Does anybody remember that film, Mission to Mars? Its a good one. Basically, this band of astronauts tootle off to Mars to find their buddy, against all odds find him and, moreover, find that he…

Sometimes good things result from bad things.  When scientists drilling near an Icelandic volcano hit magma, they had to abandon their experiments on geothermal energy but it turns out they may…

Usually, I don't think it is worth pointing out everything the media gets wrong.  I don't think it is particularly constructive concentrating on what's wrong, better to simply try and write well…

Erik Klemetti (of the Eruptions Blog) posted about this paper (An extraordinary episode of Yellowstone caldera uplift, 2004–2010, from GPS and InSAR observations) that has been causing a bit of a…

About 250 million years about 70 percent of life on land was wiped out.   A new study says it has evidence to support massive volcanic eruptions that had broad impact on the global oceans and…

As Where on Google Earth #252 was somewhere I know well, having studied a course that was almost entirely dedicated to the tectonics of the region (which included a fieldtrip), I'm quite glad I…

The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull (here is Wikipedia's handy pronunciation file) last summer was widely covered in the media, generating some stunning images (and perhaps the most beautiful video of…

It may seem intuitive that the Moon might have a core, just as Earth does, but science doesn't work on intuition.  Absent drilling or inference, it has been hypothesized that Luna has a core but…

Happy New Year, and welcome to the first "Where on Google Earth" (WoGE) of 2011.  I was shocked to find out that my guess at WoGE #245 was correct, (Plymouth, Montserrat being the most post-…

Mountains are the epitome of durability but some new data shows how ancient precipitation was really the driving force behind the mountains of the Farallon Plate between 65 and 28 million years…