Two large earthquakes this morning offshore Sumatra, an 8.6 followed by a magnitude 8.2 a couple of hours later. Fortunately, both strike-slip in mechanism so no significant tsunami.
Here are the seismograms from our schools seismometer here at Keele University UK.
Twenty-four hour record
Magnitude 8.6 08:38 11/04/2012
Magnitude 8.2 10:43 11/04/2012
Back in November of last year I wrote about the travesty that was the UK government’s white paper ‘Natural Choice’ that completely omitted geology from the natural world. Whilst lapses regarding the abiotic component of nature are unfortunately far from uncommon, removing (and it was in an earlier draft) geology, geodiversity and geoconservation from the document was an act of stunning ignorance by the mandarins in Whitehall.
Anyway, perhaps it is darkest before the dawn. Perhaps even, some of the shouting that the geoconservation community engaged in was to of good effect. The government has now published its long awaited revision of planning guidelines – National Planning Policy Framework (for England). The was a lot of concern about this document as the government had pre-announced that it wanted to rationalise the existing thousand pages of planning regulations to around fifty (actually it is 47 plus appendices). There was a worry that it would be heavily revised in favour of developers and to the detriment of the environment.
In the end, after some useful revision of the draft, it is much better for geoconservation than has expected. Although the original planning document relevant to geoconservation “PPS 9: Biodiversity and Geological Conservation” is superseded by the new Framework, the guidance is retained, as is the 2006 “Local Sites – Guidance on their Identification and Management”. This is extremely encouraging and goes a long way to addressing the omission of geoconservation from “Natural Choice” as it restates the importance of Local Geological / Geomorphological Sites (LoGS) in the planning process.
Specifically the NPPF states that …
The planning system should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by:
… protecting and enhancing valued landscapes, geological conservation interests and soils (11/109)Local planning authorities should set criteria based policies against which proposals for any development on or affecting protected wildlife or geodiversity sites or landscape areas will be judged. Distinctions should be made between the hierarchy of international, national and locally designated sites, so that protection is commensurate with their status. (11/113)
To minimise impacts on biodiversity and geodiversity, planning policies should:
… aim to prevent harm to geological conservation interests. (11/117)
All of which is quite encouraging.
Now, dear government, about geology not being designated as a “strategically important” subject when successive governments have abused North Sea oil revenues for their nefarious purposes for the last forty years …
On a brief parole from grading gaol …
Ian Saginor over at Volcanoclast is hosting this month’s accretionary wedge on the topic of countertop geology. As with many wedges, the geoblogosphere has largely decided to ignore, well at least modify, the brief (probably because we mostly have laminate counter tops). Fortunately, Ian has kindly expanded the topic to include any rocks ‘as long as they’re decorative and completely detached from their origin’.
Unusually for me, my example is a palaeontological offering. This is the centrepiece in the foyer of the wonderfully named Hotel Kasbah Meteorites, in Southern Morocco.
The hotel / kasbah is close to the Berber town of Alnif, famous for it’s trilobite fossils. The hills around Alnif Djbel Issimour are called the trilobites mountains and trilobite sellers line the roads like fruit sellers do in other countries. The hotel owners decided to go with the geology motif with highly fossiliferous bathroom surrounds (edit: see below) and this centrepiece of large ammonites and orthocones.
I have a traditional Berber scarf from the rack in the background that I sometimes wear, much to the befuddlement / amusement of my students in the field.
[update:]
The ammonites and orthocones also appeared as a drinks table in a hotel in Ouarzazate that we stayed in on the last night.
Returns to grading gaol …
Another Stoke-on-Trent earthquake, magnitude 1.8 occurred yesterday (January 19, 2012) provisionally located near the village of Bagnall, similar to the earthquake on January 11. Above is the recording from Keele University.
If the location of these two events remain this far east, I may have to revise my initial assessment that they are coal mining related since this area is outside the Coal Measures subcrop.
Recent Stoke-on-Trent Earthquakes
View Stoke Quakes in a larger map
On a whim today, I decided to trace my academic family tree (i.e. my Ph.D. supervisor being my academic parent; their supervisor, my academic grandparent … and so forth). I was stunned to get back to the early 1600s, before the English Civil War, and with some illustrious scientists in my academic heritage line.
Ian G Stimpson (Cardiff – geophysics)
Robert G Pearce (Newcastle – geophysics)
One of my academic forefathers, Isaac Newton. Source wikimedia.
Edward C Bullard 1907-1980 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Patrick M S Blackett 1897–1974 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Ernest Rutherford 1871–1937 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Joseph J Thomson 1856-1940 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Edward John Routh 1831–1907 (Cambridge – mathematics)
William Hopkins 1793–1866 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Adam Sedgwick 1785-1873 (Cambridge – geology)
Thomas Jones 1756–1807 (Cambridge – mathematics)
John Cranke 1746-1816 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Thomas Postlethwaite 1731-1798 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Stephen Whisson ?-1783 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Walter Taylor c1700-1743/4 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Robert Smith 1689-1768 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Roger Cotes 1682—1716 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Isaac Newton 1642-1727 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Isaac Barrow 1630–1677 (Cambridge – mathematics)
James Duport 1606-1697 (Cambridge – classics)
Robert Hitch ?-1677 (Cambridge – ?)
… truly standing on the shoulders of giants.
Geoblogosphere
