There’s a saying in Italy that goes almost like “If you miss the train, it’s gone”. Maybe the closest English variant is “Opportunity only knocks once”. Both mean that in life you basically only get one shot. Sometimes I find myself dwelling unnecessarily on certain choices I made in the past that influenced my geological career, and ten years after leaving the field, I still sometimes reflect on this. It’s pointless because you can’t change the past, and if things are the way they are today, there must be a reason for it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. At most, one can reflect on the choices made in order to provide guidance to our children and, why not, understand that perhaps there are no right or wrong choices, only different ones, choices that have led to different outcomes. We can play at imagining how things would have turned out, what results different choices would have led to. We can, but how useful is that? I’m not sure, but here I am, ten years after the “debacle,” reflecting on how, in the end, I can’t complain too much…
Geology
Earth’s First Crust Was Continental – Long Before Plate Tectonics Began
A new discovery is reshaping how scientists understand the early history of Earth, especially how continents formed and when plate tectonics began. In a study published in Nature on April 2, researchers found that Earth’s first crust, formed around 4.5 billion years ago, already had chemical characteristics similar to today’s continental crust.
This means the unique chemical signature found in modern continents may have been present from the very beginning of Earth’s history. The study was led by Professor Emeritus Simon Turner from Macquarie University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, alongside researchers from institutions in Australia, the UK, and France.
Keep on reading on SciTechDaily…
Campi Flegrei | A new study reveals the architecture of the magmatic system at the origin of the bradyseism
The architecture of the deep magmatic system of the Campi Flegrei has been defined to understand the dynamics of the sectors of the caldera, of fundamental importance for the assessment of the volcanic hazard of the area.
These are the results achieved by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in the study “New insights into the recent magma dynamics under Campi Flegrei caldera (Italy) from petrological and geochemical evidence”, just published in the journal AGU’s ‘Journal of Geophysical Research’: Solid Earth.
“Calderas are volcanic depressions formed by the collapse of the ground during huge eruptions”, explains Lucia Pappalardo, INGV researcher and author of the study. “They often manifest phases of ‘unrest’ (or ‘imbalance’), with frequent earthquakes, uplift of the ground (the so-called ‘bradyseism’) and a considerable flux of heat and gas. However, since this activity is due to the complex interactions between magma and the hydrothermal system stored under the volcano, it is always difficult to predict the evolution of these manifestations”.
Why rocks on Earth resemble planet Mercury
Curiosity has killed many an explorer, and Nicola Mari feared he was to be the next.
Driving around Cyprus’s remotest mountains, Mari had relied on his cell phone for directions. But as the light of the day faded, so did his phone battery – and he found himself stuck in the middle of nowhere with little idea of the way back to his lodgings. “I’d travelled for more than 50km (31 miles) without seeing another vehicle,” he says.
Keep reading on BBC…
What the hell does a geologist do?
I often notice that even other well-trained scientists when talking about geology sometimes make trivial mistakes. Perhaps, because Geology is a relatively new science, it is little known. for example, its other “cousin” science (because it is also a “historical” science) Astronomy, is far better known. Probably looking up, toward the stars, makes us dream more than looking down, underground. Furthermore many associate the geologist with her or his freelance profession, the one related to construction, surveys, and the study of the technical characteristics of soils. But that is only one of the many applications of Geology. Others may be the search for subsurface resources, the study of geological risk (earthquakes, eruptions, landslides, floods-themes that perhaps explain the greater fascination of Astronomy than Geology). I could go on but I want to dwell here on what is really typical of the geologist, whatever activity he or she does: the geologist’s field work.
The earth shakes – whose fault is it?
And again a major earthquake fills the pages of the newspapers because of the many thousands deaths. Again no geologist, geophysicist or seismologist is surprised that there was such a strong earthquake in that area. Insiders are well aware of the most dangerous seismic areas in the world. The Anatolian Peninsula, mostly occupied by Turkey, is one of them, on a par with California and Mexico, Japan, Chile and Peru, to give a few examples of states on plate margins. By now we know well the different plates into which the Earth’s lithosphere is divided and where they interact releasing large amounts of energy. So why so many deaths?