saucyapple:

wandering

Playing tricks on you

Quick, how many folds are there in the red layer at the center of this image?

I’l hide the answer below the See more button.

The answer is?

Keep reading

(Source: facebook.com)

The geologic times are a-changin’

Geologic ages have not been known precisely for all that long. Just 65 years ago, the age of the Earth was unknown. Check out this photo for proof! It is a (water damaged) geologic timescale that was found in old files from an iron mine in Southern Utah. At the bottom of the picture, notice the start of the Earth is called “Azoic - Beginning Unknown, 3 to 13 Billion Years.” Also of note is the K/T boundary (when the dinosaurs died) listed as 60 million years ago (instead of 65) and the start of the Cambrian at 520 million years (instead of 541).

-Mr. A

Our past post on Dr. Patterson:http://tinyurl.com/ny3og6p

(Source: facebook.com)

Image caption: “I don’t trust mantle/core geologists because I suspect that, if they ever get a chance to peel away the Earth’s crust, they’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

Image source: https://xkcd.com/2058/

As a mantle petrologist, you bet we would, and we have ways to do it. Bring in a big enough asteroid and you can study both the impact and the material uplifted at the center of the impact structure. Crash Mars into Earth and you can melt the entire planet and have a chance to watch the entire planet crystallize and maybe even form another moon.

Why won’t anyone fund me again?
-JBB

(Source: facebook.com)

meetmeonthecraton:

I used my study break to make this

Siccar Point

The US Geological Survey’s Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of Siccar Point in Scotland, perhaps the most famous angular unconformity on Earth. At this site, naturalist James Hutton recognized that the presence of an angular unconformity required millions of years of Earth history – the first layer of rocks had to be formed, tilted, and eroded, before another layer could be deposited on top. What I particularly like about this image is that if you look along the shoreline to the west of Siccar point, you can actually see the pattern created by the dipping beds of the Old Red Sandstone. There are linear outcrops all along the shoreline that outline the intersection of those beds with the surface – that direction is what geologists call the strike. It even looks like one of the creeks follows that direction for a short distance. To the right of Siccar point, you can no longer see this pattern, as the older and steeper beds strike in a different direction.

JBB

For more on Siccar point, see our previous posts: https://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js11Z9mNFhttps://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1R6HJsLhttps://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js221GUwo

Image credit: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92598/the-abyss-of-time

(Source: facebook.com)

celebratingamazingwomen:

Ursula B. Marvin (1921-2018) was a planetary geologist working for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She won several important awards for her work on the study of meteorites.

She obtained her PhD in Geology from Harvard and was appointed a permanent research staff member at the Observatory the same year. She was the first woman on the American team that conducted research in Antarctica, and analysed the first lunar meteorite. In 1997 she won the Lifetime Achievement Award from Women in Science and Engineering.