Plate Tectonics – Page 3 – DEPOSITS MAGAZINE

BOOK REVIEWS England Fossils Geology Glaciers Minerals Minerals Palaeontology Plate Tectonics

Book review: The Peak District: Landscape and Geology, by Tony Waltham

21/07/2021

The Crowood Press are really developing a nice little series of books on the landscape and geology of select regions of the British Isles, and Tony Waltham’s addition to the series about the Peak District is well worth a read. This new one follows the same format as the others – beautiful, full colour photos and diagrams, a fascinating chapter on each of the important geological and geomorphological aspects of the area (including buildings and industry), and an author who knows his stuff and can write it down with an easy and authoritative style.

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Plate tectonics (Part 5): A simple key to identifying rocks in the field

02/06/2021

Helen Gould (UK) Following on from my articles on plate tectonics and the rock cycle, the tables below will hopefully be useful as an aide-mémoire to identify rock samples on your field trips. Further reading Introducing Metamorphism, by Ian Sanders, Dunedin Academic Press Ltd, Edinburgh (2018), 148 pages (Paperback), ISBN: … Read More

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Los Angeles’ fractured and filled landscape: A field trip to the sites

29/05/2021

Deborah Painter (US) The Los Angeles Times reported on 5 April 2021 that a magnitude 3.3 earthquake struck around 4:15a.m., followed by a magnitude 4.4 quake 29 minutes later. Several aftershocks followed. Seismologist Lucy Jones of the Lucy Jones Center reported that two quakes were 19.31km deep, with an epicentre … Read More

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Plate tectonics (Part 4): More on the rock cycle

26/05/2021

Helen Gould (UK) In Plate tectonics (Part 3): The rock cycle, I presented an overview of the relationship between the rock cycle and plate tectonics, and then went on to look more closely at igneous rocks. This time, I want to discuss sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, and review the occurrence … Read More

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Plate tectonics (Part 3): The rock cycle

19/05/2021

Helen Gould (UK) What is the rock cycle? Usually, the first thing that budding geologists learn about rocks is that there are three kinds: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. These three major kinds are divided up into many different types of rock. For example, marble, slate and metaquartzite are all metamorphic … Read More

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Plate tectonics (Part 2): A closer look

12/05/2021

Helen Gould (UK) As we saw last time (Plate tectonics (Part 1): What are they?), the Earth is a pretty dynamic place, with tectonic plates moving about on the surface, driven by convection cells in the upper mantle. But producing a workable theory, which combined most of the observations of … Read More

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Plate tectonics (Part 1): What are they?

05/05/2021

Helen Gould (UK) What does “plate tectonics” really mean? The Earth’s surface bears about 20 plates, which are able, over millions of years, to move about on layers beneath the crust. Some of the surfaces of these plates consist of continental crust, some of oceanic crust, some both (Fig. 1). … Read More

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Do mammoths warn of a climate crisis?

21/04/2021

James O’Donoghue (UK) Did the destruction of forests by mammoths make the Pleistocene Ice Age even colder? It’s an extraordinary prospect. Yet, a leading fossil mammal expert thinks they did just that. Over many tens of thousands of years, mammoths and straight-tusked elephants ate their way through vast tracts of … Read More

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Seeing dramatic folded strata from the car: Sideling Hill, Maryland, USA

20/03/2021

Deborah Painter (USA) In many states of the United States and in many locales in the United Kingdom, there are historic markers at the site of an important historic home or event. However, I wonder if every accessible rock formation had its own historic marker, would more people take the … Read More

England Geology History & biographies Palaeontology Plate Tectonics

Mary Anning and the Jurassic Dragons

27/02/2021

Ray Goodwin (UK) It was a hot and sultry summer afternoon in August 1800. A happy crowd was gathered in the small town of Lyme to watch an exhibition of horse jumping in the nearby Rack Field. No one could have guessed that, before the day was out, tragedy would strike … Read More

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Alluvial gold (Part 1): A geological model

13/02/2021

Philip Dunkerly (UK) Mankind almost certainly first found gold when a yellow, glint from the bottom of a stream bed attracted the attention of one of our ancestors in pre- historic Africa. Ever since, the allure of gold – its colour, improbable density, malleability and scarceness – meant it has … Read More

BOOK REVIEWS Geology Plate Tectonics

Book review: Mountains: The origins of the Earth’s mountain systems, by Graham Park

12/02/2021

I have reviewed several of Graham Park’s books for Dunedin in this magazine (Introducing Tectonics, Rock Structures and Mountain Belts in Issue 33, The making of Europe: A geological history in Issue 43 and Introducing Natural Resources in Issue 46) and this is yet another fine example.

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The Deccan Traps, India (Part 4): Quaternary sediments of the Godavari River basin, Maharashtra

09/02/2021

Mugdha Chimote (India) The discovery of Quaternary sediments around Godavari River in Maharashtra (Fig. 1) was something of an accident. Sankalia (1952) first encountered these sediments while excavating the Lower Palaeolithic Industry in the region. Upon discovery, Sankalia brought onboard many geologists, such as Prof S N Rajaguru, Shanti Pappu, … Read More

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A field guide to Barbados (Part 5): The Scotland District

30/01/2021

Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) Stop 1. Chalky Mount (approximately 59º 33’ 15” W 13º 13’ 55” N; Fig. 1) The area considered in this part of the guide is outlined in Donovan & Harper (2010, fig. 1d) and Figs. 1 and 2. As with other articles in this series, … Read More

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A field guide to Barbados (Part 2): Coastal geology of southeast Barbados

09/01/2021

Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) and David AT Harper (Denmark) Introduction This article is the second part of a field guide to Barbados, the first part of which is A field guide to Barbados (Part 1): Introduction. The areas visited by different the excursions outlined in Parts 2 to 6 … Read More

BOOK REVIEWS Europe Geology Plate Tectonics Volcanoes

Book review: Volcanoes of Europe (2nd edition), by Dougal J Jerram, Alwyn Scarth and Jean-Claude Tanguy

01/01/2021

In this second edition, Dougal Jerram has revised and updated the 2001 version, first published by Alwyn Scarth and Jean-Claude Tanguy. This is to reflect modern research and understanding of Europe’s volcanoes of the last 10,000 years (active, dormant and extinct).

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A field guide to Barbados (Part 1): Introduction

01/01/2021

Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) This is the first of six articles that will introduce the geology of the Antillean island of Barbados. It is an expanded and more detailed guide derived from two earlier publications (Donovan & Harper, 2005, 2009). The structure of the guide will include a summary … Read More

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The Deccan Traps, India (Part 2): Its geomorphology and stratigraphy

01/12/2020

Mugdha Chimote (India) The Deccan Traps occupy approximately 25% of the total of peninsular India, that is, the triangular shaped landscape of southern India. They traverse the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. The Deccan Traps are currently believed to occupy about 500,000km2 of northwest peninsular India. It … Read More

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The Deccan Traps, India (Part 1): The story of its genesis

28/11/2020

Mugdha Chimote (India) Introduction Sandwiched between the Arabian Sea to the west and the vast Indian subcontinent to the east, the Western Ghats, a haven for trekkers and travellers, are a 1,600km long range of mountains along western edge of Deccan Plateau. Also known as “Great Escarpments of India”, the … Read More

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Earth history in miniature: Zircon under the microscope

14/11/2020

Dr Robert Sturm (Austria) The mineral zircon (more correctly, orthosilicate zircon or ZrSiO4) is an important accessory mineral in various rocks of the earth’s crust, but most of all of igneous rocks with the mineral composition of granite. An accessory mineral is a mineral comprising less than about 10% of … Read More

Europe Fossils Geology Palaeontology Plate Tectonics

From sharks’ teeth to sea urchins: A palaeontological expedition through the Northern Alpine foreland in Austria

10/11/2020

Dr Robert Sturm Over the last few decades, local amateur collectors, as well as professional palaeontologists, have collected a large number of fossils from quarries and sandpits on the northern margin of the Central European Alps. With the help of these marine and terrestrial fossils, it has been possible to … Read More

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Shear zones: Natural laboratories of rock deformation and mineral alteration

17/10/2020

Robert Sturm (Austria) During the last few decades, the interest of diverse geosciences has increasingly focussed on the examination of so-called ‘shear zones’, because the displacements between two lithological blocks represent natural ‘laboratories’, within which the phenomena of mineral alteration and deformation are clearly shown for the purposes of scientific … Read More

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Fabulous folds: Variscan tectonics in southwest England

03/10/2020

Jens Lehmann (Germany) Plate tectonics drove the continent-continent collision of Euramerica and Gondwana, roughly 280 to 380mya. This mountain-building phase of the late Palaeozoic era is referred to as the Variscan Orogeny and eventually formed the supercontinent Pangaea. This was largely complete by the end of the Carboniferous and many … Read More

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The dinosaur footprints of Whitby (Part 2): Problems matching footprints to dinosaurs

08/09/2020

Dr Trevor Watts (UK) In the first part of this article (The dinosaur footprints of Whitby (Part 1): Introduction), I considered the immediate surroundings of Whitby as a seemingly unlikely place to find many dinosaur footprints; and I looked at the environments that existed here in mid-Jurassic times; and finally … Read More

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Plenty of geological fun at Cornwallis’ Cave

01/09/2020

Deborah Painter (USA) Cornwallis’ Cave, a feature along the bluffs overlooking the York River in historic Yorktown, Virginia in the USA, is not a real cave and may not even have sheltered British General Charles Cornwallis during the final weeks of the American War of Independence. The National Park Service, … Read More

Fossils Geology Minerals Minerals Museums & societies Palaeontology Plate Tectonics United Kingdom

The Geologists’ Association: An overview

17/08/2020

Diana Clements (UK) The Geologists’ Association (GA) was formed in 1858 and, from its inception, was an inclusive organisation set up to embrace both professional and amateur geologists, unlike the Geological Society, some 50 years older, which was only intended for professionals. Women were accepted from the beginning – similar … Read More

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Book review: Breakthroughs in Geology: Ideas that transformed Earth Science, by Graham Park

15/08/2020

In recent years, Graham Park has been prolific in his writing for Dunedin Academic Press. In this new tome, he has produced what I suspect is a really great introduction to a range of key concepts and geological processes for both undergraduates and the interested, moderately well-informed amateur.

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Peñon de Ilfach: Did it jump or was it pushed?

08/08/2020

Mark Wilkinson (UK) The Spanish coastal town of Calpe is dominated by the towering massif of the Peñon de Ilfach (Fig. 1). The 332m, steep-sided summit is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea on three sides and connected to the land by a relatively narrow neck, rather like a gigantic sea … Read More

BOOK REVIEWS Fossils Geology Minerals Minerals Palaeontology Plate Tectonics Wales

Book review: The Roadside Geology of Wales: Geologists’ Association (Guide No. 69), by Jim Talbot and John Cosgrove

07/08/2020

The Geologists’ Association has produced yet another great guide, this time on the geology of Wales. However, this is a slightly different beast from most of their other publications.

BOOK REVIEWS Geology Minerals Minerals Plate Tectonics

Book review: Introducing volcanology: A guide to hot rocks, by Dougal Jerram

24/07/2020

This is the third in a series of earth science books published by Dunedin, the previous two of which (on palaeontology and geology) have been reviewed in this magazine. I said of those books that they were excellent little volumes for the beginner and the amateur, and the current book is no different.