While our thoughts and hopes are with the people of New Zealand at the moment (and I’m sure that my students will write about the earthquake at the end of the week), its time for a short glimpse into the news stories from last week that my students discovered:
- 600 Myr year old fossils from Lantian China have implications for anoxic vs. oxic environments (I think I need to start reading some more paleo blogs to keep up with a few of my mineralogy students…)
- lots of earthquakes in Arkansas since October, but what are they due to? the student found a 2nd article that tried to link them to bird & fish deaths… I could only find non-science or quack-science blogs that addressed this (and I refuse to lead people there!)
- just in case you don’t follow Boris Behncke (@etnaborris), Mt Etna has been erupting recently
- Mt. St. Helens had a swarm of earthquakes including a 4.3 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday, the cause of which was discussed by Erik over on Eruptions (spoiler alert: its probably not due to an impending eruption)
The Arkansas swarm was chosen by several of my students (who all found different articles) across both classes, so it won the “popularity vote” this week.
Elli Goeke
