Geology Bites
90 episodes - English - Latest episode: 18 days ago -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 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.
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Twitter: @geology_bites
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Episodes
Kathryn Goodenough on the Sources of Lithium for a Post-Carbon Society
August 09, 2021 13:59 - 19 minutes - 14.1 MBThe lithium-ion battery was invented about 40 years ago, and is now commonplace in a range of products, from smartphones to electric cars. But if we are to meet the carbon emission goals that governments are setting, electrification, and with it the need for electricity storage, will increase dramatically. Although many new electricity storage methods are being developed, none are as mature as the lithium-ion battery, which will therefore need to be a major part of a carbon-free infrastructu...
Steve D'Hondt on Reviving a 100-Million-Year-Old Bacterial Colony
July 28, 2021 13:20 - 29 minutes - 22.3 MBThe fossil record goes back through the Phanerozoic eon, about 540 million years, and even earlier, into the Ediacaran period. But while the fossils provide incontrovertible evidence of ancient life, the fossils themselves are certainly not alive. In fossils, the original organic matter belonging to the fossilized life form has been replaced by inorganic materials, cast into the shape formerly occupied by the life form. However, in some situations, the original organic matter does survive...
Harriet Lau on the Motions of the Earth on Timescales from Hours to Millennia
June 12, 2021 17:47 - 22 minutes - 16.5 MBThe subfield of geology called geodynamics most commonly refers to the motions associated with convection in the mantle. These are slow by human standards and lead to phenomena such as plate motions, seafloor spreading, mountain building, and volcanos. But the Earth’s interior actually undergoes motion on a whole range of timescales. The shortest of these occurs within seismic waves – in which the vibrations triggered by earthquakes cause tiny elastic movements of the material as they pa...
Craig Jones on the Iconic Landscapes of the American Westerns
June 03, 2021 13:55 - 36 minutes - 31.2 MBMany hundreds of films have been shot on location in the American West. The rugged, inhospitable landscapes are an integral part of what gives so many American Westerns their distinctive character. Although the region is vast, stretching from the Rockies in Wyoming and Colorado to Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California, a few locations have captured the lion’s share of the film industry’s attention. What is it about these landscapes that makes them so photogenic? And how did th...
Claude Jaupart on Whether the Earth is Cooling Down
May 26, 2021 03:05 - 30 minutes - 21.7 MBWe know the Earth was born as a baking inferno. So the presence of a relatively cool surface today suggests that the Earth has cooled a lot since it formed. But the very thin crust on which we subsist is not representative of the Earth as a whole, and although some heat must be escaping from the Earth, there are also ongoing sources of heat. So the answer to the question as to whether Earth is cooling down is not straightforward. Claude Jaupart is Professor of Geophysics at the Université d...
Peter Molnar on Why the Tibetan Plateau is So High
May 13, 2021 02:01 - 29 minutes - 21.5 MBHow can we tell what is happening at the bottom of the lithosphere, especially in one of the most remote places on the planet? Peter Molnar describes how many diverse lines of evidence, from the fossil record to normal faulting point to abrupt elevation changes in Tibet, both before and well after India collided with it. He thinks this tells us that the bottom of the thickened lithosphere there is gravitationally unstable and hot enough to literally drip off into the asthenosphere below, a...
Katie Stack on Mapping the Geology of Mars with the Perseverance Rover
May 08, 2021 01:04 - 28 minutes - 24.9 MBKatie Stack is Deputy Project Scientist for the NASA Perseverance rover that landed in Jezero crater on Mars in February 2021. A geologist by training and an expert on the Martian sedimentary rock record, she has been mapping the geology of Mars since the 2000s. She leads a large team of scientists that will combine orbiter and rover image data to investigate processes that took place on the the ancient surface of Mars. She describes what we are learning with the powerful instruments aboa...
Jan Smit on Resolving a Single Hour of the Cataclysm That Ended the Cretaceous 66 Million Years Ago
May 03, 2021 20:57 - 27 minutes - 19 MBJan Smit is a paleontologist who specializes in abrupt changes in the geological record. After the discovery of an end-Cretaceous surge deposit in North Dakota, he was part of the team that pieced together the striking evidence it contained, particularly its perfectly preserved fossils and tiny glass spherules called tektites. He describes how this led to a detailed picture of the dramatic events that unfolded within an hour or two following the asteroid impact. Jan Smit is Emeritus Profe...
Marie Edmonds on Volcanic Gas
April 30, 2021 23:38 - 23 minutes - 16.8 MBMarie Edmonds is Professor of Volcanology and Petrology at Cambridge University. She studies the cycling of volatile elements such as carbon between the atmosphere and the mantle and the role that volatiles play in melting, magma transport, and the style of volcanic eruptions. She describes how all volcanos emit gas and how the gas can reveal a lot about the origin of the magma and also forewarn of eruptions. Here is is monitoring gases emitted during the 2018 eruption of Kilauea on Hawai...
Gillian Foulger on Explaining Intra-Plate Volcanism Without Mantle Plumes
April 26, 2021 20:09 - 29 minutes - 22 MBGillian Foulger is a leading proponent of the plate hypothesis of volcanism, which posits that volcanism away from plate boundaries can be explained by extensional deformation of the lithosphere with melting of the upper mantle. The plate hypothesis uses plate tectonic theory to explain all volcanism without invoking plumes or hot-spots that originate in the lower mantle. She hosts a lively debate on whether mantle plumes exist at mantleplumes.org. Gillian Foulger is Emerita Professor of ...
Sarah Stewart on a New Scenario For How the Moon Formed
April 20, 2021 02:04 - 30 minutes - 24.2 MBSarah Stewart uses computer-based dynamical simulations and lab experiments to create scenarios for the collision of a massive body with the Earth that can reproduce the composition, orbits, and spins of the Earth and Moon today. Sarah Stewart is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California Davis. In the podcast, she explains how, following a massive impact with another body, the Earth formed a synestia - an inflated disk of gas in which t...
Dietmar Müller on Reconstructing Plate Motions Over a Billion Years of Earth History
April 05, 2021 16:37 - 25 minutes - 17.1 MBDietmar Müller and his team have built interactive software to combine hundreds of diverse geological research studies into a single self-consistent picture of the plate-tectonic motions over deep time. He explains how this astonishing feat was accomplished and points out salient features in the results. Dietmar Müller is Professor of Geophysics at the University of Sydney. In February 2021, his team published an animated billion-year plate reconstruction, which has had an enormous impac...
Bob Anderson on How Geology Affects Landscape
March 28, 2021 02:27 - 28 minutes - 23.3 MBBob Anderson is chair of the department of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is a geomorphologist who has studied many diverse aspects of the landscape, focusing recently on Alpine and Arctic landscapes in which ice plays a prominent role. It was his sense of awe and aesthetic appreciation of patterns in nature that drew him into the field. In the podcast he uses the Sierras as a classic example of how the nature of the bedrock shapes landscape, and explains ho...
David Evans on Supercontinents
March 24, 2021 19:44 - 30 minutes - 25.4 MBMany of us have heard about the most recent supercontinent, which is called Pangea. But there is strong evidence for others with the earliest one now speculated to have formed in the Neoarchaean era about 2.7 billion years ago. So what makes us think they existed? And if they are real, how did they form and then break up? David Evans is Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Yale University. He is a true puzzle-master, piecing together all the available clues, especially those locked ...
Mike Howe on the UK National Geological Repository
March 14, 2021 00:46 - 21 minutes - 14.9 MBMany countries have national geological museums that house collections of rocks, minerals, and fossils. But the UK has two collections – the one at the Geological Museum in London, and, in addition, the National Geological Repository located near Nottingham, which is part of the British Geological Survey, and which is actually very much the larger of the two collections. How did the two collections come about? And what sort of things does the National Geological Repository hold? Mike Howe i...
Lee Groat on How Gemstones Form
March 07, 2021 23:18 - 19 minutes - 18.4 MBGemstones have value not only because they are beautiful, but also because there are rare. So what exactly is a gemstone, and what make them so rare? Lee Groat is a Professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He studies the mineralogy of gemstones and also works in the field, having conducted surveys of parts of northern Canada looking for emeralds. Go to geologybites.com for images of the gemstones discussed in the podca...
Le Groat on How Gemstones Form
March 07, 2021 23:18 - 19 minutes - 18.4 MBGemstones have value not only because they are beautiful, but also because there are rare. So what exactly is a gemstone, and what make them so rare? Lee Groat is a Professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He studies the mineralogy of gemstones and also works in the field, having conducted surveys of parts of northern Canada looking for emeralds. Go to geologybites.com for images of the gemstones discussed in the podca...
Allen McNamara on the Deep Mantle Structure of the Earth
February 28, 2021 00:13 - 26 minutes - 22.3 MBThe lower reaches of the Earth’s mantle extend all the way down to the boundary with the metallic core, which lies about 2,900 kilometers below the surface. We knew almost nothing about this highly inaccessible region until good seismic measurements became available in the 1970s. That coincided with a rapid increase in computer power, which enabled seismologists to generate images, albeit at very low resolution, of the entire mantle. The images surprised us by revealing some dramatic feat...
Tomo Usui on the Mission to the Martian Moon Phobos
February 11, 2021 23:26 - 18 minutes - 16.3 MBThe rocky planets of the solar system have only three moons among them: our own Moon, and the two much smaller moons of Mars – Phobos and Deimos. There have been no successful missions to either of the Martian moons, but now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is sending a probe to Phobos to be launched in 2024, to land and collect material from its surface, and return it to Earth. But why Phobos? What might we learn from such a mission? Tomo Usui is a professor in the Department of Sol...
Rachel Wood on the Emergence of Complex Life in the Precambrian
January 31, 2021 00:02 - 30 minutes - 25.2 MBThe Eon in which we live is called the Phanerozoic, which comes from the ancient Greek word for visible life. The eon starts with the Cambrian, which began 541 million years ago. But in recent decades it has become increasingly clear from the fossil record that there was visible life before the Cambrian, and complex life at that. So what caused it to emerge then, and what caused it to proliferate and diversify so vigorously in the early Cambrian? Rachel Wood is Professor of Carbonate Geosci...
Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni on Dynamic Topography
January 19, 2021 19:43 - 26 minutes - 18.7 MBCarolina Lithgow-Bertelloni views plate tectonics and the Earth's topography as an expression of the interior processes of the Earth, and in particular of the horizontal and vertical motions of the mantle. Here she explains why we think that up to a full kilometer of the Earth's topography is caused by the mantle's direct push or pull on the lithosphere. Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni is a Professor of Geosciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. Go to geologybites.com to see...
Cathy Constable on Mapping the Earth's Magnetic Field in Time and Space
January 09, 2021 20:41 - 27 minutes - 22.6 MBCathy Constable reconstructs global maps of the Earth’s magnetic field over timescales from millennia to millions of years using the remnant magnetism “frozen” into human artifacts and rocks. This has revealed surprising patterns of variation that in turn cast light on the processes in the Earth’s core that are responsible for generating the field. Cathy Constable is a Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Go to geologybites.com to see an animation of the global magnetic ...
Bärbel Hönisch on Reconstructing Climate in the Distant Past
December 17, 2020 23:18 - 25 minutes - 21.8 MBBärbel Hönisch uses the skeletal remains of foraminifera as her raw material in reconstructing ocean and atmospheric conditions that prevailed in past geological periods. Trace chemical constituents in these creatures can record the temperature of the ocean and carbon dioxide of the atmosphere. Climate models being applied to the present day are being validated by what she is discovering about the planet’s past evolution. Go to geologybites.com for illustrations relating to this podcast a...
David Rothery on Volcanism in the Solar System
December 03, 2020 21:40 - 29 minutes - 24.4 MBDavid Rothery investigates volcanism on Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System using remote-sensing Earth-orbiting satellites and space probes. Mercury is his present focus, and he is lead co-investigator for geology on the X-ray spectrometer aboard BepiColombo, an ESA mission currently on its way to Mercury. He describes some intriguing puzzles about Mercury that he hopes BepiColombo will resolve, as well as a type of volcanism occurring on some icy bodies in the outer solar system calle...
Harold C. Connolly Jr. on Bringing an Asteroid Sample Back to Earth
November 28, 2020 17:29 - 25 minutes - 23.5 MBThere are some things we just cannot learn about other bodies in the solar system without actually having our hands on a sample of the body and analyzing it on Earth using the battery of techniques that have been refined for the analysis of terrestrial rocks. Harold C. Connolly Jr. is Professor and Founding Chair at the Department of Geology at Rowan University. He investigates the origin of the very oldest planetary materials from which the Earth was made. Asteroids are a good place to l...
Laurent Jolivet on the Origin of the Mediterranean
November 21, 2020 15:42 - 29 minutes - 22.5 MBLaurent Jolivet is an expert on the dynamics of tectonic plates and the mantle and is a Professor at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Sorbonne University. He combines satellite measurements, seismic tomography, field observations, and computer modeling to reconstruct plate motions, even in some of the most complicated parts of the world. Here he unravels the tangled evolution of the Mediterranean. Visit geologybites.com to see maps and animations of the Mediterranean's geological hi...
Sir Mark Moody-Stuart on Transitioning to a Post-Carbon Economy
November 18, 2020 23:44 - 29 minutes - 24.4 MBSir Mark Moody-Stuart is a former chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and is a director of Saudi Aramco, which has the largest daily oil production of any oil-producing company. He obtained a PhD on the Devonian sediments of Spitsbergen before joining Shell, where he started his career as a geologist in Spain, Oman, Brunei, and Australia. After recognizing that our response to global warming demands a transformation of our energy strategy, he became a prominent voice for change in the oil indus...
John Marshall on the Riddle of the Mass Extinction 360 Million Years Ago
November 01, 2020 16:27 - 25 minutes - 23 MBThe Earth has endured many mass extinctions. We are pretty confident that we know what caused these events. Except for one of them: the one at the end of the Devonian period 360 million years ago. John Marshall is a fossil expert specializing in mass extinction events and is a Professor at the School of Ocean & Earth Science at the University of Southampton. He explains how his recent research has uncovered new evidence that may finally explain what caused the end-Devonian mass extinctio...
Laurence Robb on Where our Mineral Resources Come From
October 29, 2020 22:18 - 28 minutes - 22.8 MBSo much of what we make starts with materials we extract from the Earth. Some of these materials make up only a tiny proportion of our planet, but fortunately for us, they are concentrated in certain places, which makes it possible to extract them in economically viable quantities. So how exactly do these materials become concentrated? Lawrence Robb is a Visiting Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University. By analyzing the relationship between mineral deposits,...
Bruce Buffett on Probing the Earth's Core
October 21, 2020 19:18 - 25 minutes - 21.6 MBBruce Buffett is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He investigates the structure and motions within the Earth’s core by matching physics-based simulations of the core to the observed magnetic field of the Earth. Go to geologybites.com for diagrams that support this podcast episode as well as more about the Geology Bites podcast series.
David Sandwell on Seeing Plate Tectonics Under the Oceans
October 01, 2020 22:40 - 29 minutes - 25.6 MBDavid Sandwell uses satellites to make accurate measurements of the shape of the ocean surface. He explains how this enabled him to create a global map of the topography on the sea-floor. This revealed the global extent of classic plate-tectonic features, such as spreading ridges and transform faults, but also intriguing new features we still do not understand. David Sandwell is a Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
Barbara Romanowicz on Seeing Deep Into the Earth
September 28, 2020 19:45 - 27 minutes - 22.6 MBBarbara Romanowicz uses the seismic waves triggered by earthquakes to probe the interior of the Earth. She has forged new techniques for analyzing these waves to give us a much sharper view of the deep structure of the Earth. She is a Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California at Berkeley, and Chair of Physics of the Earth’s Interior at the Collège de France in Paris.
Barbara Romanowicz on Seeing Deep into the Earth
September 28, 2020 19:45 - 27 minutes - 22.6 MBBarbara Romanowicz uses the seismic waves triggered by earthquakes to probe the interior of the Earth. She has forged new techniques for analyzing these waves to give us a much sharper view of the deep structure of the Earth. She is a Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California at Berkeley, and Chair of Physics of the Earth’s Interior at the Collège de France in Paris.
John Valley on the Early Earth
September 20, 2020 19:58 - 26 minutes - 21.7 MBThe Earth was formed just over 4.5 billion years ago. What happened just after it formed and what were conditions like then? John Valley reveals what we have managed to discover about our planet’s very distant past, and how we did it.
Sara Russell on What the Asteroids Can Tell Us About the Earth
September 18, 2020 19:04 - 22 minutes - 18.8 MBThe asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It formed out of the same protoplanetary disc as the Earth, but many asteroids have barely changed since then. Sara Russell explains what these time capsules can reveal about the Earth and how we will learn much more from the spacecraft currently fetching and returning asteroid samples to Earth. Sara Russell is a professor of planetary sciences and leader of the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum in Londo...
Clare Warren on Divining the History of a Rock
August 09, 2020 23:00 - 23 minutes - 31.8 MBMost rocks were formed many millions of years ago. Since then, some have been largely left alone, while others have been baked at high temperatures and buried at great depths. Clare Warren explains how we can now uncover remarkably precise histories of such rocks, even if they have been through more than one episode of such extreme treatment. Clare Warren is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at The Open University. For more on Geology Bites, go ...
Steve Sparks on What Makes a Volcano Erupt
August 01, 2020 22:27 - 23 minutes - 21.4 MBWhy do some volcanoes erupt almost all the time but others lie dormant for centuries, millennia, or even longer? Steve Sparks has turned our ideas about volcanoes upside down. Not quite literally, but by applying the physics of fluid motion to the rocks and magma below volcanoes, he discovered that magma forms at much greater depths than previously thought, eventually forming an unstable blob that forces its way up through as much as a hundred kilometres of overlying rocks to erupt from a ...
Dan McKenzie on What Venus Can Tell Us About the Earth
July 29, 2020 19:46 - 23 minutes - 11.5 MBWhy look to another planet to reveal something new about the Earth? Dan McKenzie describes an ingenious way of using the data sent back from the Magellan Venus orbiter to discover that Venus is covered with an elastic plate about 30 kilometers thick. Explaining this very unexpected result revealed something extraordinary about the Earth. For more on Geology Bites, go to geologybites.com, where you can also find diagrams and pictures that support the podcast.
James Jackson on the Fatal Attraction Between Cities and Earthquakes
July 28, 2020 20:00 - 29 minutes - 17.2 MBIn this episode, James Jackson explains what happens, geologically-speaking, during an earthquake, why they strike where they do, and why earthquake-prone places are such attractive places to live. For more on Geology Bites, go to geologybites.com, where you can also find diagrams and pictures that support the podcast.
Mike Searle on Why Mountains Exist
July 27, 2020 20:00 - 27 minutes - 13.9 MBMike Searle applies the theory of plate tectonics to explain what causes mountains of all kinds to form. They range from enormous mountain belts such as those that stretch from the Himalaya to the Alps, to mid-ocean volcanoes such as Hawaii. Mike Searle is Professor of Earth Sciences at Oxford University. For over 30 years he has been studying the Himalaya, Karakoram, and the Tibetan Plateau. He has summarized his work in a richly illustrated book entitled Colliding Continents. For ill...