WCS Earth Blog

Friday, 10 January 2014

Y13 Geog: Desolation of smog (Tackling China's air quality crisis)

Officials in China say they are confident green technology will help overcome the country's notoriously polluted air.

Apocalyptic scenes of dense smog have recently forced major cities including Shanghai and Harbin to virtually shut down.

The capital Beijing is among urban areas where pollution routinely exceeds safety limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

For more information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25576716

LECTURE ON TUESDAY

2 minute Video of mud volcano by Iain Stewart:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kphF71S5F0Q

For info click the link:

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/78c1ed22b5890ffa0663455cb/files/2014_01_14_Lusi_Mud_volcano.pdf

Depart 1700

Return 2030

PLEASE SIGN UP ON GOOGLE DOC

Thursday, 9 January 2014

PLYMOUTH CONFERENCE URGENT!!!

Dear all,

Booking has opened for a one day conference at Plymouth Uni about Tectonic hazards.

Iain Stewart is introducing the conference and doing the last talk of the day.

SATURDAY 1st MARCH. LEAVE WELLS 0730, RETURN APPROX 1800

If you would like to come, subsidised cost £10, please let me know by lunchtime tomorrow. I hope there are still places available, one in November sold out in 3 hours!

If you are a 1stXI or 1stVII player I guess you won't be able to come.

Mr R

Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Early Life built Earth's Continents

REWIND Earth's story 3 or 4 billion years, to when life was emerging. The surface of our planet was starting to cool but still piping hot – possibly about 200 °C. Early, unstable continents may have been forming. Now imagine life doesn't emerge, and press play.

The pair included biological weathering in one modelled Earth, and left it out of another. Press play on both Earths at 4 billion years ago, and for the first 1.5 billion years, there is very little difference between them. By about 2.5 billion years ago, early continental plates emerge above the ocean, regardless of life. But then, everything diverges.

On live-Earth, algae, bacteria and more complex life colonise the new land, erode it and dump masses of sediment into the ocean. The sediment – 40 per cent water by weight – is eventually pulled down more than 100 kilometres beneath the surface by early subducting tectonic plates, where piping hot temperatures release the trapped water. The hydrated mantle is viscous and more buoyant, so it rises and bursts through the surface in volcanic eruptions that add to the continental plate.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029443.100-early-life-built-earths-continents.html#.Usx6M9JdWSp

(Thanks to Flash for sending the link.)