BepiColombo may launch as early as this weekend. It seeks to unravel the mysteries of Mercury’s geologic and magnetic past and map the small planet’s cratered surface.
geology
Posted inScience Updates
Geology in 3-D and the Evolving Future of Earth Science
Geologic Mapping Forum; Minneapolis, Minnesota, 26–29 March 2018
Posted inNews
Kevin Charles Antony Burke (1929–2018)
Burke, a master geologist, traveled the world to inform his studies on plate tectonics, soil formation, erosion, sedimentology, and a host of other topics, including other planets.
Posted inNews
Ursula B. Marvin (1921–2018)
This bold mineralogist and feminist bucked norms that deemed geology unsuited for women. She contributed to meteoritics, science history, and petrology, including the analysis of Apollo Moon rocks.
Posted inGeoFIZZ
A Rock Guide to Fireworks
Before a firework was red, it was a strontium salt waiting for its moment.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Peering Through Titan’s Haze to Better Understand Its Surface
Variations in grain size and water ice content detected on Saturn’s largest moon offer evidence of geologically related units that resemble the mountain-to-desert transition on Earth.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Challenging the Day Diagram, a Rock Magnetism Paradigm
A critique of the plot routinely used to determine bulk magnetic properties concludes the technique is so ambiguous that new approaches to understanding magnetic mineral assemblages must be developed.
Posted inScience Updates
Making Maps on a Micrometer Scale
Geographic information system software, created for mapping cities and continents, works equally well with the minuscule layers and inclusions that record a crystal’s history.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
New Insights into Continental Deformation in Northwestern Tibet
A new surface velocity map shows strain localized along major strike-slip features, suggesting the central Tibetan Plateau is not deforming as a fluid in response to gravitational collapse.
Posted inNews
Harry W. Green II (1940–2017)
By keenly probing mantle rheology, interactions of deformations and phase transitions, and microscopic features, he made major contributions to petrology, mineralogy, and earthquake science.