New paleomagnetic observations from Iceland - Strong geomagnetic field 2300 years ago

In the summer of 2004 Dr. Mads Knudsen and I drove around Iceland sampling lava flows for paleomagnetic studies. The first results are now published in a scientific paper: New palaeointensity data from Holocene Icelandic lavas. The paper is part of Tania Stanton's Ph.d. thesis.

Sampling sites for Holocene lavas 

A main motivation for the study is to extend the GEOMAGIA50 database, especially for the earliest parts of the Holocene were few data exists. Iceland is an ideal location for these kinda studies given the large amounts of well-dated lavas. As can be seen from the map above, we sampled quite a few lava flows.

An interesting aspect of the study is the finding of very high paleointensities in a 2300 year old lava. Our study suggest that the geomagnetic field was roughly twice as strong at that time as it is today. A lot more paleomagnetic work could be done on Iceland - What we show is that it is possible to sample the Holocene Icelandic lavas (see photo below), and that the lavas are well suited for paleointensity experiments.

Drilling a Holocene lava flow close to Myvatn (Myvatn fires)

Drilling another Holocene lava (Burfellsrhaun)

Dr. Mads Knudsen in search of the Jamaica geomagnetic polarity event on Hlodufell 

The GEOMAGIA50 database

GEOMAGIA50 is a web application designed to give easy access to all peer-review-published paleomagnetic data for the past 50 000 years. At present, the underlying database contains c. 8000 determinations of geomagnetic field directions and intensities.

It is quite easy to use the application to get access to the data and at the same time generate plots showing different representations of the data. Please try it out for yourself: http://geomagia.ucsd.edu/geomagia/

I worked on GEOMAGIA50 together with Fabio Donadini and Kimmo Korhonen back in 2006-2007. It is very pleasing to see that these guys continue to maintain and update the database and web application. At the time of writing GEOMAGIA50 has a monthly count of more than 200 unique users querying the database.

GEOMAGIA50 represent my first experience to make scientific data available on the internet. It was fun and interesting. Unfortunately there is little or no encouragement for scientists to share their data, so it is not something a young scientist can afford to spend a lot of time doing if he wants to build a scientific career. It is a shame that the scientific communities does not support these kinda efforts.

Self-citations and the case of Milena Penkowa

Milena Penkowa represents an interesting case of a young scientist making a fantastic career in Danish science, strongly supported by some heavy players, among them the former Minister of Science and the Rector of Copenhagen University. At every possible occasion Milena Penkowa was but forward as a role model for young scientists. Now, to the embarassement of the Danish scientific establishment, it turns out that Milena Penkowa was cheating not only with her grant money but also with her scientific works.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110107/full/news.2011.703.html


The central question is why did Milena Penkowa make it so far? The answer is that she published a lot and was heavily cited. So on almost all bibliometric measures she was an excellent scientist. However, looking at her citations one feature is very noticeable, namely the extent to which she cited herself. Out of a total of 2,401 citations listed in the Web of Science database, 1296 are self-citations. A lot has been written on scientific self-citations, and although I read only a very small part of this literature, I would think that red lights should be flashing for scientist that cites themselves so often that more than 50% of their citations are self-citations. I wonder why the percentage of self-citations is not generally accepted as a bibliometric parameter for funding agencies and employers, not to continue to promote self-glorifying scientist obsessed with (self-)citations. Apparently Milena Penkowa was so focussed on her citations that her PC would show her citation-index whenever started up. I know a lot of scientists have the same obsession, and it seems unhealthy both for the individuals as well as science as a whole.


I checked out a few scientists within my own area of expertise and actually found the percentage of self-citations very much reflected what I thought it would. I completely agree with the definition that good guys have self-citations < 50% of total cites, and the bad guys have > 50% self-citations - See http://blogs.nature.com/u24d269fc/2008/04/25/h-factors-research-metrics-and-self-citation.

Postscriptum: The blog was picked up by University Post and Universitetsavisen (in danish)

Where are the good geology internet-sites for children?

I recently visited a couple of year-3 school classes to tell them about geology. It was nice to experience their interest and eager to learn - Geology is such an easy subject to teach kids because it is all around, and the applications of geology is so easy for children to understand. Besides, children love stones. At the same time geology is a fantastic entrance to other natural sciences, talking about gravity, evolution, magnetism, other planets, etc.

Then, why are there so few good geological internet-sites for kids? At least, I had a very hard time finding sites I thought were interesting. A lot of money is spent on geological teaching materials and museums making excellent geology expositions - Why are some of these efforts not guided towards the internet?

I spent a long time searching, and the best geology site for children I found was the one developed under the OneGeology project: http://www.onegeology.org/extra/kids/home.html
It is hard to understand that there are not some internet-sites with more interactivity. Or am I missing something?

Web GIS applications at GEUS

We have several Web-GIS projects starting at GEUS, that aims to put geological maps and georeferenced data on the internet. Yesterday, I presented some of the already implemented Web GIS applications. The presentation was for the weekly GEUS seminars:

WebGISRiiisager

1:100k Geological Map for SW Greenland

Check out the new Detailed geological map for SW Greenland: http://geuskort.geus.dk/gisfarm/gis_svgreenland.jsp

The WMS behind the application is developed using ESRI ArcGIS tools. A lot of work was put into updating the geological maps and harmonizing the geology for the rather large area covered - The project was an important first step for harmonising the geological map of Greenland on a 1:100k scale. One of the main obstacles for making the map available on the internet was performance. We tried different ways of optimizing the WMS on our ArcGIS server 10 - Most significant improvement was the simple step to base the WMS on a .msd file rather than the standard .mxd.

The application is based on MapServer CGI. The WMS is so far only available through the application. In addition to the geological map it is also possible through the application to view a long list of geological and geophysical data, as well as field photographies.

A more detailed description of the project is given here: http://www.geus.dk/swgrmap/swgrmap-uk.htm

GeoSciML

GeoSciML is an international effort by geologists to set up an XML language for geological information. I recently had some fun playing with GeoSciML - Believe me, it is not easy to standardise geological information into GeoSciML.

I think the beauty of GeoSciML (or the grammar of any language) is very nicely described through the following Wittgenstein quote: Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.

I recently wrote the following short paper on GeoSciML (in danish)

GeoSciML_2-11-2010

Interactive geological map of Denmark

I was recently project leader on OneGeology Europe for the small danish part of the project; Mainly responsible for some web map services (WMSs) designed for the European OneGeology Portal.

Now, to have some fun with the new WMS I decided to build an application to consume them. I did this and at the same time took my first stabs at the ExtJS javascript framework and the Google App Engine. I really truly enjoyed the ExtJS framework, and has taken it into use in other projects since then.

The result of my efforts you can see here: http://danmarksgeologi.appspot.com/