Simon Lamb
New Zealand
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Articles by Simon Lamb
Ancient African bedrock reveals the violent beginnings of life on our blue planet
You have probably seen the images of the surface of Mars, beamed back by NASA’s rovers. What if there were a time machine capable of roaming Earth during its remote geological past, perhaps even going right back to its beginnings, beaming back pictures of similar quality? This is not science fiction. In remote corners of the world, geologists have found tiny relics of Earth’s very ancient surface.
Ancient African bedrock reveals the violent beginnings of life on our blue planet
You have probably seen the images of the surface of Mars, beamed back by NASA’s rovers. What if there were a time machine capable of roaming Earth during its remote geological past, perhaps even going right back to its beginnings, beaming back pictures of similar quality? This is not science fiction. In remote corners of the world, geologists have found tiny relics of Earth’s very ancient surface.
THE OLDEST ROCKS ON EARTH
Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts. But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground.
Cyber risk management in the ADGM: an analysis of the new regulatory framework
On 29 July 2025, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) announced the implementation of a new Cyber Risk Management Framework that will apply to financial sector firms under its supervision1.
Humans move water and mantle - Nature Geoscience
Continued ground uplift long after the drying out of the Aral Sea demonstrates that human activity can provoke a response deep inside our planet, in this case by causing rock in Earth’s mantle to flow.
InSAR measurement of vertical land motion in New Zealand cities, and implications for sea-level rise projections
?Mathematical formulae have been encoded as MathML and are displayed in this HTML version using MathJax in order to improve their display. Uncheck the box to turn MathJax off. This feature requires Javascript. Click on a formula to zoom. ABSTRACT Densely populated urban coastal strips are most at risk from the effects of relative sea-level rise.
AI Innovation And Adoption In Insurance In The Middle East
Interest in AI in the Middle East has surged in recent years, with several governments announcing national AI strategies and implementing initiatives to drive its adoption. Norton Rose Fulbright listed some as including: In 2017, the UAE appointed a minister for AI In 2018, the UAE published its national strategy for AI 2031. Following this, the UAE has issued various AI guidance notes In 2019, it launched the world's first AI university.
Strange rock formations beneath the Pacific Ocean could change our understanding of early Earth
Our world may seem fragile, but Earth has been around for a very long time. If we ventured far back into the past, would we reach a time when it looked fundamentally different? The answer lies in some of the earliest extensive relics of Earth's surface, found in a remote corner of southern Africa's highveld—a region known to geologists as the Barberton Greenstone Belt. The geological formations in this region have proved difficult to decipher, despite many attempts.
Strange rock formations beneath the Pacific Ocean could change our understanding of the early Earth
Our world may seem fragile, but Earth has been around for a very long time. If we ventured far back into the past, would we reach a time when it looked fundamentally different? The answer lies in some of the earliest extensive relics of Earth’s surface, found in a remote corner of southern Africa’s highveld – a region known to geologists as the Barberton Greenstone Belt. The geological formations in this region have proved difficult to decipher, despite many attempts.
Parrot version of Samsung notification.
Parrot version of Samsung notification. What better way to get your human’s attention? Submitted by: Simon Lamb Published by: Ashley Dreiling on August 20, 2023 at 8:00 am
My Own Private Woodstock: How an Attempt to Launch a Music Fest Strengthened My Belief In the Power of Festivals
I first “met” Michael Lang when I watched the Woodstock concert documentary as a teenager in the early nineties. I might have been born a couple decades years too late but I still grew up obsessed with artists who played Woodstock – The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Every part of my brain that transformed sound vibrations into music yearned for a time machine to take me to Max Yasgur’s upstate New York farm for four days in August 1969.
Captive Hamilton’s frog (Leiopelma hamiltoni) associates non-randomly under retreat sites: preliminary insights into their social networks
Introduction Retreat sites are key resources used by animals to help conceal themselves from predators and avoid unfavourable weather conditions (Stapley 2003; Bleach et al. 2014; Sah et al. 2016). Sharing retreat sites occurs in a wide range of taxa and provides benefits for the individual and the group, such as the dilution of predation pressure and increased breeding opportunities (Willis and Brigham 2004; Covas et al. 2008; Lambertucci et al. 2013; Sah et al. 2016).
A Grid of Emotions — Ben Saunders – Keynote Speaker & Record-Breaking Polar Explorer
Plotting your route to honest communication Following my previous article – lessons of lockdown, learnt on the ice – a number of people got in touch to find out more about the ‘emotions grid’; a monitoring system devised by a psychologist to help me share my emotions more accurately and honestly while on my first major solo expedition. We are winding back the clock to 2004 now.
The relation between short- and long-term deformation in actively deforming plate boundary zones
1. Introduction (a) Timescales of deformation The movement of the lithospheric plates ultimately sets the timescales for most tectonic processes in the solid Earth. Plates typically move relative to each other at velocities between 10 and 100 mm yr−1, accommodated in plate boundary zones 100–1000 km wide. Thus, large-scale geological strain rates of deformation are generally in the range 10−6 to 10−8/yr [1–3].
New Zealand sits on top of the remains of a giant ancient volcanic plume
Back in the 1970s, scientists came up with a revolutionary idea about how Earth’s deep interior works. They proposed it is slowly churning like a lava lamp, with buoyant blobs rising as plumes of hot mantle rock from near Earth’s core, where rocks are so hot they move like a fluid. According to the theory, as these plumes approach the surface they begin to melt, triggering massive volcanic eruptions.
Rocky icebergs and deep anchors - new research on how planetary forces shape the Earth's surface
Credit: Shutterstock/Harvepino Have you ever wondered why the Earth's surface is separated into two distinct worlds—the oceans and large tracts of land? Why aren't land and water more mixed up, forming a landscape of lakes? And why is most of the land relatively low and close to sea level, making coastal regions vulnerable to rising seas? Our new research uncovers the fundamental forces that control the Earth's surface.
Rocky icebergs and deep anchors – new research on how planetary forces shape the Earth's surface
Have you ever wondered why the Earth’s surface is separated into two distinct worlds – the oceans and large tracts of land? Why aren’t land and water more mixed up, forming a landscape of lakes? And why is most of the land relatively low and close to sea level, making coastal regions vulnerable to rising seas? Our new research uncovers the fundamental forces that control the Earth’s surface.
Scientists Just Discovered New Zealand Sits on an Ancient Volcanic Super Plume
SIMON LAMB AND TIMOTHY STERN, THE CONVERSATION 31 MAY 2020 Back in the 1970s, scientists came up with a revolutionary idea about how Earth's deep interior works. They proposed it is slowly churning like a lava lamp, with buoyant blobs rising as plumes of hot mantle rock from near Earth's core, where rocks are so hot they move like a fluid. According to the theory, as these plumes approach the surface they begin to melt, triggering massive volcanic eruptions.
New Zealand sits on top of the remains of a giant ancient volcanic plume
Credit: Ewing. Author provided Back in the 1970s, scientists came up with a revolutionary idea about how Earth's deep interior works. They proposed it is slowly churning like a lava lamp, with buoyant blobs rising as plumes of hot mantle rock from near Earth's core, where rocks are so hot they move like a fluid. According to the theory, as these plumes approach the surface they begin to melt, triggering massive volcanic eruptions.
New Zealand sits on top of the remains of a giant ancient volcanic plume
Back in the 1970s, scientists came up with a revolutionary idea about how Earth’s deep interior works. They proposed it is slowly churning like a lava lamp, with buoyant blobs rising as plumes of hot mantle rock from near Earth’s core, where rocks are so hot they move like a fluid. According to the theory, as these plumes approach the surface they begin to melt, triggering massive volcanic eruptions.
High mantle seismic P-wave speeds as a signature for gravitational spreading of superplumes
Abstract New passive- and active-source seismic experiments reveal unusually high mantle P-wave speeds that extend beneath the remnants of the world’s largest known large igneous province, making up the 120-million-year-old Ontong-Java-Manihiki-Hikurangi Plateau. Sub-Moho Pn phases of ~8.8 ± 0.2 km/s are resolved with negligible azimuthal seismic anisotropy, but with strong radial anisotropy (~10%), characteristic of aggregates of olivine with an AG crystallographic fabric.
‘The urge to colonise nature has been our making - and is fast becoming our unmaking’
Simon M Lamb, author of a new book called Junglenomics, argues that human survival will depend on putting ecology into economics We hear a great deal about ethical markets, in fact it’s easy to get the impression that some kind of world revolution is going on – an ethical cavalry riding to the rescue of a declining and disappearing natural world.
How Organic, California Electronic Music Festival, Made History In 1996 Billboard
If you remember everything that happened at Organic ‘96, you probably weren’t there. On June 22, 1996, roughly 6,300 music lovers looking for that feeling found it at Organic, a groundbreaking electronic music festival that helped set the stage for the meteoric rise of music festivals in Southern California and beyond.
Cloudy with a Chance of Earthquakes
Credit: Petrovich12/Adobe By Simon Lamb The rupture of a megafault beneath New Zealand in 2016 has revealed a periodicity to earthquakes that may enable geologists to forecast seismic events based on satellite monitoring of the Earth’s movements. To view this article subscribe or purchase a yearly pass here.
Satellite measurements of slow ground movements may provide a better tool for earthquake forecasting
By Simon Lamb, Associate Professor in Geophysics, Victoria University of Wellington It was a few minutes past midnight on 14 November 2016, and I was drifting into sleep in Wellington, New Zealand, when a sudden jolt began rocking the bed violently back and forth. I knew immediately this was a big one. In fact, I had just experienced the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake.
Satellite measurements of slow ground movements may provide a better tool for earthquake forecasting
It was a few minutes past midnight on 14 November 2016, and I was drifting into sleep in Wellington, New Zealand, when a sudden jolt began rocking the bed violently back and forth. I knew immediately this was a big one. In fact, I had just experienced the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake. Our research, published today, shows how the slow build-up to this earthquake, recorded by satellite GPS measurements, predicted what it would be like.
The quake that changed everything: clues to a better tool for earthquake forecasting
By Simon Lamb, Associate Professor in Geophysics, Victoria University of Wellington It was a few minutes past midnight on 14 November 2016, and I was drifting into sleep in Wellington, New Zealand, when a sudden jolt began rocking the bed violently back and forth. I knew immediately this was a big one. In fact, I had just experienced the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake.
The quake that changed everything: clues to a better tool for earthquake forecasting
It was a few minutes past midnight on 14 November 2016, and I was drifting into sleep in Wellington, New Zealand, when a sudden jolt began rocking the bed violently back and forth. I knew immediately this was a big one. In fact, I had just experienced the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake. Our research, published today, shows how the slow build-up to this earthquake, recorded by satellite GPS measurements, predicted what it would be like.
Locking on a megathrust as a cause of distributed faulting and fault-jumping earthquakes
Reilinger, R. et al. GPS constraints on continental deformation in the Africa‐Arabia‐Eurasia continental collision zone and implications for the dynamics of plate interactions. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth 111, B05411 (2006). Wallace, L. et al. The kinematics of a transition from subduction to strike-slip: an example from the central New Zealand plate boundary. J. Geophys. Res. 117, B02405 (2012). Lamb, S. & Smith, E.
Stress Orientations in a Locked Subduction Zone at the Southern Hikurangi Margin, New Zealand
We analyse the orientation of the stress field in the southern Hikurangi subduction zone, New Zealand, using focal mechanism inversions, S-wave splitting fast directions, and gravitational stresses. Here, the oceanic Pacific plate is being obliquely subducted beneath the continental Australian Plate in the New Zealand plate boundary zone.
Satellites reveal melting of rocks under volcanic zone, deep in Earth's mantle - Spatial Source
Written by Simon Lamb, Victoria University of Wellington and Timothy Stern, Victoria University of Wellington Volcanoes erupt when magma rises through cracks in the Earth’s crust, but the exact processes that lead to the melting of rocks in the Earth’s mantle below are difficult to study.
Satellites reveal melting of rocks under volcanic zone, deep in Earth's mantle
Volcanoes erupt when magma rises through cracks in the Earth’s crust, but the exact processes that lead to the melting of rocks in the Earth’s mantle below are difficult to study. In our paper, published today in the journal Nature, we show how it is possible to use satellite measurements of movements of the Earth’s surface to observe the melting process deep below New Zealand’s central North Island, one of the world’s most active volcanic regions.
Stress field and kinematics for diffuse microseismicity in a zone of continental transpression, South Island, New Zealand
We analyze shallow (0–20?km) microseismicity adjacent to the Alpine Fault in New Zealand, where there is oblique convergence of the Australian and Pacific plates. Focal mechanisms for 155 earthquakes (June 2012 - October 2013) are inverted to determine the orientation of the stress field.
Pasta with Burrata Recipe - Simon Lamb
Heat a grill pan. Rub the eggplant with 1/4 cup of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the eggplant over moderate heat, turning, until golden and tender, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and let cool slightly. Cut into 3/4-inch pieces and transfer to a bowl. Add the lemon juice, vinegar and 1 teaspoon of the preserved lemon rind and mix well. In a small skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil.
Cenozoic uplift of the Central Andes in northern Chile and Bolivia—reconciling paleoaltimetry with the geological evolution1
The Cenozoic geological evolution of the Central Andes, along two transects between ∼17.5°S and 21°S, is compared with paleo-topography, determined from published paleo-altimetry studies. Surface and rock uplift are quantified using simple 2-D models of crustal shortening and thickening, together with estimates of sedimentation, erosion, and magmatic addition.
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