In this GeoShort we discuss last week's triple header of large earthquakes off the coast of New Zealand.  There were three major earthquakes that occurred all within a few hours of one another. The first, a magnitude 7.3 quake, was likely unrelated to the other two, but the second one, a 7.4, was a precursor to the last one!  The last quake as a giant 8.1, a full 11 times larger than the 7.4 that occurred nearby.  These earthquakes set off tsunami warnings all around the P...

A Recent Triple-Threat - Earthquakes Shake New Zealand (GeoShort)

A Geology and Earth Science Podcast. Join Chris, an award-winning geology teacher, and Jesse, a geoscience professor, in discussing the amazing features of our planet and their impact on your everyday life. No prior knowledge required. New episodes coming at you every week. Listen, subscribe, share with someone you know!

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In this episode, Jesse and Chris talk about the geology of Iceland - although we keep it at a high level.  We're going to come back to this - Iceland - later after Chris returns from his trip.  Then, we'll get into some of detail that makes Iceland so unique.  Here, we discuss how Iceland might be a prototype for the formation of continents and also talk a bit about the diversity of igneous rocks that make up the Island.  The diversity of rocks speaks to the diversity of v...

The Uniqueness of Iceland

Hardpan!  Where did this idea for an episode come from?  Chris has  been doing a ton of yard work lately and it’s not uncommon come across a layer when digging a hole that is next to impossible to penetrate. He has to bust out my pick axe to get through it.  It's  Called Hardpan.Really dense layer that often occurs below the topsoil.  Problems:Roots can’t penetrate into the hardpan (Hayden Valley in YNP).  Trees are easily blown over if they can even grow he...

Tough Soil - The Geology of Hardpan

Some Rocks You SHOULD Know - Metamorphism and Plate Tectonics

Today we really go into the weeds. Jesse and a colleague just published a paper in the journal Nature that proposes a new model for how continents became stable. Stable continents have all the granite at the surface, which contains all the heat producing elements like U and Th and K - elements that decay away. Today, we discuss that paper in detail, and along the way learn a bit about the early Earth, what we know and don't know! Here is a link to the paper, which is open access and can be do...

When Continents Became Stable

Today, Chris and Jesse get into a discussion about Earth’s oldest material.  Earth is 4.568 Billion years old.  First of all, that’s amazing the geochronologists have refined this down to 3 decimal places.  How do we know this?  The oldest grains ever found are 4.38 billion years old.  If that’s the case, then how do we know the Earth is significantly older than that?  Join us as we answer that and many other important questions about Earth’s oldest stuff.  ...

A Recent Triple-Threat - Earthquakes Shake New Zealand (GeoShort)

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