olelog

When I was given a grab-bag of rock specimens the other week, this piece of limestone studded with little Devonian corals caught my eye. A few quick tests told me I could try acid digestion on it, so that's what I did. See the process, the results and the trade-offs after I bathed it in hydrochl ...

I spent a fair amount of my late teens visiting wild caves. Then I moved to a place with no caves, moved again, and many years later I'm not sure I could repeat anything I used to do underground. But I still enjoy a tour of a good show cave, especially when they lay on the science instead of the ...

For me, the science news of the week was the Nature paper this week announcing that the genes of Emiliania huxleyi have been sequenced. "Ehux" is an extremely important member of the ocean's plankton that grows almost everywhere in the world and pulls carbon dioxide out of the water—and th ...

Simon Wellings, of the Metageologist blog, has finally addressed a key topic for the future of the geoscientific professions: are we properly fascinating our children with geology? Since kids avoid the outdoors these days and get their stimulation from video screens, his new post on the geology ...

I love it when Forum visitors come by with pictures of things they've found. It's refreshing when ordinary, non-geological people respond to objects as they really are. This piece of waste from some historical glassmaker is a great example. The geologist ignores it because it's so obviously not ...

Isen omkring Nordpolen forsvinder hurtigere, end selv de mest skeptiske...

Det svenske Vattenfall overtog tre danske kulfyrede kraftværker –...

I Sverige har en mineralsamler fundet de første svenske diamanter...

Dig og klimaet Informationscenter for Miljø og Sundhed har i dag (1....

Jordskred, som det der onsdag aften rev 400 meter af motorvej E6 og 300 meter...

Tornadoes are difficult to observe, since they rarely move over instruments that can directly measure their winds. A rare exception occurred on Tuesday, when an EF-1 tornado obligingly ran directly over the weather station at Denver International Airport, which recorded a wind gust of 97 mph. Re ...

Gobies are small, elongate Fish related to Perches. They are a highly successful group with other 2000 species and are found across the globe. There are both marine and freshwater Gobies, as well as one group, the Mudskippers, that can survive out of water for extended periods of time. The small ...

The awesome LEGO Curiosity rover designed by Stephen Pakbaz is going to go into production!

By Chops This post isn’t about how to talk at conferences (even though they contain strangers), nor is it about the ‘elevator pitch’ sort of thing. What I’m on about today is something a bit less defined: how do you talk to random strangers who are interested in your science? Below, I’ll provide ...

This month's accretionary wedge is about seeing geology in different places. I have mentioned before that I am not a hard-rock geologist. I don't get excited about rocks and minerals, although I'll certainly take note of a particularly impressive specimen. However, I have been known to random ...