so easy to use those notches as sea level indicators or for measuring tectonic movements if both effects have to be taken into account. The fault has a huge throw and a beautiful scarp (limestone) with lots of slickensides. One of my favourite places in Greece. Well, the entire Perachora peninsula is worth a visit – an earthquake geologist’s Disney Land!
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