The Earth starts to shake. All the tension that was built up at the fault was released. An earthquake just happened somehow the ground starts moving. If you think about it, it’s fascinating how this energy can affect us several miles away from the actual earthquake. But how exactly does this work? At the fault […]
Like a Moss
They’re pretty much everywhere. In the harshest environments, even on highways some extremophile mosses, lichens and algae can survive. Most of them aren’t very welcome on the walls of our cities. Since they’re easier to remove than graffiti many house owners remove them first. But did you know these, so called, cryptogamic covers are huge […]
In Rough Seas
Heligoland is an island off the coast of Nothern Germany. This island has already had a turbulent history before man set foot on this island of red sandstone. But its position in the North Sea, between Germany and the UK, also has made this island subject to territorial quarrels and military interest. This interest has […]
Phantastic Physics!
Guns and physics mix pretty well. While I don’t want to advocate gun use! Nevertheless, they’re still a marvelous example when it comes to trajectories and the like. So two weeks ago the Veritasium Youtube Channel posted a puzzling video involving a gun and a wooden block, but see for yourself: So what do you […]
The beauty of Iceland
This animated gif is just awe-inspiring. This video captures even more of this magnificent beauty. It was created by Eva Sturm.
Recording a seismic wave – What’s new?
Streamers are an essential part in the marine seismic experiment. When I first came into geophysics, I learned that streamers are fluid-filled hoses with pressure probes. This might be right in the case of our streamer at the university which isn’t quite up to par with the newest developments out in the industry. Oil-filled seismic […]
In case of emergency
Stones can be very useful.
How punch cards helped me get to know my data – EBCDIC
Today I learned something interesting. Old habits die hard and seismics is a pretty old business. There are a couple of standards for storing seismic data in file formats. One of them is the so-called SEG-Y standard. It starts with information about the data set called header and then the actual seismic data is written. […]
Know your scale – Why wavelengths are so important
So you thought there is just one “seismics”? In general, we might say that the seismics experiment is watching mechanical waves travel through Earth and then apply science on it to get an image of the Earth’s interior. However, this experiment and the science behind it has a high degree of uncertainty. When we conduct […]
Breathtaking View of a Breathing Earth
This animation of 15 frames from the NASA cloudless photos is beautiful but haunting. John Nelson is usually known for rather complex animations, but this simple gif shows a year in the life of our Earth. A breathing Earth. Read up on it over at fastcodesign.com/ or directly at John Nelsons post
