Earth. A seemingly stable, constant fixture beneath our feet. But from its core outward, the planet is anything but constant. It reshapes in response to dramatic events like earthquakes and volcanoes, gradual processes like erosion, and human causes like climatic change. “Geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it,” author Terry Pratchett quipped in Feet of Clay.
Whether we are considering the past, present, or future, scientists are unravelling some of the less than obvious spatial patterns in landscapes and life so we can make better decisions.
Mapping out the pieces of ancient geologies
The town of Snow Lake in Manitoba, Canada, may be far from the ocean, but around 1.8–1.9 billion years ago it was hundreds of meters below the sea surface. Back then, it was also the site of submarine volcanoes that deposited the zinc, copper, and gold that supports a mining industry in the area today. “The more we understand the processes that form these ore deposits, the more likely we are to be able to find new ones,” Vanessa Friesen, an exploration geologist at the mining company Vale, explained.
Read the full story over at Canadian Science Publishing.