Flock of Dodos

The flock of dodos movie discussed the ways the scientific community and the intelligent design community portrayed their sides of the issue.

Intelligent designers where definitely the winner when it came to portraying their side of the issue the best. They didn't use scientific jargon or big words and they developed catch phrases with a PR firm to help catch the public's attention. Not simplifying an explanation can cause confusion for the general public and they will lose interest very quick and looking for something that is simpler to understand.

The evolutionist handled the discussion in a complete opposite manner from the intelligent designers. They continued to use scientific jargon instead of simplifying their explanations and over all just didn't seem to care to discuss the issue. During one debate all they sent was lawyer to answer questions for their side, were the intelligent designers had scientists there to debate. This just showed the evolutionists unwillingness to get their ideas of evolution out to the public.

The evolutionist need to be willing to discuss their side of issue and discuss it on terms that the public can use if they want to be taken more seriously and maybe even hire a PR firm to help get the message across to the public easier.

Strat Column

This is the strat column from ECM was done on Adobe Illustrator. I have used Illustrator before but never for geological purposes. It was fairly easy to do, the most time consuming part was just entering the data.

This is a cropped image of a few plumes originating from the South Pole of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.

Catch up

So I am still in the middle of trying to play catch up with school after being in Salt Lake City for a week due to work, but I am getting there. I thought I could at least post what I plan on doing my presentation on.

At Exploration Place, there is a small exhibit on the bridge heading over to the main exhibit hall where panels go up once a month with different scientific topics. Since I was already doing research on planetary volcanism for class, I decided to volunteer myself to do the signs for the month of May. Upon doing my research for class and for Exploration Place I realized that to cover current and past volcanism of the Solar System in 10mins was going to be a very big stretch. So I have decided to only cover active volcanism of the solar system. The planets/moons I plan on covering are Earth (obviously), Venus, Io, Enceladus, Titan and Triton and maybe Europa if I have time.

GeoMapsApps Project

I finally have found something in the GeoMapsApps involving volcanism to form a research question. What I found gives the location and timing of Seafloor Earthquake and Volcanic Eruptions. The data was put together by the VENTS program. The program is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The program conducts research on the impacts and consequences of submarine volcanism and hydrothermal venting. On GeoMapApp there are three sets of data, Juan de Fuca (SOSUS), Eastern Pacific Rise (EPR) and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR). I looked at the Juan De Fuca data set which was comprised of the data from the Cascades area in North America, Southern Alaska, Hawiian Islands and areas around Japan and the Philippines. The data set ranged from 1991 through 2004. There was peak of sea floor earthquakes and volcanic eruptions I estimate around the year 1998-1999. I was wondering if sea floor earthquakes where predictors of volcanic eruptions on the sea floor and, and what kind of consequences result on the sea life that thrives around these volcanic vents?

New Project

Alex and I are assisting Dr. Parcell with reorganizing and recataloging the rock and mineral collection. The current system is not very user friendly and we are looking to make it user friendly both on spreadsheets and in the cabinets and drawers. I remember when I took mineralogy Dr. Parcell stated that he needed to get a couple of grad students to organize the rock and mineral collection, I guest he has found them. :-)

Brief review of 5 sources part I

Titan: What we've learned about a strange new world, by Michael Carroll, Astronomy Magazine, March 2010

In the region called Hotei Arcus, of the Xandau plateau-like region on Titan, there are multiple features that look like volcanoes. Instruments on the Cassini spacecraft are seeing brightness in two regions and possible flow morphology that could represent cyrovolcanic flows according to Rosaly Lopes a scientists that works at the Jet Propulsion Lab. Channel features have also be found on the surface of Titan that resemble lava flows in radar and some also originate from what could be a caldera.

Volcanic Worlds: Exploring the Solar System''s Volcanoes, edited by Rosaly Lopes and Tracy Gregg

This book is actually a compilation of volcanism articles. I haven't finished the book yet. I have read one article about Earth's volcanic, an article on Venus and I am in the middle of an article on the Moon.

The first article was entitled Volcanoes on Earth: Our basis for understanding volcanism by Katherine Cashman. The article discussed hot spot volcanism of the Hawaiian Islands and subduction zone volcanism and the different features and lavas associated with each.

The second article was entitled Earth's evil twin: The volcanic world of Venus by Ellen Stofan. On Venus there are cone and shield volcanoes, shield volcanoes out number the cone volcanoes. Venus has steep-sided features that are also called pancake domes with flat-tops. Radar indicates brightness of a lava. The brighter lavas indicated rough formation while darker lavas indicate smooth flow. Most Venusian volcanoes tend to resemble hot spot formations like that of the Hawaiian Islands. Venus also has a large number of flood plains with rough and smooth flows that have flowed for great distances. Flow channels have also be spotted on Venus that are kilometers wide and hundreds of kilometers long. Water has not existed on Venus for billions of years if ever mainly due to the heat from the closeness of the Sun and the runway greenhouse effect so the channels couldn't have been formed by water.

Icy Worlds of the Solar System, edited by Pat Dasch

The Voyager probe flew by Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, in 1989 and discovered plume of dark material rising about 8 kilometers above the surface and the probe observed very few impact craters signaling that the surface was relatively young. Scientists believe the plumes might be triggered by some sort of source internally. The volcanism on Triton provides evidence that there is melting in the interior. After reading about Triton in this book it seems to be saying indirectly that the source of Triton's heat may have been from a collision with another planetary body millions of years ago.

Sources

1. Volcanic Worlds edited by Rosaly M.C. Lopes and Tracy K.P. Gregg
A collection of papers writen by women volcanologists. Discuss the volcanism process of Earth, Jupiter's moon Io, Venus, Mars and Saturn's Moon Titan.

2. Worlds on Fire: Volcanoes on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus and Io by Charles, Frankel. Discusses the volcanism process of Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus, Io

3. Icy Worlds of the Solar System, edited by Pat Dasch

4. Active Volcanism on Io, by Alfred S. McEwen

5. Cryovolcanism on the Icy Satellites, by J.S. Kargel

6. Resurfacing of Titan by ammonia-water cyromagma, by Roslay M.C. Lopes et. al

7. Tidal Heating and convention of Io, by W.B. Moore

8. Titan: What we've learned about the strange new world, by Michael Carroll, Astronomy Magazine, March 2010

9. Water Vapor Jets inside the plume of gas leave Enceladus, by C.J. Hansen et al

10. Ice Volcanism has rejuvenated Titan, by Richard Kerr

The Project

The theme of these blogs will be planetary volcanism. I will be reading various articles and books and giving a general summary and my opinion. I intend to study past and present volcanism processes and the magma produced on other worlds in the solar system and compare them to the magma and volcanism processes on Earth.

Earth is the only known world in the solar system that has plate tectonics. We know tectonic plates are subducted under other plates and that causes majority of the volcanism on Earth, with exception of hot spots like Yellowstone and the Hawaiian Islands. So, what could possibly cause the volcanism that is currently taking place on Jupiter's moon Io, or the eruption of liquid nitrogen on Neptune's moon Trition? What caused Mars to be volcanically active millions years and how did Mars come to have the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, with out the aid of plate tectonics? By the end of this project I hope to answer these questions and many more.