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17 March 2008
If “xenolith” means “foreign rock”, my dunites could be Irish
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In the spirit of the holiday (green), I’m posting some photos of my favorite field samples – dunites! (Looks like Ron has a few of these in his Deskcrop Geopuzzle – I was a little too slow to guess this time around!) I collected these from the Vulcan’s Throne cinder cone on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on my first “big” (meaning month-long) field …
14 January 2008
Hot, gooey fillings
My least favorite geological misconception would have to be one that I come across a lot as an aspiring volcanologist: The Earth’s mantle is a molten sea of liquid, and the crust “floats” on it. Now, I suppose this is a perfectly good way to provide a simple explanation to young children who are too young to understand the rheology of rock in the mantle, or the fact that it …
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.