Recent content by darksociety

As a geology graduate, echoing in part what others have said: -Go on as many field trips as possible; take advantage of any student conferences (i.e. SIMEW and SIFT in Canada) that you can -Enroll in as many field courses as possible; even do geophysics field school if you are in geology...

No need to get defensive; inherent to any hypothetical scenario of increased CO2 is how that may or may not be a controlling factor on plant growth and evolution. Second, placing a 'restriction' on a type of plant that behaves in the manner described is certainly appropriate; it goes without...

What he's saying in a very general sense that with an abundance of CO2, it no longer becomes a limiting factor in plant growth. As a consequence, some plants will evolve fewer stomata on the leaves because the increase in CO2 allows for it. They are, perhaps, 'fine-tuned' to the current...

Indeed! As Robert (2011) explains, there's a significant distribution in D/H ratios between various planetary bodies, including the Earth and Moon: Perhaps Nik would like to do some reading: Greenwood, J.P., Itoh, S., Sakamoto, N., Warren, P., Taylor, L., and Yurimoto, H., 2011...

Greenwood et al. (2011) show a distinct overlap between the hydrogen/deuterium ratios of Earth's water and carbonaceous chondrites, so that is a plausible and likely source.

1) The term you'll see a lot in the literature is 'radiative forcing' and its quantitative metric is watts per square metre (W/m^2). 2) Reflection in the general sense is qualified broadly as 'albedo', but I suspect you're after a more specific, physical mechanism. It's a tricky question...

Assuming a biogenic source, the structual framework of the study is important. If there is an unconformity, for example, between the granitic basement and the overlying source, sedimentary rock, hydrocarbons will find some way to exploit it if the conditions are right. Another scenario might...

More likely that figure (2500 m/s) comes from a seismic line, thus reflecting a real life situation. Terminology of 'bedrock' simply refers to any indurated lithology (if sedimentary) that does not exhibit significant weathering. In some areas the bedrock may be exposed at the surface (and...

A lot of work over the past couple of decades has been done on the Superior Province of the Canadian shield arguing for plate tectonics at least as far back as 3 Ga. This is primarily with respect to tonalite-tronjhemite-granodiorite (TGG) suites that indicate formation through metasomatized...

Hopefully the links above cleared up most of your questions! However, some simplified dates just in case: 4.55 Ga: Formation of the Earth and Moon 3.8 Ga: End date of the 'late heavy bombardment' 3.7 Ga: First evidence of bacterial life (geochemical indicators) 2.5-2.0 Ga: Oxygenation of...

In Canada, at least, there are significant formal and informal partnerships between industry, academia, and government. It's not also really a problem since all parties are interesting in getting the most accurate result - better research equals better economic opportunities. My own thesis...

I would hope that reprocessing comes online within the next 50 years as a consequence of increased environmental awareness. Apart from that, however, as an exploration geologist working in Canada, I cannot forsee any shortage of mineable, terrestrial ore on the scale of 200-300 years...