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Origin of 30,000-Year-Old Venus of Willendorf Determined to be Northern Italy
One of the many displays in the Natural History Museum in Vienna is this tiny Venus figurine estimated to have been sculpted about 30,000 years ago. One interesting feature of this ancient artifact is it is made of a rock called "oolite," which is a material not native to Willendorf. Where did this figurine originate?With the help of high-resolution tomographic images, a team of an anthropologist and two geologists have found out a possible place of origin of the Venus of Willendorf — northern Italy. For the past century, the figurine was only examined from the outside. This was the first examination of its interior.So how did the researchers determine where the figurine possibly originated? The answer is through rock samples, which were collected from different countries. The said samples were sawn up and examined under the microscope. After a time-consuming analysis, the statistics pointed out northern Italy as the likeliest place of origin of the ancient Venus sculpture.(Image Credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/ Wikimedia Commons)#Anthropology #Geology #VenusFigurine #VenusofWillendorf
Carbon Residue from Ancient Life Found in 2.5 Billion-Year-Old Ruby
Professor Chris Yakymchuk of the University of Waterloo became one of the pioneers in studying the geology of ruby formation. During one of their research trips to Greenland, which is known for large deposits of rubies, Yakymchuk and his team found a sample of ruby that contained graphite. Graphite is a mineral made of pure carbon which was examined and found to be a remnant of early life. In fact, it was found in rocks older than 2.5 billion years ago. Looking back, this was a time when oxygen was not yet abundant, implying that only microorganisms and algae were alive. Studying the conditions necessary for ruby formation, the research team also found out that graphite does not only relate the gemstone to ancient life but was also a necessary factor for the ruby to exist by changing the chemistry of the rocks surrounding it.Image credit: University of Waterloo#ruby #graphite #carbon #gemstone #ancientlife #chemistry #geology
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovered a Tiny Rock Arch on Mars That Looked Like a Cat
In the Gale Crater on Mars, NASA’s Curiosity Rover caught a glimpse and took photos of a strange tiny rock arch. Back on Earth, citizen scientist Kevin Gill managed to stitch the photographs together to create a mosaic perspective in the image seen above.Some people say that the tiny rock arch resembles a cat or an alien’s head, but NASA’s planetary geologist Abigail Fraeman characterized it as “a particularly whimsical image of an interesting rock texture.” She added in the Rover mission update, “I continue to be dazzled by the textures we’re seeing, especially the prevalence of centimeter sized bumps and lumps poking out of the bedrock. … The whole field of view is about 16.5 cm across, so this is a very tiny feature!”The delicate arch is most likely made of an erosion-resistant material, according to planetary geologist Michelle Minitti, as the Gale Crater is dusty and windy. Materials that cannot resist erosion would have been swept away long ago.#NASA #Mars #arch #cat #CuriosityRover #rock #geology #GaleCrater
The Earth's Core is Growing Lopsided
Right beneath our feet, the Earth's core is doing something strange: it's growing more and more lopsided. But how?A new study by seismologists at the University of California, Berkeley, surmised that the core's mass accumulation has a lot to do with heat dissipation:The scientists say dissipating heat likely explains why the east Indonesia side is adding more iron crystals so much more rapidly. Those crystals form and are moved quickly into and toward the rest of the core, creating horizontally packed structures that explain the slower east-west seismic waves compared with the faster north-south seismic waves. Packed crystals are waiting in east-west queue lines that leave little room for seismic activity to pass through.The dissipating heat is likely due to Indonesia being covered by a huge mix of islands and expansive sea floor, which is a key place where molten materials shed heat from inside the Earth. On the western end, Brazil is part of the gigantic land mass of South America, leaving little space for the rapid cooling effect of the sea floor.#EarthCore #seismology #geology #HeatDissipation
The Surface of Venus Moves Like a Pack of Ice on a Frozen Lake
Venus was long thought to have an immobile solid outer shell like Mars or the Moon, but it turns out that the plant is actually more like Earth: it has large tectonic blocks that move like a broken pack of ice on a frozen lake."We've identified a previously unrecognized pattern of tectonic deformation on Venus, one that is driven by interior motion just like on Earth," said North Carolina State University professor Paul Byrne. "Although different from the tectonics we currently see on Earth, it is still evidence of interior motion being expressed at the planet's surface."This suggests that Venus is still geologically active:"We know that much of Venus has been volcanically resurfaced over time, so some parts of the planet might be really young, geologically speaking," Byrne says. "But several of the jostling blocks have formed in and deformed these young lava plains, which means that the lithosphere fragmented after those plains were laid down. This gives us reason to think that some of these blocks may have moved geologically very recently - perhaps even up to today."The researchers are optimistic that Venus' newly recognized "pack ice" pattern could offer clues to understanding tectonic deformation on planets outside of our solar system, as well as on a much younger Earth."The thickness of a planet's lithosphere depends mainly upon how hot it is, both in the interior and on the surface," Byrne says. "Heat flow from the young Earth's interior was up to three times greater than it is now, so its lithosphere may have been similar to what we see on Venus today: not thick enough to form plates that subduct, but thick enough to have fragmented into blocks that pushed, pulled, and jostled."Image: NC State University, based upon original NASA/JPL imagery#venus #geology #NASA #JPL #volcano
27.5-Million-Year Geologic Cycle is Earth's "Pulse"
"Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time," said Geologist Michael Rampino of New York University, "But our study provides statistical evidence for a common cycle, suggesting that these geologic events are correlated and not random."According to a new study published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers, geological activities on Earth follow a 27.5-million-year-cycle.From SciTechDaily:Using the latest age-dating data available, Rampino and his colleagues compiled updated records of major geological events over the last 260 million years and conducted new analyses.The team analyzed the ages of 89 well-dated major geological events of the last 260 million years. These events include marine and land extinctions, major volcanic outpourings of lava called flood-basalt eruptions, events when oceans were depleted of oxygen, sea-level fluctuations, and changes or reorganization in the Earth’s tectonic plates.They found that these global geologic events are generally clustered at 10 different timepoints over the 260 million years, grouped in peaks or pulses of roughly 27.5 million years apart.Thankfully, the most recent cluster of geological events was about 7 million years ago, so the next major pulse is (or should be) 20 million years in the future. Phew!#geology #geophysics #extinction #geologicalevent
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