Following some thought, my answer was power and time.

When I think of the power of the Earth, the power required to build mountains, move continents, cause earthquakes, and melt rock and metal…my mind boggles. When I think of the time required to build (and erode) mountains, move continents from pole to Equator and evaporate entire seas…my mind boggles. And then there’s the fact that it is all just happening. No-one flicked a switch to start it or designed it (depending upon your religious point of view of course!); it simply occurs just because: surely inorganic nature at its best. Before life there were rocks and minerals: they are what the Earth and nature give us, what the universe decided to make with its elements. They are also our raw materials: everything we have made started as a chemical compound in a rock.

Rocks and minerals are also the oldest history lesson going; our only tool to glimpse into the vast expanse of the Earth’s existence. No matter what anyone else says, they are cool and geology does indeed rock! Throughout my blog I hope to prove this!

It is exactly one year since we first posted on this blog!

In that time we’ve published over 40 articles and had almost 10,000 visitors!

Thank you to all our followers on Facebook and Twitter, and please keep on following us and visiting this blog to find our more about the research we are doing. Next month we will be reporting from the 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

Latest news on the successful completion of GA10 UKGEOTRACES 40ºS

Just back from the south Atlantic and a successful research expedition. For the offical update click the link above.

But what about our solar system? What is that made from?

The Solar System formed from a swirling disk of dust and gas called the solar nebula. (Image courtesy of NASA)

Our solar system is believed to have formed from a cloud of dust and gas which collapsed under its own gravity – the solar nebula. A disk of dust and gas formed, at the center of which was a star, the Sun. The dust particles in the disk collided with each other and stuck together, eventually growing large enough to form the planets.

To try to understand exactly how our solar system formed, the processes that have occurred during its evolution and differences we observe between different planets, we need to start by addressing an important, fundamental question:

What was the starting material for the solar system? What was the average elemental and isotopic composition of the solar nebular?

The photosphere of the sun is believed to represent the original composition of the average solar system. (Image courtesy of NASA)

The sun contains about 99.86% of the total mass of our solar system. Therefore its composition can effectively be considered to be the average for the solar system. One of the outer layers of the sun, the photosphere, is believed to be relatively unchanged from the average composition of the solar nebular. So if we can measure the composition of the photosphere, we are, in effect, measuring the average composition of the starting material of our solar system.

But how do we collect a sample of the sun to analyse? It’s far too hot to send a space craft to the sun itself. The temperature at the core is about 15 million ^oC. The photosphere is about 5500 ^oC.

1 million tons of hot plasma, at temperatures up to 1.5 million ^oC, are ejected from the sun every second – this is known as the solar wind. The solar wind travels out from the sun into space. If you’ve ever seen an aurora, what you are actually seeing is the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth’s magnetic field. And it’s that magnetic field which protects us from the harmful effects of the solar wind. There have been some magnificent aurora over the last few days, as a massive burst of solar wind known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) reached the Earth. Usually aurora, often known as the Northern or Southern Lights, are only visible close to the polar regions, but the recent aurora have been visible across large parts of northern Europe. Sadly it was too cloudy to see anything here in Manchester, but there are some amazing pictures on the National Geographic website

So although we can’t collect samples from the sun itself, we can collect samples of the solar wind. Come back soon to read how…

The Earth's magnetic field protects us from the damaging solar wind, producing magnificent aurora. (Image courtesy of NASA)

Tissint: Meteorite recently confirmed to have come from Mars. (Image credit: Darryl Pitt of the Macovich Collection)

Most meteorites are “finds” rather than “falls” (seen falling) and very few come from Mars so this is exciting news. The last Martian “fall” was in 1962. Tissint will hopefully provide new clues about the geology and chemical conditions on the Red Planet.

As Tissint was not on the ground for long before it was collected (less than 6 months) it won’t have been exposed to much terrestrial contamination and any organic matter it contains will have been preserved and could help answer the big questions we have such as “was there life on Mars?” or “is Mars habitable?”. However, the chances of finding organic matter in Tissint are thought to be very small (and biological matter even more unlikely) as it is an igneous rock and signs of life are more likely to be found in sedimentary rocks but these would not survive the journey to Earth. So to really learn more about the Red Planet and answer these “big questions” we need to bring samples back from Mars ourselves in a sample-return mission!

Thousands of meteorites have been found on Earth but the majority come from asteroids and fewer than 40 are believed to be from Mars. We are quite confident that these meteorites came from Mars because:

West Rim of Endeavour Crater on Mars from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU)

• they are younger than asteroidal meteorites suggesting they formed on a large, geologically active planet.
• they contain mineral compositions that point towards formation on a large planet.
• they are unlikely to come from Venus as it has a thick atmosphere which would prevent  most material being ejected into space.
• they are unlikely to come from Jupiter’s moons as they wouldn’t be able to escape the gravity of Jupiter.
• the composition of gases found trapped inside some of them is identical within error to the composition of the Martian atmosphere measured by the Viking landers.

Tissint has been confirmed as Martian by matching its oxygen isotope signature to meteorites already known to be Martian.

More details about Tissint are available at the Meteoritical Society Database here.

Figure 1: Surface chlorophyll at 40S extending from South America to the Cape of Good Hope in the south Atlantic. A productive belt (green) of high chlorophyll - high phytoplankton productivity - is visable extending across the south Atlantic along 40S. The areas to the north and south of this band (dark blue and purple) represent areas of low chlorophyll or low or very low phytoplankton concentration. In these areas micronutrients, such as iron, are at very low concentrations and this restricts phytoplankton growth and productivity.

There is life in this part of the ocean (Figure 1) stretching across from the Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope. We have some to 40°S to study the life and the controls on life in this region and to better understand why there is life here when either side of this narrow band the ocean is much like a desert? This a very interesting question, interesting enough to get a large bunch of oceanographers from a variety of different disciplines together to try and figure it out.

GEOTRACES is a collection of scientists that are looking at TRACE metals/elements/nutrients in the ocean. For UKGEOTRACES 40°S we are interested in the sources (where they are origination from) and sinks (where they reside after moving through the system) of these trace elements. We are interested in trace nutrients such as iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), aluminum (Al) and zinc (Zn) among others. These are all important nutrients for phytoplankton in the oceans as they are required by physiological processes inside the cells of these tiny algae. If there is not very much of one or more of these trace nutrients in the seawater phytoplankton growth will be limited – they will not be able to grow.

Some of these elements are more important than others. For example iron is known to be the limiting factor of phytoplankton growth to both the north and south of our current location. The Southern Ocean and the South Atlantic sub-tropical gyre are both known as high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll (HNLC). The major nutrients required for phytoplankton cell growth, e.g. nitrate, phosphate, silicate and ammonium are not limiting in these areas yet there is no phytoplankton (phytoplankton contain chlorophyll which allows them to make energy from sunlight) thus no chlorophyll. Large scale experiments where iron has been added to these small areas of HNLC regions has resulted in the growth of phytoplankton – phytoplankton blooms (Figure 2).

Until recently methods used by chemical oceanographers to detect certain trace nutrients were not accurate enough to detect the minute quantities of trace nutrients e.g. iron, in parts of the world ocean. It is now possible to detect tiny (nano molar) concentrations of iron, manganese, aluminum, zinc and a whole suite of other elements.

Now that we can measure trace nutrients in the ocean it is possible to start to unravel how trace nutrients or micronutrients affect the growth of phytoplankton, also referred to a primary productivity and therefore all productivity in the ocean.

Figure 2: Natural phytoplankton boom. Iron fertilizarion experiments in HNLC areas produce booms as iron is the limiting micro nutrient, once it is present phytoplankton growht is no longer restricted.

We have come to 40°S to investigate the controls of productivity and to figure out where the micronutrients that make it a productive region of the world ocean come from. Of course we have some ideas where these micronutrients come from. The wind carries dust to the ocean (atmospheric sources), rivers bring micronutrients into the ocean (riverine sources), interactions between the ocean floor and the water that lies above it inject micronutrients from the sea floor into the overlying water column (benthic sources) and in areas of seafloor spreading (hydrothermal sources) micronutrients are also injected into the ocean. We hope to document concentrations of micronutrients in the ocean and unravel which micronutrients come from which sources and their role in controlling productivity in this region of the ocean.

P1.1: Field area in Namibia

I carried out 1:250,000-scale mapping (1cm = 250m), structural and textural observations of the rocks, took measurements and sampled the present rock types and mineralisation. Unfortunately we were not able to gain access to all of the mapping area so the job was cut short and postponed. I still enjoyed the trip, I gained off-road, 4WD driving experience, learnt more about mineralisation and saw some of the largest crystals I’ve ever seen – one was almost larger than me! The opportunity also provided me with industry experience, a chance to make links with a UK company and generally improve my future employability should I decide to go into the exploration and mining industry following my PhD. Walking around some foreign land making a map is my perfect job

P1.2: A very very large tourmaline crystal

P1.3: A very large feldspar crystal (to the right of me and at 45 degrees)

As we couldn’t do as much work as we wanted, I also spent some time travelling round Namibia and went on safari in Etosha National Park in the north. In the south of country there is a large canyon (like the Grand Canyon in the USA) and some hot springs. To the west are stunning mountainous regions with gorges and canyons (a great drive!) and along the Atlantic coast are desert environments with some of the largest sand dunes in the world: the northern stretch of coast, called the Skeleton Coast, is subject to dense ocean fogs and is littered by hundreds of shipwrecks and the southern coastline, called the Diamond Coast, is a heavily restricted area!

P1.4: Fish River Canyon, southern Namibia

But each year a group of scientists have to plan and pack for a completely differerent kind of trip over the festive period. They are guaranteed a white Christmas, but only by going to the coldest place on Earth…

Searching for meteorites on skidoos (Image courtesy of NASA)

The long running Antarctic Search for Meteorites program organises expeditions during the southern hemisphere’s summer each year to search for meorites in the Antarctic. The team typically spend around 6 weeks living and working on the ice sheet, camping in temperatures which would have most of us running for the nearest  tropical island. They spend their time searching for meteorites on the ice.

This year’s expedition is just getting started. Team members will be heading to McMurdo Station (the US Antarctic research station on Ross Island) within the next few days. There they will undergo some safety training and stock up on supplies for the duration of the expedition, before heading out to the Miller Range Icefield where they will conduct a full systematic search for meteorites.

Found one! (Image courtsey of NASA)

You can follow the team’s progress on their blog, which will be updated on a regular basis. The only question is how many meteorites can they find this year? Can they beat last year’s haul of over 1200?

A Martian meteorite on the ice (Image courtsey of NASA)

A large tabular iceberg in the back ground with medium sized iceberg in the foreground. Taken around dusk from the RRS James Cook Jan 2009.

When I tell people I go on cruises I always have to preface it with the words ‘scientific research’. However, when my boss tells says ‘get packing you are off on a cruise’ there is, of course, some excitement, even if it is for work. The locations are at the very least interesting and usually quite exciting, if not exotic. At some point on the trip there will be very good weather – I will explain that one a little later. Of course during the cruise I will spend plenty of time at sea, which is one of the reasons I like my work so much.

Me in my usual cool weather - cold water attire for sampling

First and foremost on my mind when I find out I am heading out to sea is the eternal question ‘what to pack?’ If I was packing for a holiday cruise I would just have to think about that other eternal question ‘what to wear?’ Luckily I don’t have to worry so much about that one for a scientific research cruise

With the UKGEOTRACES cruise date (20/12/2011 – 27/01/2012) fast approaching it is time to send everything needed on the cruise to South Africa to meet the ship. Everything that is sent needs to be listed on the ships manifest for the cruise. It has been a busy time here in Manchester ordering and packing all the equipment that will be necessary.

The manifest is composed of three different types of cargo: 1) scientific equipment, 2) safety kit and 3)personal belongings. The first on the list is the most difficult to get ready. All the equipment needs to be checked and tested to see if it is in proper working order. It then needs to be repacked so it is safe from damage on the way out to South Africa. Other items that will be used during the cruise need to be ordered and then prepared before packing can commence. Safety kit includes things like a hard hat, steel toed working boots, lab coats, goggles and gloves. Once you acquire this once you can use it again and again on all your cruises. It is essential as you will not be allowed to work on the dockside or the ship if you do not meet the safety regulations. I also pack a box with of work clothes, running gear, books, coffee, biscuits, shampoo etc. It is not essential that I do this but it means that I can bring a smaller bag on the airplane and that I have some clothes if my bag goes missing somewhere along the way!!

All the equipment that will be shipped to Southampton and then to South Africa next week.

Right now most of what we are doing for the cruise is considered logistics. All the logistics for JC068 (James Cook – cruise number 68, our cruise) are being taken care of by Malcolm and Julia at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) in Plymouth.  Everything from flights, passports, yellow fever documentation and medicals has to be organised, collated and checked well before the beginning of the cruise.

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Everything on the manifest has to be transported from the University of Manchester to the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton to be unloaded and packed into containers. These containers will be shipped form Southampton to South Africa in time for our arrival in South Africa in December. Mobilisation, where we unload all the cargo from the containers and load it onto the RRS James Cook, will take place in Port Elizabeth a day or so after we leave the UK.

Just like waiting to start a cruise, there is a lot of preparation to do before we can get to the science bit, I hope to get to some science in my next blog. I  hope to explain the scientific rational behind the work that we are planning to do. This should gear us up for the blogs that will be coming from the ship, this one and the lead UKGEOTRACES blog. You can see that blog here.

Looking at "pretty colours", aka thin sections of meteorites, down a microscope

On Saturday we were at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) again, offering visitors a chance to Meet The Cosmochemists.

MOSI’s Meet The Scientist takes place once a month (usually on the first Saturday). Each month a different group of scientists and engineers runs demonstrations and interactive activities for all the family.

We provided a range of things do so that all ages could have fun and learn something about cosmochemistry. Younger visitors (or those who just wanted to sit down for a while!) were kept busy naming and colouring the planets, along with trying to solve space-themed word searches, dot-to-dots and mazes. Large samples of meteorites were available for visitors to examine so they could learn about the different materials we find in meteorites. These different components tell us how our solar system has evolved over the last 4.5 billion years ago to the present day.

We also had some samples that could be viewed through a microscope. People were fascinated by the pretty colours they saw and we had many incorrect, but interesting and imaginative guesses as to what they might be looking at, ranging from butterflies to stained glass windows. One girl appeared disappointed that they were not fossilised dinosaur poo! But she was soon excited again when she learnt what it really was she was looking at – very thin slices (thin sections) of meteorites! When these are viewed using crossed polarised light the different minerals produce lots of different colours. This is a very useful tool used by geologists to study the mineral composition of both meteorites and terrestrial rocks (plus they look pretty!).

A large group of local Beaver Scouts were also visiting MOSI on Saturday, and at times we were inundated with 7-8 year old boys all scrabbling to look down the microscope, which all added to the fun of the day!

Racing to finish the space-themed word search

Looking at meteorites