Rapid Uplift

Some readings I perused over the past couple of weeks. 1) Our picture of habitability on Europa, a top contender for hosting life, is changing . Jupiter's moon Europa has long been a contender ...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/04/links-europa-life-moon-geology-citizen.html

 Remotely India Series #12 Through the Proterozoic Eon, beginning around 2 billion years ago,  extensional forces acting on continental crust opened up several sedimentary basins across what i...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/03/geological-contacts-angular.html

Reading from the past few weeks-  1) How earthquake scientists solved the mystery of the last “Big One” in the Pacific Northwest . The American northwest is a tectonically active region. A...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/03/links-earthquake-detectives-origin-of.html

Charles Darwin famously called it an 'ábominable mystery'. He was referring to the sudden appearance and diversification of flowering plants in the Cretaceous fossil record. He noticed that thes...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/02/patterns-of-angiosperms-and-insect.html

My latest field geology video is about a small cave in the basalt lava near my house in Pune city. The location is Hanuman tekdi, also known as Fergusson College Hill. The cave is along the slope...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/01/is-it-lava-tube.html

This passage from Helen Czerski's Blue Machine: How The Ocean Shapes Our World gives us a glimpse of the wondrous undersea universe we are just beginning to explore. "We see upside-down waterf...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/01/deep-pacific-upside-down-waterfall.html

I have been experimenting with shooting videos of geological features with an accompanying commentary. Here are two of my recent efforts. Last month I visited Kenjalgad, a small fort near the t...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/01/kenjalgad-perched-aquifers.html

Committees are underappreciated.  xkcd comics . Happy New Year everyone! 

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-making-of-iceland.html

 These two books came highly recommended via friends and social media. I had really enjoyed his earlier book, The Vital Question. It was an exploration of energy constraints on the evolution ...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/12/books-transformer-blue-machine.html

One of  my favorite courses during graduate work in Pune was geological Remote Sensing. We focused a lot on visual interpretation of aerial photographs and satellite imagery. Lab work meant hour...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/12/geological-contact-sirohi-fold-belt-and.html

A couple of weeks ago Iceland awaited with much anxiety as magma made its way to the surface. A volcanic eruption seemed imminent. That danger seems to have passed for now. Seismicity has abated ...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/11/volcanic-versus-human-carbon-dioxide.html

 So near Pune, yet I had never been to this location near Bhor. It is popularly known as necklace point. The river Nira loops its way through the countryside forming a series of lovely mea...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/11/river-nira-meander.html

I came across this stunning image of a mineral filled vesicle on the September 2023 cover of Geology. The rock sample was collected from the Louisville Seamount Chain in SW Pacific Ocean. �...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/10/photomicrograph-mineral-filled-vesicle.html

Readings over the past few weeks. 1) Taking the First Steps Into a Newly Formed Volcanic Underworld : Maya Wei- Haas describes a fascinating landscape on the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocea...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/10/links-volcanic-underworld-first.html

A reader sent me this photograph of a pebble he had collected from a stream bed near Belgaum, Karnataka.  PHOTO CREDIT: GOPISUNDAR These look to me like iron rich pisolites. These spheroid...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/09/iron-pisolites-from-western-ghats.html

No matter how many David Attenborough specials you may watch, nature always throws more surprises at you. Foraminifera are protists that build a skeleton or a test made up of calcium carbonate....

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/09/agglutinated-foraminifera-from-deep-sea.html

My latest set of readings. 1) Why Darwin Admired the Humble Earthworm . A delightful essay by Philip Ball on Darwin's work on earthworms. Published towards the end of his career, this book appa...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/08/darwins-earthworms-ocean-currents.html

Boudinage is a structure that is developed when rock layers are being pulled and stretched. The term is derived from the French word for sausage. A rock layer is deformed by necking and is segmen...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/08/field-photos-boudinage-in-sandstone.html

My friend Bhushan Panse, who is a geology enthusiast and an avid rock and mineral collector, handed this specimen to me over a coffee meeting. He had bought it from a mineral supplier from Khambh...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/07/septarian-concretion-from-khambhat.html

Some interesting readings over the past couple of weeks. 1) In a Fierce Desert, Microbe ‘Crusts’ Show How Life Tamed the Land . Zack Savitsky describes a fascinating research program underw...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/07/links-early-life-critical-minerals-net.html

The International Commission of Stratigraph y has published an updated chronostratigraphic chart . You can download a high resolution pdf as well as a jpg version.  This is a good resou...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/07/chronostratigraphy-beats-of-geological.html

During my wandering in the high valleys of Kumaon I have been noticing some intriguing boulders of sandstone which have rolled down from the high ridges in the vicinity of Panchachuli Glacier and...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/06/field-photos-folds-tectonic-or-soft.html

I learned some new things from these articles over the past couple of weeks. 1) Endocranial Volumes and Human Evolution : Warning- this figure posted below is deceptive! Although hominin b...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/06/links-human-brain-evolution.html

Did our species evolve from an isolated population of ancient humans in one part of Africa in a relatively quick branching event? Or, was our evolution a continent wide process with many groups o...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/05/homo-sapiens-origins.html

After a gap of four years, I visited Darma Valley again earlier in the month. This well known trekking destination is situated in the Kumaon Himalaya of Uttarakhand. With me were a bunch of natur...

http://suvratk.blogspot.com/2023/05/panchachuli-glacier-area-landscapes.html