Your life on Earth

Follow the link to see how Planet Earth has changed in your lifetime.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141016-your-life-on-earth?ocid=fbert

BBC Earth website worth a visit

Extinctions, stars, volcanoes, snowball earth, giant crystals + much more 

http://www.bbc.com/earth/uk

Hallucigenia: upside down and back to front!

The bizarre creature, named Hallucigenia, emerged during the Cambrian Explosion, a period of rapid evolutionary development starting about half a billion years ago, when most major animal groups first emerge in the fossil record.

Its fossil was first found in the 1970s in the Burgess Shales, but scientists have now discovered they had it both backwards and upside down. What researchers initially thought were legs have turned out to be spines. It’s head had also been mistaken for its tail.

Right side up and right way round, Hallucigenia still looks pretty strange: it had pairs of lengthy spines along its back, seven pairs of legs ending in claws, and three pairs of tentacles along its neck.

The animals were between 10 and 50 millimetres in length and lived on the floor of the Cambrian oceans.

For more information: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/11696453/Bizarre-lobster-ancestor-roamed-ocean-500-million-years-ago.html

BBC Radio 4: In our Time podcasts

In our Time is a 45 minute radio programme hosted by Melvyn Bragg, he is not a scientist and it shows. The discussions are nonetheless very interesting and in the cases below are directly relevant to the A2 Geology course.

The Ediacara and Cambrian programmes follow on directly & consolidate our recent work in class (the time line Geofantasmagram).

Browse here for interesting radio programmes about prehistoric life:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01h9gjr

Or go direct to:
Ediacaran fauna: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lh2s3 
The Cambrian explosion: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9bg
Fossils: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00547d3
Chance and design: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548t
Human evolution:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003hyfl

For the following topics follow the link at the bottom of the page:

Ageing the Earth

Oceanography

Earth's Origins

Earth's Core

Human Origins

Climate Change

Evolution

Magnetism

Early Geology

Plate Tectonics

Geological formation of Britain

KT Boundary Mass Extinction

Permo-Triassic Boundary Mass Extinction

Vulcanology

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01gyd7j?page=18

Google brings Mount Etna and its craters to Street View

Google took its 360-degree Trekker camera to Mount Etna and the surrounding region in Sicily, Italy

Separate locations can be explored using their popular Street View service

The locations reveal the snowy peaks of Mount Etna and two craters, Silvestri and Silvani

Mount Etna stands almost 11,000ft (3.4km) above sea level, looming over the island of Sicily

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3131628/Climb-VOLCANO-comfort-home-Google-brings-Mount-Etna-craters-Street-

David Attenborough: First Life

Having watched the first episode of 'First Life' in class this week, there is a new exhibit at the NHM exploring the ancient seas.

Further information can be found at the Daily Mail or the Natural History Museum websites.

David Attenborough’s First Life exhibit at London's Natural History Museum uses virtual reality headsets to let visitors 'swim' in ancient seas

Fossils from the museum’s collection come to life with the help of a pair of headphones and a headset containing a Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone 

The exhibit, comprising an immersive 15 minute session has just opened. 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/06/19/18/29C9A88F00000578-0-image-a-37_1434735331631.jpg

The Earth stands on the brink of its sixth mass extinction

Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event?

Rather than the nine extinctions among vertebrates that would be expected to have occurred in normal geological circumstances since 1900, their conservative estimate adds in another 468 extinctions, spread among mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.


NOT THE FIRST TIME: Previous mass extinctions

Geological history includes many periods when species have died in large numbers. In each of the following, more than half the Earth’s species disappeared:

1 End-Ordovician, 443 million years ago.

This coincides with very rapid glaciation; sea level fell by more than 100 metres, devastating shallow marine ecosystems; less than a million years later, there was a second wave of extinctions as ice melted, sea level rose rapidly, and oceans became oxygen-depleted.

2 Late Devonian, c 360 million years ago.

A messy prolonged event, again hitting life in shallow seas very hard, and an extinction that was probably due to climate change.

3 Permian-Triassic mass extinction, c 250 million years ago.

The greatest of all, ‘The Great Dying’ of more than 95% of species, is strongly linked with massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia that caused, among other effects, a brief savage episode of global warming.

4 Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction, c 200 million years ago.

This has been linked with another huge outburst of volcanism.

5 Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction 65 million years ago.

This killed off the dinosaurs and much else; an asteroid impact on Mexico probably did the damage, but the world’s ecosystem may have been weakened by volcanic outbursts in what is now India.

Prof Mark Williams, Leicester University
For more information:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/21/mass-extinction-science-warning

Old Wellie Visit

Old Wellensian Dr Sally Morgan came to visit us over Old Wellies weekend and told Y12 Geologists about her career so far. 

She is currently the 'International Ocean Discovery Programme Knowledge Exchange fellow' at Leicester University and has worked on a number of projects since graduating in geology from Leeds University.

She has worked for Schlumberger (a leading supplier of technology to the oil and gas industry) and on various projects as part of the International Ocean Discovery Programme (in the Pacific Ocean, Baltic sea, Irish Sea, Beaufort Sea (Canada) as a petrophysicist.