Wow.

I don’t have time to write anything about this, so a few links…

EO Natural Hazards: Chaitén Volcano Erupts -for a spectacular satellite photo of ash plume

The Volcanism Blog has extensive coverage and information on the eruption.

The following is just a sample:

+ Dramatic satellite image of Chaitén in eruption

+ Chaitén update: SERNAGEOMIN report, 6 May 2008

Credit for photo thumbnail image derived from: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

Update: (May 7th):

Twomore links (Via Dynamics of Cats)

• + Chaiten Volcano Chile (Dynamics of Cats)
• + The Latest News On Current Eruptions (INTLVRC - International Volcano Research Centre)

Well, I handed in my thesis today: “The Volcanic, Metamorphic and Structural Architecture of the Prospero-Tapinos Ni-Sulfide Host Succession, Western Australia”. It has been an exhausting year, one I never, ever want to repeat. But it is over now. My thesis can basically be described as a picture book with some text to go with it. It looks huge but the thesis itself is only 65 pages. Most of the bulk is the 150+ page appendix at the back.

So, in honour of this moment, I thought I might use the meme of book photos and the grog that should be drunken with it.

I couldn’t find anything more toxic than metho. Although there are a few bottles of 10% HCl solution about but they’re not alcoholic.

I was innocently reading the “Geology of the Sir Samuel 1:250 000 sheet area, Western Australia” notes by Liu, Champion & Cassidy (2002), when I discover how to make both men and roosters happy. It is the “Cocks-Satisfaction Zone“. Apparently, the best exposure is west of the northern section of the Mt McClure Fault in W.A. I shall retrieve my brain from the gutter now, and may have to wipe down my desk after snorting coffee all over it.

A few photos (well, I am not going to show the hundreds of photos I took of rock core) from a couple of trips out to the Cosmos mine site so I could collect data for my honours project. I had the opportunity to go down in the mine when I first went there in Jan 2007, and again in June/July. Can’t say I am hugely fond of working underground. It is muggy, dark, dusty and very hot. And when a truck or bogger starts up it is incredibly loud.

   

There are more photos below the fold. 

Sometimes being a geologist is just sooo horrible. Look at all these awful places I went to on my last fieldtrip/course.

There are more photos below the fold.