Awesome geoblog

http://laueruptions.blogspot.com/

This is the blog of the just-completed Lau eruptions oceanographic cruise. Most people, when cruising the South Pacific between Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga, are content with entertaining themselves with the onboard activities.

Not these guys.

They used their cruise to pilot robotic cameras into the teeth of several actively erupting undersea volcanoes. Click through to see pictures of red hot magma 1 km down, steam explosions, and pillow basalts forming right before your eyes.

Two!

A carnival of space

Is here.

Columnar basalt in the rain

Welcome back to the blogosphere, Chris.

Geochronological goofiness

Why does the Eoarchean come before the Paleoarchean, when the Eocene comes after the Paleocene?

Mavrick scientists: the good, the bad, and the ugly

It has been an interesting few months for rogue geoscientists. The maverick scientist is an icon of popular culture, despite being almost as mythical as a genteel cowboy, or a complete stratigraphic section. Additionally, the number of wannabe lone geniuses, whether delusional crackpots or slickly packaged corporate mouthpieces, far exceeds the supply of genuine articles. Never-the-less, the real deals have been having a good autumn (or spring, since the ones in the news are American).

To clarify, a maverick (or rogue) scientist is a person who advocates a scientific position that is contrary to mainstream though on that issue. For example, I had a grad school professor who didn’t believe in hot spots- he was of the opinion that the potential temperature of MORB was systematically undercalulated, and that a correct value put OIB and MORB within a few tens of degrees. Needless to say, this didn’t go down well in the geophysics side of the building.

As scientific knowledge advances, competing theories will gain supporting or contradictory evidence. This, in turn, will change the number of people who accept one hypothesis or the other. If a particular hypothesis end up being defended by very few stubborn individuals against an overwhelming horde of scientists and data, that’s when those few can be considered to be mavericks.

The first maverick geoscientist of recent note is Hiroshi Ohmoto, of Penn State University. Professor Ohmoto is a long and tireless advocate for oxygen in the Archean atmosphere and hydrosphere, despite the mainstream opinion that surficial conditions were generally reducing during that time. The recent Nature Geoscience paper (for which he is last, but corresponding, author) is just one in a long line of papers which present evidence for sulphur and Iron in high oxidation states in early sediments.

While the surficial conditions of the early Earth are very important for mineral exploration in Archean terranes and the early evolution of life, the Archean isn’t something that many people get emotionally attached to. For that you need volcanoes, dinosaurs, and massive cometary impacts. And that brings us to our second maverick:

Gerta Keller’s group at Princeton has an about-to-be published paper suggesting that the terminal cretaceous extinction event was caused by volcanoes, not the Chicxulub impact. This has caused an interesting ruffle in the blogosphere.

At their best, Mavericks force mainstream scientists to reassess their assumptions and double check their observations. This is a good thing, and excellent examples of scientific discussion of this type can be found at Kim or Survat’s blogs. The worst behavior of scientists behaving badly is also brought out, as is seen in the ad hominem attack of ‘Avondale’ in the comments of the Universe Today article.

So how do you tell the difference between a maverick and a crackpot? For me, the difference is in the data. If the investigation undertaken produces a dataset that is complete enough and good enough for use by researched pursuing investigations unrelated to the maverick’s pet theory, then they are still doing good science. If, however, their work is useless except in the specific context of the point they are trying to make, then to me that’s where you gotta start wondering.

Score one for the survivalists

For the past three months, the liberal educated elite has been heaping scorn on the small but loud minority of disgruntled conservatives who have been stockpiling cans, throwing away tea, and getting ready to barricade themselves in their homes, or the nearest convenient cave, if they've been foreclosed on.

Then, what do you know, a pandemic strikes, and these same elites are now asking us if we're prepared for the forced closure of schools, shops, and workplaces.

It's a shame this plague is related to swine, since irony tastes best with bacon.

Administration selects chimpanzee to head NASA

In a surprise move, the White House has selected Ham the chimpanzee to run NASA. In a brief statement, the White House press secretary said, “As this country’s first astronaut, this great ape has shown the same courage and commitment as our greatest space heroes. We have no doubt that Ham will have a positive impact on the agency. Despite years of training, chimpanzees have never developed the cost overruns, design mismanagement or political pork barreling that have typified recent NASA endeavors.”

In response to the accusation that all human candidates had either declined the job or been blocked by short-sighted politicians, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said simply, “It’s a jungle out there.” Having been dead for 20 years, Ham declined to comment for this article.