Geology Bites: An Earth and Planetary Science Podcast
- Folgen
- 130
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- monatlich
- Letzte Folge
- 6. Nov. 2026
Über den Podcast
What moves the continents, creates mountains, swallows up the sea floor, makes volcanoes erupt, triggers earthquakes, and imprints ancient climates into the rocks? Oliver Strimpel, a former astrophysicist and museum director asks leading Earth science researchers to divulge what they have discovered and how they did it. To learn more about the series, and see images that support the podcasts, go to geologybites.com. Instagram: @GeologyBites Bluesky: GeologyBites X: @geology_bites Email: [email protected]
Folgen 130
Ed Brook on the Oldest Antarctic Ice
Tiny bubbles of air trapped in Antarctic ice are samples of the ancient atmosphere itself, one of the few direct records of how greenhouse gases and climate have changed together. Until recently, the oldest ice …
Shownotes
Tiny bubbles of air trapped in Antarctic ice are samples of the ancient atmosphere itself, one of the few direct records of how greenhouse gases and climate have changed together. Until recently, the oldest ice known was 2.7 million years old. Now researchers in the Allan Hills, where ice from the interior stalls against the mountains and fierce winds strip away its surface, have found ice about 6 million years old. Ed Brook explains how such old ice survives, how it can be dated with no layers to count, and how noble gases in its bubbles take the temperature of the entire ocean. And he describes a puzzle: over three million years in which the ocean cooled and the ice ages deepened, carbon dioxide fell only modestly. What does that say about how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases? Brook directs COLDEX, the US center set up to find and study the oldest ice, and is University Distinguished Professor of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University.For photos and figures illustrating this episode, visit geologybites.com.
Tony Watts on the Mechanics of Tectonic Plates
By the end of the 1960s, plate tectonics had been widely accepted, but it rested on an untested assumption: that the plates are strong enough to move as rigid slabs. Tony Watts describes how, as a postdoc at …
Shownotes
By the end of the 1960s, plate tectonics had been widely accepted, but it rested on an untested assumption: that the plates are strong enough to move as rigid slabs. Tony Watts describes how, as a postdoc at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in the early 1970s, he helped measure that strength by treating the lithosphere like an elastic beam bending under a load, first at ocean trenches and then at seamounts. The same approach has since been applied to sedimentary basins, where it called into question some estimates of past sea-level rise, as well as to ice sheets and to volcanoes on Mars. He closes with the questions that remain open, including why the plate seems thicker over short timescales than over long ones, and how new subduction zones begin. Watts is Emeritus Professor of Marine Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oxford.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/tony-watts-on-the-mechanics-of-tectonic-plates
Torgeir Andersen on Ultrahigh-Pressure Metamorphism
Continental crust is buoyant, which is why continents stand high above the ocean floor. Yet rocks in western Norway contain microscopic grains of coesite, a form of quartz that forms only under pressures found …
Shownotes
Continental crust is buoyant, which is why continents stand high above the ocean floor. Yet rocks in western Norway contain microscopic grains of coesite, a form of quartz that forms only under pressures found about 100 km down. A slab of continent was dragged deep into the mantle, and then came back up.
In this episode, Torgeir Andersen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Oslo, explains how the rocks of Norway's Western Gneiss Region made that round trip some 400 million years ago, and why a few isolated diamond-bearing pods may record local overpressure rather than even greater depth.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/torgeir-andersen
Brian Wernicke on Lithospheric Extension and the Basin and Range Province
Where tectonic plates collide, the result is clear: the edge of a plate crumples and throws up a mountain belt. But where a plate is stretched rather than squeezed, the evidence is usually lost, because the …
Shownotes
Where tectonic plates collide, the result is clear: the edge of a plate crumples and throws up a mountain belt. But where a plate is stretched rather than squeezed, the evidence is usually lost, because the thinned lithosphere subsides and the basins that form fill with sediment.
The Basin and Range Province of the western United States and northwestern Mexico is the great exception. Between the Colorado Plateau and the Sierra Nevada, dozens of mountain ranges march north in near-parallel array, in a crust that has been pulled out to about twice its original width — and it is still stretching today.
In this episode we look at how we know that: from GPS antennas bolted into bedrock that measure the province widening in real time, to the record of ancient earthquakes, to the dismembered thrust sheets that let the whole region be reassembled as it was 20 million years ago. We also discuss the low-angle detachment faults that have brought rock from fifteen kilometres down up to the surface and why a stretched province still stands a mile high.
Brian Wernicke is an Emeritus Professor in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/brian-wernicke
Bernhard Steinberger on Whether Hotspots Are Fixed
Volcanic island chains like Hawaii record the passage of a plate over a hotspot — a plume of hot rock rising from deep within the mantle. For decades, hotspots were assumed to be fixed, providing a stationary …
Shownotes
Volcanic island chains like Hawaii record the passage of a plate over a hotspot — a plume of hot rock rising from deep within the mantle. For decades, hotspots were assumed to be fixed, providing a stationary frame of reference against which to measure the absolute motions of the plates. But are they? Bernhard Steinberger has spent his career modeling how mantle flow carries plume conduits sideways as they rise, setting each hotspot drifting on its own course. In the podcast, he explains how paleomagnetism, the ages of volcanoes along hotspot tracks, and relative plate motions can be combined to disentangle plate motion, hotspot drift, and true polar wander — and how, even in motion, hotspots can still anchor the plates to the deep Earth.
Steinberger is a geophysicist at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/bernhard-steinberger
Sonia Tikoo on the Moon's Magnetic Field
We have known for decades that the Moon once generated a strong magnetic field — comparable in strength to Earth's — throughout the period from about 4.25 to 3.5 billion years ago. Only in the past few years …
Shownotes
We have known for decades that the Moon once generated a strong magnetic field — comparable in strength to Earth's — throughout the period from about 4.25 to 3.5 billion years ago. Only in the past few years have we learned that the field didn't simply switch off then: it weakened dramatically but lingered on, faintly, until as recently as 1.5 billion years ago, before disappearing entirely. As Sonia Tikoo explains in the podcast, we don't really understand either how the early field grew so strong or how any field could last so long — and no single mechanism seems able to account for both the intense early epoch and the long, weak tail that followed.
Sonia Tikoo studies the history of magnetic fields on the Moon and other small solar system bodies using paleomagnetism and fundamental rock magnetism. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geophysics at Stanford University.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/sonia-tikoo
Steve Brusatte on the Dinosaurs That Survived the Asteroid
Birds are the only dinosaurs that survived the asteroid impact 66 million years ago — but not all birds did. In this episode, Steve Brusatte draws on the fossil record to explain which birds came through the …
Shownotes
Birds are the only dinosaurs that survived the asteroid impact 66 million years ago — but not all birds did. In this episode, Steve Brusatte draws on the fossil record to explain which birds came through the extinction, and what set the survivors apart from the many that perished alongside the rest of the dinosaurs. He traces the evolutionary transition from ground-living theropods to modern birds, drawing on the spectacular feathered fossils unearthed over the past three decades in northeastern China.
Brusatte is Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh and author of The Story of Birds, published this year.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/steve-brusatte
Alec Brenner on When Tectonic Plates First Moved
A key development in the history of the early Earth is the formation of lithospheric plates that move independently of one another. In this episode, Brenner describes how he used paleomagnetic methods to detect …
Shownotes
A key development in the history of the early Earth is the formation of lithospheric plates that move independently of one another. In this episode, Brenner describes how he used paleomagnetic methods to detect relative motion between two ancient cratons, the East Pilbara and the Kaapvaal, 3.5 billion years ago. This is a full billion years earlier than any previous such detection, and it enables us to narrow down the kind of tectonics operating in the Paleoarchean. Of the candidate regimes, episodic subduction models fit his data best.
Brenner is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Earth & Planetary Science at Yale University.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/alec-brenner
Steve Jacobsen on Materials in Extreme Environments
Most of the material in the Earth and other planets exists under extremes of pressure and temperature quite unlike those we inhabit on the surface of the Earth. Steve Jacobsen is a mineral physicist who studies …
Shownotes
Most of the material in the Earth and other planets exists under extremes of pressure and temperature quite unlike those we inhabit on the surface of the Earth. Steve Jacobsen is a mineral physicist who studies how rocks and minerals behave under such alien conditions. In the podcast, we discuss his experiments and what we’ve learned about three extreme environments: the core-mantle boundary, the mantle transition zone, and the surface of the Moon.
Jacobsen is a Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. The image shows him in his optical spectroscopy lab, where extreme conditions found throughout the solar system are re-created.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/steve-jacobsen
Esther Sumner on Turbidity Currents
Though turbidity currents are massive and frequent underwater events, we have rarely observed them directly. Esther Sumner is one of the few researchers who has. In the podcast, she describes what it's like to …
Shownotes
Though turbidity currents are massive and frequent underwater events, we have rarely observed them directly. Esther Sumner is one of the few researchers who has. In the podcast, she describes what it's like to instrument an active submarine canyon, what these flows have revealed about the way sediment moves across the seafloor — and the day her team accidentally flew an underwater robot into a live turbidity current in the Mendocino canyon off the coast of California. She is an Associate Professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Southampton.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/esther-sumner
Hal Levison on the Mission to Jupiter's Trojan Asteroids
A key question about the early history of the Solar System is whether the giant planets formed roughly at the distances from the Sun they presently occupy, or, as some theories predict, much closer to the Sun …
Shownotes
A key question about the early history of the Solar System is whether the giant planets formed roughly at the distances from the Sun they presently occupy, or, as some theories predict, much closer to the Sun. The discovery of other solar systems with radically different configurations of planets has made this question more pressing, since it appears that the configuration of the Solar System might be atypical.
In the podcast, Hal Levison explains why the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter offer us the best opportunity to discriminate between the various models of Solar System evolution. And that is why a spacecraft called Lucy is now well on its way to a rendezvous with these asteroids.
Hal Levison is the Principal Investigator of the Lucy mission. He studies the dynamics of astronomical objects and, in particular, the formation and long-term behavior of solar system bodies. He is one of the original proponents of the Nice model (named after the city where it was conceived), a scenario that proposes the migration of the giant planets from an initial compact configuration closer to the Sun to their present positions. He is Chief Scientist in the Department of Space Sciences at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/hal-levison
Sara Pruss on the First Reef Builders
The first multicellular animals to build reefs lived in the Early Cambrian around the time of the Cambrian explosion. They were sponges called archaeocyaths. In the podcast, Sara Pruss suggests that the rise of …
Shownotes
The first multicellular animals to build reefs lived in the Early Cambrian around the time of the Cambrian explosion. They were sponges called archaeocyaths. In the podcast, Sara Pruss suggests that the rise of the archaeocyaths fostered an increase in animal diversity. But they were relatively short-lived, and when they died out in the Middle Cambrian, the diversity declined. Over geological time, reef-building organisms appear and disappear again and again until the corals we have today appeared in the Middle Triassic, about 240 million years ago.
Pruss is currently trying to understand why reefs are such a persistent feature of the geological record, despite the environmental stresses imposed on them. She is a Professor of Geosciences at Smith College.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/sara-pruss
Michael Manga on Wet Eruptions
Water can have a dramatic effect on the style of an eruption. In the podcast, Michael Manga explains how the most powerful eruptions, such as the 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption, occur when hot magma comes into …
Shownotes
Water can have a dramatic effect on the style of an eruption. In the podcast, Michael Manga explains how the most powerful eruptions, such as the 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption, occur when hot magma comes into contact with water and suddenly generates vast quantities of steam. Water dissolved in magma as it rises to the surface and depressurizes can also drive destructive volcanic eruptions. Manga also talks about water-driven volcanism on Mars and on the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Manga is a Professor in the Earth and Planetary Science department of the University of California, Berkeley.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/michael-manga
Carina Hoorn on the Evolution of the Amazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the most biodiverse region on Earth, being the home of one in five of all bird species, one in five of all fish species, and over 40,000 plant species. In the podcast Carina Hoorn explains …
Shownotes
The Amazon Basin is the most biodiverse region on Earth, being the home of one in five of all bird species, one in five of all fish species, and over 40,000 plant species. In the podcast Carina Hoorn explains how the rise of the Andes and marine incursions drove an increase in biodiversity in the Early Miocene. This involved the arrival of fresh river-borne sediments from the eroding mountains and the diversification of aqueous environments caused by influxes of salt water during the marine incursions.
Hoorn is an Associate Professor in the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam and Research Associate at the Negaunee Integrative Research Center, Earth Science Section, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/carina-hoorn
Anat Shahar on What Makes a Planet Habitable
Over 6,000 exoplanets have now been found, and the number is constantly rising. This has galvanized research into whether one of them might host life. Since all forms of life on Earth require liquid water, at …
Shownotes
Over 6,000 exoplanets have now been found, and the number is constantly rising. This has galvanized research into whether one of them might host life. Since all forms of life on Earth require liquid water, at least at some stage in their life cycle, it is natural to suppose that in order to be habitable, an exoplanet should also have liquid water. While much of the public discussion has focussed on constraining the so-called Goldilocks zone, i.e., not too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist, an equally key issue is how a planet would get its water in the first place. In the podcast, Anat Shahar explains how her modeling and experiments predict that plenty of water would form as a result of chemical reactions between the hydrogen atmospheres observed on many exoplanets and the magma ocean with which planets initially form..
Shahar is a Staff Scientist and Deputy for Research Advancement at the Earth and Planets Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/anat-shahar
Keith Klepeis on How Plutons Form
Plutons are bodies of igneous rock that crystallize from magma at depth below the Earth’s surface. But even though this magma never makes it to the surface, it still has to travel many kilometers up from its …
Shownotes
Plutons are bodies of igneous rock that crystallize from magma at depth below the Earth’s surface. But even though this magma never makes it to the surface, it still has to travel many kilometers up from its source near the base of the crust to the upper crust where plutons form. In the podcast, Keith Klepeis explains how it makes that journey and describes the shape of the resulting structures. Many of his findings come from one region in particular that provides an exceptional window into the origin, evolution, and structure of plutons – the Southern Fiordland region of New Zealand’s South Island.
Klepeis is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Geosciences at the University of Vermont.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/keith-klepeis
Tom Herring on High-Precision Geodesy
There are three main types of geodetic measurement systems — satellite-based systems such as GPS, very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), and interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (InSAR). While each type …
Shownotes
There are three main types of geodetic measurement systems — satellite-based systems such as GPS, very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), and interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (InSAR). While each type of systems has its particular strengths, the cost of satellite-based receivers has plummeted. Millimeter-level accuracy will soon be incorporated into phones. This has broadened the kinds of geological questions we can now address with such systems. In the podcast, Tom Herring describes how these systems are giving us new insight into plate motions, slow and fast deformation associated with faults and earthquakes, the Earth’s rotation, as well as applications in civil engineering, such as dams and tall buildings, and agriculture.
Herring is a pioneer in high-precision geodetic analytical methods and applications for satellite-based navigation systems to study the Earth’s surface. He is a Professor in the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/tom-herring
Jiří Žák on the Orogenies that Shaped Central Europe
In this episode, Jiří Žák describes the two main orogenies whose remnants figure prominently in central European geology: the Cadomian orogeny that lasted from the late Neoproterozoic to the early Cambrian (c …
Shownotes
In this episode, Jiří Žák describes the two main orogenies whose remnants figure prominently in central European geology: the Cadomian orogeny that lasted from the late Neoproterozoic to the early Cambrian (c. 700 Ma to c. 425 Ma) and the Variscan orogeny that occurred in the late Paleozoic (c. 380 Ma to 280 Ma). The Cadomian took place on the northern margins of Gondwana, only later to rift and travel north to form what was to become Europe. The Variscan was caused by the collision of Gondwana with Laurussia in the final stages of the assembly of the supercontinent Pangea. Both orogenies have been heavily eroded, and we see their imprint in the form of metamorphic rocks, volcanic rocks, granites, and deformation structures. These are scattered across Europe, from southern Britain to eastern Europe.
Žák has been studying the geology of central Europe for over 25 years using methods ranging from structural studies in the field to detrital zircon geochronology. He is a Professor in the Institute of Geology and Paleontology at Charles University in Prague.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/jiri-zak
Claudio Faccenna on the Dynamics of Subduction Zones
Subduction zones can be very long-lived, persisting for tens of even hundreds of millions of years. During that time they rarely stay still, but instead retreat, advance, move laterally, or reverse direction …
Shownotes
Subduction zones can be very long-lived, persisting for tens of even hundreds of millions of years. During that time they rarely stay still, but instead retreat, advance, move laterally, or reverse direction. In the podcast, Claudio Faccenna discusses the processes that govern these movements. It turns out that they depend not only on the properties of the subducting slab, but also on the environment, including the proximity of other subduction zones.
Faccenna has been studying how convergent margins evolve for over 30 years, concentrating particularly on the Mediterranean region. He is Head of the lithospheric dynamics section at the Helmholtz Center for Geosciences at GFZ in Potsdam in Germany and also a Professor at the Department of Science at Roma Tre University.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/claudio-faccenna
Cees Van Staal on the Origin of the Appalachians
In the podcast, Cees Van Staal tells us about the Paleozoic tectonic events that led to the formation of the Appalachians. The events are closely related to those involved in the Caledonian orogeny and the …
Shownotes
In the podcast, Cees Van Staal tells us about the Paleozoic tectonic events that led to the formation of the Appalachians. The events are closely related to those involved in the Caledonian orogeny and the mountains it created in what is now Ireland, Scotland, east Greenland, and Norway, as discussed in the episode with Rob Strachan. However, the Appalachians that we see today are not the worn-down remnants of the Paleozoic mountains. Instead, they reflect much more a topography that was created during processes associated with rifting and magmatism that accompanied the opening of the Atlantic Ocean as well as the effects of the ice ages as recently as about 10,000 years ago.
Van Staal has been studying the Appalachians for over 35 years, focusing especially on the large-scale tectonics of their formation. He is Emeritus scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada and an Adjunct/Research Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/cees-van-staal
Andreas Fichtner on the Frontiers of Seismic Imaging
In previous episodes of Geology Bites, Barbara Romanowicz gave an introduction to seismic tomography and Ana Fereira talked about using seismic anisotropy to reveal flows within the mantle. In this episode …
Shownotes
In previous episodes of Geology Bites, Barbara Romanowicz gave an introduction to seismic tomography and Ana Fereira talked about using seismic anisotropy to reveal flows within the mantle. In this episode, Andreas Fichtner explains how, despite the many fiendish obstacles that stand in our way, we are making steady improvements in our ability to image the Earth on both regional and global scales. These give us confidence that we can make three-dimensional maps of certain structures, such as the plume below Iceland, cold continental interiors, mid-ocean ridges, and the large low shear-velocity provinces.
Fichtner is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/andreas-fichtner
Renée Tamblyn on the Origin of Continents
When the Earth formed, it was covered by a hot magma ocean. So when and how did thick, silica-rich continental lithosphere form? Were the first, ancient continents similar to the present-day continents? And did …
Shownotes
When the Earth formed, it was covered by a hot magma ocean. So when and how did thick, silica-rich continental lithosphere form? Were the first, ancient continents similar to the present-day continents? And did the continents form in a burst of activity at a certain point, or was it a gradual build-up over Earth history?
In the podcast, Renée Tamblyn addresses these questions, as well as how early geological processes created molecular hydrogen that may have powered the first forms of life. In her own research, she has focused on the critical role played by water released from hydrous minerals that formed within oceanic lithosphere on the sea floor.
Tamblyn is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bern.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/renee-tamblyn
Folarin Kolawole on Continental Rifting
From East Africa to southwest USA, many regions of the Earth’s continental lithosphere are rifting. We see evidence of past rifting along the passive margins of continents that were once contiguous but are now …
Shownotes
From East Africa to southwest USA, many regions of the Earth’s continental lithosphere are rifting. We see evidence of past rifting along the passive margins of continents that were once contiguous but are now separated by wide oceans. How does something as apparently solid and durable as a continent break apart?
In the podcast, Folarin Kolawole describes the various phases of rifting, from initial widespread normal faulting to the localization of stretching along a rift axis, followed by rapid extension and eventual breakup and formation of oceanic lithosphere.
Kolawole is especially interested in the early stages of rifting, and in his research he uses field observation, seismic imaging, and mechanical study of rocks. He is Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seismology, Geology, and Tectonophysics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/folarin-kolawole
Mike Hudec on Salt Tectonics
Most of Earth’s salt is dissolved in the oceans. But there is also a significant amount of solid salt among continental rocks. And because of their mechanical properties, salt formations can have a dramatic …
Shownotes
Most of Earth’s salt is dissolved in the oceans. But there is also a significant amount of solid salt among continental rocks. And because of their mechanical properties, salt formations can have a dramatic effect on the structure and evolution of the rocks that surround them. This gives rise to what we call salt tectonics – at first sight, a rather surprising juxtaposition of a soft, powdery substance with a word that connotes the larger scale structure of the crust.
In the podcast, Mike Hudec explains the origin of salt in the Earth’s crust and describes the structures it forms when subjected to stresses. He also discusses how salt can play in important role in the formation of oil and gas reservoirs.
Hudec is a research professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/mike-hudec
Vic Baker on Megafloods
Megafloods are cataclysmic floods that are qualitatively different from weather-related floods. In the podcast, Vic Baker explains our ideas as to what causes megafloods and describes the striking evidence for …
Shownotes
Megafloods are cataclysmic floods that are qualitatively different from weather-related floods. In the podcast, Vic Baker explains our ideas as to what causes megafloods and describes the striking evidence for such floods in the Channeled Scablands of Washington State and in the Mediterranean.Vic Baker has been studying megafloods for over 50 years. He is a Professor of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, Geosciences, and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/vic-baker
Lindy Elkins-Tanton on the Origin of Earth's Water
The planets formed out of a cloud of gas and dust around the nascent Sun. Within the so-called snow line, it was too hot for liquid water to exist. Since the Earth lies well within this line, why does it have …
Shownotes
The planets formed out of a cloud of gas and dust around the nascent Sun. Within the so-called snow line, it was too hot for liquid water to exist. Since the Earth lies well within this line, why does it have water? Did it somehow manage to retain water from the outset or did it acquire its water later? In the podcast, Lindy Elkins-Tanton explains how these two scenarios might have played out but she says the evidence strongly favors one of these theories.
Elkins-Tanton has concentrated much of her research career on the formation and evolution of planets, and especially the role of water. She is a Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and Principal Investigator of the NASA Psyche mission.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/lindy-elkins-tanton
Joeri Witteveen on Golden Spikes
Golden spikes are not golden, nor are they generally spikes. So what are they, and, more importantly, what exactly do they represent? In the podcast, Joeri Witteveen explains how we arrived at our present …
Shownotes
Golden spikes are not golden, nor are they generally spikes. So what are they, and, more importantly, what exactly do they represent? In the podcast, Joeri Witteveen explains how we arrived at our present system of defining the boundaries of stages in the rock record with a single marker. Paradoxically, it turns out that the best place for a golden spike is where “nothing happens.” Listen and find out why.
Witteveen is Associate Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Copenhagen.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/joeri-witteveen
Isabel Montañez on Using the Late Paleozoic Ice Age as an Analog for Present Day Climate
The late Paleozoic ice age began in the Late Devonian and ended in the Late Permian, occurring from 360 to 255 million years ago. It was similar to the present day in two key respects: rising atmospheric CO2 …
Shownotes
The late Paleozoic ice age began in the Late Devonian and ended in the Late Permian, occurring from 360 to 255 million years ago. It was similar to the present day in two key respects: rising atmospheric CO2 and recurrent major ice sheets. In the podcast, Isabel Montañez explains how we can use proxies to learn about the climate and ocean conditions that prevailed then. And with the help of a model, she says that we can also learn about sensitivities and feedbacks of Earth systems to rising CO2. Among other things, the model suggests that when the atmosphere reaches the present day level of CO2, significant parts of the ocean may become anoxic and ocean circulation patterns alter.
Montañez is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/isabel-montanez
Ruth Siddall on Urban Geology
At first sight, urban geology sounds like an oxymoron. How can you do geology with no rocky outcrops anywhere in sight within the built-up environments of cities? It turns out you can do a great deal of …
Shownotes
At first sight, urban geology sounds like an oxymoron. How can you do geology with no rocky outcrops anywhere in sight within the built-up environments of cities? It turns out you can do a great deal of geology, and Ruth Siddall has been doing just that for the past 10 years. In the podcast, she describes some of the many aspects of geology, from petrology to paleontology, that can be seen very clearly in building stone. She also takes us on a walking tour in London from the Monument to the Great Fire of London to the Tower of London.
Siddall has developed nearly 50 urban geology-themed walks and built up a database of over 4,300 urban localities of geological interest. She is a postdoctoral researcher at Trinity College, Dublin, studying the social history and geological provenance of stone in 18th century buildings in Britain and Ireland.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/ruth-siddall-1-1
Richard Fortey on Deep Time
The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. How can we begin to grasp what this vast period of time really means, given that it is so far beyond the time scale of a human life, indeed of human civilization? …
Shownotes
The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. How can we begin to grasp what this vast period of time really means, given that it is so far beyond the time scale of a human life, indeed of human civilization? Richard Fortey has devoted his long and prolific research career at the Natural History Museum in London to the study of fossils, especially the long-extinct marine arthropods called trilobites. In an earlier episode of Geology Bites, he talked about measuring time with trilobites. In this episode, he describes how it was the fossils in the geological record that gave us the first markers along the runway of deep time, providing the structure and language within which our modern conception of deep time emerged.
Illustrations and full transcript: https://geologybites.com/richard-fortey-deep-time
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