So here's a round up of the geology related news stories this week (week beginning 8th July 2013) so you don't need to go and find them yourself:
So starting off with a quick one, a volcano:
Video footage of the Popocatepetl eruption has been captured by Mexican military aircraft. The footage (for those to lazy to click the link) shows a smoking single vent at the top of the volcano:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23267354
Lake Vostok:
For several years an Antarctic drilling programme has being happening over the sub-glacial Lake Vostok. The task undertaken has not been insignificant as the teams only operate during the summer months and battle against extreme colds in their quest to drill through 4 kilometres of ice to the lake that lies 200 m below sea level.
But the big news is that the lake may contain all manner of extremophiles and possibly even fish! The energy source of such creatures maybe from nutrient rich hydrothermal vents on the lake bed.
It's all quite a thought when considering the environments that might be suitable for life on other worlds or, closer to home, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, Europa and Enceladus (respectively).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23230864
(As aside this article mentions tardigrades, for more info. see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H0E77TdYnY)
The blue planet of silicate rain:
I'm going to pause for a second and let you wrap your head around the implications of an environment that has liquid sand as rain instead of water or light hydrocarbons (a more celestially common substance to find in a planet's rain).
Not so for HD 189733b which orbits it's sun extremely closely 65 light years for our own blue planet.
Where as our blue sky colour comes from the refraction of light in our atmosphere when light is refracted through silicate rain in an atmosphere over 1000 degrees centigrade it produces a stunning azure blue colour.
The planet was observed crossing its sun (which is one of many ways astronomers now have for detecting planets) and joins the myriad of exotic worlds that we are only just discovering.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23275607
(For more info. on exo-planets check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFPnOUSdMdc)
Journey to the centre of the Earth...:
So the core. We know it's hot, dense and made or some sort of iron alloyed with... err... something. Ok, here's the thing, we actually know very little for sure about the Earth's core and considering that the core is approximately a third of the Earth's volume and takes up half the radius that's pretty embarrassing. Anything we do know is from seismic waves which have the unfortunate property of not being particularly good at being able to distinguish what the wave speed is actually being affected by.
Here are the following factors that can control wave speed of a seismic wave (from, say, a nice big earthquake):
Mineral composition, mineral phase, mineral density, melt fraction, mineral alignment and, finally, temperature.
Yeah, it's a wonder we know anything at all.
Anyway, the big news is there's some new theory about the structure of the Earth's core, for more information see this nice article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23180271
If you go down to the woods today...:
And finally, scientists have discovered a 50,000 year old forest that was totally submerged and covered until Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico removed the sediments. Now it's a race against time to discover as much about the forest as possible before the sea water does its work and rots the forest away to nothing...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125801-Scientists-Discover-50-000-Year-Old-Underwater-Forest
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Hopefully I'll have so more science-y news for you next week otherwise I'll just have to wax-geological about this article I'm currently reading about the rheology of suspended solids in solution.
I keep up to date with the latest news in nuclear technology.... I'm a dedicated follower of fission.
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