BWS Geology

The official Twitter feed for all updates and reading resources from the Geology Department at BWS

[European Space Agency @esa]

📣UPDATE 2: We expect the ~1 m asteroid discovered this morning to strike Earth's atmosphere over the Philippines near Luzon Island at 16:39 UTC today.

Thanks to new observations, we now have a very good idea of where it will impact.

And the object has a name! Welcome to Earth asteroid 2024 RW1 👋☄️

[History_of_Geology @Geology_History]

After an eruption destroyed the city of St. Pierre (Martinique) & killed 30.000 people, a 300 meters high pinnacle made from the cooling, high-viscosity lava was pushed upwards from the volcanic vent of La Pelée. It collapsed in September 1903
https://t.co/V0wxh2tsbk

[WGCG @WGCG_UK]

A #molluscmonday treat from the ancient floor of ⁦@WinCathedral⁩. Lower #Cretaceous Sussex Marble with chunky Viviparus fluviorum, not to be confused with slightly older Purbeck Marble (smaller viviparids), elsewhere in the cathedral. ⁦@pavementgeology⁩ #urbangeology

[Tom Williams @tw__astro]

"Saturn rise"

The Lunar #Occultation of #Saturn this morning, captured from southwest UK with my 16" scope. Here the ringed planet is emerging from behind the silhouetted limb of the #Moon - the rough lunar terrain made visible as a result.
Stoked with how this turned out!

[NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day @apod]

A supermoon occurred yesterday. And tonight's moon should also look impressive. Supermoons appear slightly larger and brighter than most full moons because they reach their full phase when slightly nearer to the Earth -- closer than 90 percent of all full moons. This supermoon was also a blue moon given the definition that it is the third of four full moons occurring during a single season. Blue moons are not usually blue, and a different definition holds that a blue moon is the second full moon that occurs during a single month. The featured image captured the blue supermoon right near its peak size yesterday as it was rising beyond the Temple of Poseidon in Greece. This supermoon is particularly unusual in that it is the first of four successive supermoons, the next three occurring in September, October, and November.

Image Credit: Alexandros Maragos

[X @Pteroterror]

Presenting: Palaeontological Map of England

As handful people think you have to go to a far-flung special places to find fossil sites. This could not be further from the truth! Because almost anywhere in England, there will be a fossil site or a museum collection of importance.

[NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day @apod]

What would it look like to return home from outside our galaxy? Although designed to answer greater questions, data from ESA's robotic Gaia mission is helping to provide a uniquely modern perspective on humanity's place in the universe. Gaia orbits the Sun near the Earth and resolves stars' positions so precisely that it can determine a slight shift from its changing vantage point over the course of a year, a shift that is proportionately smaller for more distant stars -- and so determines distance. In the first sequence of the video, an illustration of the Milky Way is shown that soon resolves into a three-dimensional visualization of Gaia star data. A few notable stars are labelled with their common names, while others stars are labelled with numbers from a Gaia catalog. Eventually, the viewer arrives in our stellar neighborhood where many stars were tracked by Gaia, and soon at our home star Sol, the Sun. At the video's end, the reflective glow of Sol's third planet becomes visible: Earth.

Credit: Galaxy Illustration: N. Risinger (https://t.co/lDyVYODSVh); Star Data: Gaia Mission, ESA, A. S. Sellés (U. Heidelberg) et al.

[Dr. Rod Taylor @FossilRod]

It’s #TrilobiteTuesday! To celebrate, here’s a fantastic specimen of Foulonia sp. from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco. There’s plenty of detail preserved, but it’s only 6 cm long.

Image: https://t.co/MsuhPKbUKh

[The Geological Society @GeolSoc]

The Palace of #Versailles has been hosting the Equestrian events at this year's Olympics 🏇

The distinctive symmetrical shape of the Gardens of Versailles can be clearly seen on this geological map, an extract from the 1874 sheet for the wider Paris region.

#GEOLympics #OldMap

[Cardiff Curator @CardiffCurator]

If you visit @Museum_Cardiff check out the Evolution of Wales gallery and be sure not to miss Paradoxides, the largest trilobite found in the UK! #TrilobiteTuesday

[Mark Tingay @CriticalStress_]

Spectacular pillow lavas at Wadi Jizzi, Oman. This outcrop is also known as the ‘Geotimes’ outcrop, from when it appeared on the cover of Geotimes magazine in 1975.

[The Geological Society @GeolSoc]

If you’re in London over the next few weeks, be sure to pop into Burlington House to see Harry Young’s incredible rock map of Scotland.

Harry began this map in 1992, adding the final piece in 2020.

📅Tuesday – Thursday
⏲️10am-5pm

No booking needed!

[Lapworth Museum of Geology @lapworthmuseum]

#OnThisDay was born Marie Tharp (1920–2006), who used bathymetry to discover a rift valley through the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which led to the acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics!

📷: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory/Columbia University.

#TectonicTuesday #geologyrocks

[NHM_Bryozoa @BryozoanNhm]

#MolluscMonday Eocene nautiloid on display in the galleries of the Otago Museum in Dunedin, NZ (diagonal line is the shadow of the display case). Labelled as Aturia sp., the fossil comes from Waihao in South Canterbury.

[History_of_Geology @Geology_History]

"A lucky blow of the hammer discloses a new species of fossil fish. Great delight of the Geologist thereat." 🐟
Professor Ramsay Heatley Traquair's self-portrait, 1861

[Wisconsin Geological & Natural History Survey @WGNHS]

A wavy time over 400 million years ago! 🌊

This is a section of rock core from 300+ ft below the ground in eastern Wisconsin. At this exact time and place, waves churned up the ocean floor and left behind this layer of broken shelly bits!

#WGNHSResearch #WGNHS #RockCore

[Cardiff Curator @CardiffCurator]

A nice example of Ogygiocarella from Llandeilo, on display in our Evolution of Wales gallery @Museum_Cardiff #TrilobiteTuesday

[Thierry Legault @ThierryLegault]

The May 31 occultation of Saturn from NE Argentina: genuine, as visible through the C8. No photomontage, no AI! 😊
The turbulence was high but the sky was clear to show Saturn partly disappearing behind the dark part of the Moon (grazing occultation)
Image 2/2: during occultation

[BWS Geology @BWSGeology]

Year 12 👀

[Lapworth Museum of Geology @lapworthmuseum]

Wishing you a terrific Tuesday with this Ordovician trilobite, meaning it is over 440 million years old! This specimen is from the Llanvirn Series in Wales.

#TrilobiteTuesday #LapworthRocks #museum #geology #fossil #palaeontology @unibirmingham @geology_bham @ace_national

[BWS Geology @BWSGeology]

https://t.co/uWv2L9Z7kM