Geobulletin alpha

Launching Research at NSRC 2013 

The 2013 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) took place earlier this week in Broomfield, Colorado. This suborbital science meeting had some big shoes to fill after featuring a keynote by Neil Armstrong last year, but it did not disappoint. NASA's Deputy Administrator Lori Garver surprised everyone by stating the space agency may start funding researchers to fly with their spaceflight experiments, as this Space News article by Jeff Foust so eloquently summarized: "NASA [...]

Praying for Oklahoma is worthless 

I’m dismayed at the news yesterday out of Oklahoma – the violent storm that ended lives. This morning on Facebook, I noticed that many of my pious friends were letting the rest of us know that they were praying for Oklahoma, or more specifically, for the victims of the storm. At the same time, the hashtag #prayforoklahoma is trending on Twitter with all sorts of people dropping that phrase into

Toronto earthquake? 

Definitely felt the whole sequence of a distant M5 right now.  Unfortunately, we are rather slow in Canada on the reporting aspect.  I don't have Twitter either.  Could be just some major ground thumping.   I'll keep looking. Earthquake confirmed - Braeside On.  Where the heck is that? Yeah, felt an earthquake!  Must have emptied the office towers in Ottawa again.  :)  They tho

And the ScienceSeeker Award for best physics, astronomy, or earth science post goes to… 

…me, apparently. Even though I didn’t know I’d been nominated until I was notified on Twitter: Congrats to @Allochthonous for “Best Physics, Astronomy, or Earth Science Post”: http://t.co/em4cxUTWcl about 11 hours ago via webReplyRetweetFavorite @SciSeeker ScienceSeeker Check out the announcement … Continue reading

I have left Facebook 

Please note that I have left Facebook for good. I can be contacted by email, Google+ or Twitter. The reason why I left Facebook can be found here and here. I do not expect to be returning to Facebook anytime … Continue reading

#overlyhonestmethods: You aren’t alone. 

The #overlyhonestmethods meme on Twitter was haled as amazing science communication, and fretted over as new potential source for public misconception of “Researchers are lazy,” and then, like all memes, it died out. And yet, it still has value. In the archives … Continue reading

Tweeting at a conference: the magic of a hashtag 

With the mammoth task of Storifying #EGU2013 this week, I’m wondering just how useful social media, particularly Twitter, has become at conferences. While having a hashtag for a conference with 4,684 oral, 8,207 poster, and 452 PICO presentations (#EGU2013) won’t give you an insight into what’s going on in all the sessions – there’s simply

A few of my favorite moments from LPSC 2013 

Last week I attended my first science conference: The Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, TX. If you followed me on Twitter, then (for better or for worse) you also knew that I was one of about 40 people … Continue reading

New images of the Hatfield Colliery (coal mine) landslide in northern England 

New images have appeared on Twitter of the Hatfield Colliery landslide. These show some amazing deformation patterns at the toe of the

So you want to be a volcanologist? 

In addition to my blogging and on-again-off-again relationship with Twitter, I like to take my geologizing to places outside the office. Just yesterday, I had the opportunity to talk with a girls' STEM club at my old elementary school about being a volcanologist. I actually do this fairly often, and I'm always really impressed by the questions the students come up with. They're always inquisitive and thoughtful, and often catch me off guard - which is

What Drew Us to Geoscience 

Tim Wright is a geoscience professor at the University of Leeds. The other day he used his Twitter account, @timwright_leeds, to ask his followers what drew them into Earth science. He suggested that everyone replying use the hashtag #WhyEarthSci to make the responses easy to monitor, and as so often happens the whole thing spread through the community. My response—limited to 140 characters like every Twitter post—was, "#WhyEarthSci I couldn't shake a fascination with landscape and [...]

What is a viral licence? 

Earlier today, Richard Van Noorden pointed out on Twitter that in this video, at about 5:40, the speaker says that ”CC BY is essentially a viral licence”. I was surprised to say the least that the speaker – Sue Joshua, Director of Legal Affairs at John Wiley & Sons — would make such a basic mistake. I’d have

Amazing video of 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan 

Via @davely on Twitter.

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week 

A busy week for both of us this week – Anne had a stimulating few days at the ScienceOnline 2013 conference in North Carolina, while Chris tried to achieve something other than teaching prep. But, through all this, we still … Continue reading

Twitter earthquake modelling (monitoring) 

Reference Right now you can follow the sunrise.  I can't wait to see it with an earthquake.  Personally, I can't stand Twitter since I don't know how to turn off the flood of spam and stupidity, but I'm glad that others use it. Got this reference

ScienceOnline Interviews: Heidi K. Smith, Behavioral Ecologist & Conservationist 

Last year, I crowd-funded my attendance to ScienceOnline2012, an un-conference for people communicating about– and doing– science on the internet. In exchange, I offered to interview one attendee for every $100 I raised. In the lead-up to ScienceOnline2013, I’ll be sharing those interviews. Based on feedback from Twitter, I decided to interview student attendees in … Continue reading

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week 

Since it seems much of the northern hemisphere is cold and snowy at the moment, here’s some good reading to curl up with a hot drink over. For those in the southern hemisphere: here’s some good brain food to distract … Continue reading

When Twitter goes bad… 

Very very short post for no other reason than this amused me and I thought some others might like it. Every few days Twitter sends an update suggesting people to follow based on who you already follow. So if you … Continue reading

ScienceOnline Interviews: Melanie Tannenbaum, Social Psychologist 

Last year, I crowd-funded my attendance to ScienceOnline2012, an un-conference for people communicating about– and doing– science on the internet. In exchange, I offered to interview one attendee for every $100 I raised. In the lead-up to ScienceOnline2013, I’ll be sharing those interviews. Based on feedback from Twitter, I decided to interview student attendees in … Continue reading

ScienceOnline Interviews: Jessica Morrison, Science Journalist and Crystallographer 

Last year, I crowd-funded my attendance to ScienceOnline2012, an un-conference for people communicating about– and doing– science on the internet. In exchange, I offered to interview one attendee for every $100 I raised. In the lead-up to ScienceOnline2013, I’ll be sharing those interviews. Based on feedback from Twitter, I decided to interview student attendees in the sciences. My third … Continue reading