youtu.be
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My interview on Al Jazeera on the morning of the December 2018 Anak Krakatau eruption and tsunami
Geoscientist @NTU_ASE, @ScienceNTU. Putting disco into discontinuous phase transitions. He/Him/His 🇸🇬🇬🇧
Simon Redfern’s Journalist Portfolio
View as a gridWorthless mining waste could suck CO₂ out of the atmosphere
The Independent
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The Paris Agreement commits nations to limiting global warming to less than 2C by the end of the century. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, to meet such a massive challenge, societies will need to do more than simply reduce and limit carbon emissions.
The first time Britain split from mainland Europe was way more chaotic than Brexit
Newsweek
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As Brexit looms, Earth scientists have uncovered evidence of Britain's original split from mainland Europe. Almost half a million years ago, according to new data, water suddenly started cascading over the narrow strip of land that joined England and France-putting pressure on a chalk bridge.
Scientists have modeled the changes that occur a split-second after an asteroid hits Earth
Quartz
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The Barringer meteor crater is an iconic Arizona landmark, more than one kilometer wide and 170 meters deep, left behind by a massive 300,000 ton meteorite that hit Earth 50,000 years ago with a force equivalent to a ten megaton nuclear bomb.
Comet impacts cook up 'soup of life'
BBC
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By Simon Redfern, Science writer. Prof Mark Burchell, from the University of Kent, UK, who was not involved in the work, commented to BBC News: "What this new work does is to show that if a comet containing such material were to hit a planet, the energy from the impact will drive further chemistry to help form short peptides, chains of amino acids that are useful to make proteins"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Earth's Core
BBC
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Earth's solid inner core and liquid outer core, their structures and their impact on life on Earth. Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Earth's Core. The inner core is an extremely dense, solid ball of iron and nickel, the size of the Moon, while the outer core is a flowing liquid, the size of Mars.
Warning over aerosol climate fix
BBC
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By Simon Redfern, Science writer. Any attempts to engineer the climate are likely to result in "different" climate change, rather than its elimination, new results suggest. Prof Ken Caldeira, of Stanford University, presented research at a major conference on the climate risks and impacts of geoengineering. These techniques have been hailed by some as a quick fix for climate change.
Ancient recording of Earth core's birth
BBC
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By Simon Redfern, Science writer. A reassessment of ancient rocks has led scientists to estimate that Earth's inner core started to form earlier than was previously thought, around 1.3 billion years ago. As it started to freeze, the core began generating a bigger magnetic field, which continues to today.
Scientists Find Mysterious Magnetism in Earth's Inner Core
Discover Magazine
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Magnetic traces suggest iron crystals in the innermost core are aligned east-west, rather than north-south. Credit Lachina Publishing Services This article was originally published on The Conversation . The planet Earth's inner core is not a single solid mass but comprised of two layers, and new evidence about the core's composition from a team of U.S.
Meteorite is 'hard drive' from space
BBC
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By Simon Redfern Science writer. Researchers have decoded ancient recordings from fragments of an asteroid dating back billions of years to the start of the Solar System. They found tiny "space magnets" in meteorites which retain a memory of the birth and death of the asteroid's core.
Curiosity catches a whiff of methane on Mars - and a possibility of past life
The Week Magazine (US)
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NASA has revealed that a whiff of methane has been detected twice in the last couple of years at the Martian surface by the Curiosity Rover. The source of the methane is uncertain.
Earth's nitrogen-rich atmosphere linked to plate tectonics
Ars Technica
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How did Earth develop its current atmosphere? A study published in the journal Nature Geoscience links the composition of Earth's nitrogen-rich atmosphere to the same tectonic forces that drive mountain-building and volcanism on our planet. It goes some way to explaining why, when compared to our nearest neighbors Venus and Mars, Earth's air is richer in nitrogen.
Icelandic fissure eruption produces lava, gas and data
The Science Show - Separate stories podcast
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Robyn Williams: In some places you don't even have to look under the surface of the ground to see what's there. Instead the surface opens up, and what's beneath shoots up to startling effect. Yes, I'm talking about Iceland where huge spouts of red-hot lava have been shooting to the sky, as Simon Redfern found when he went there.
Massive Citizen-Powered Climate Simulation Links Winter Floods to Global Warming
HuffPost UK
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Britain's warm, wet winter brought floods and misery to many living across southern England, with large parts of Somerset lying underwater for months. When in January rainfall was double the expected average over wide areas, many people made cautious links between such extreme weather and global climate change.
Warming boosts UK flooding risk
BBC
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By Simon Redfern, BBC News. A citizen science project suggests climate change really has increased the risk of flooding in the UK. The issue has been highlighted by the recent floods, amid a January that saw double the normal monthly rainfall in parts of England.
Volcano eruptions have deep origins
BBC
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By Simon Redfern Reporter, BBC News. Hawaiian volcanoes sometimes erupt as gentle flows of lava, but other times produce spectacular lava fountains. New data from centuries-worth of eruptions suggest that the differences reflect fluctuations deep in the Earth. Reporting in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists considered how magma rich in volatile elements rises rapidly and erupts as high fountains.
Mineral hints at bright blue rocks deep in the Earth
BBC
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By Simon Redfern Science writer. Minerals preserved in diamond have revealed hints of the bright blue rocks that exist deep within the Earth. They also provide the first direct evidence that there may be as much water trapped in those rocks as there is in all the oceans.
Cosmic 'web' seen for first time
BBC
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By Simon Redfern, BBC News. The hidden tendrils of dark matter that underlie the visible Universe may have been traced out for the first time. Cosmology theory predicts that galaxies are embedded in a cosmic web of "stuff", most of which is dark matter.
Earth's devastating supervolcanoes powered by density differences
Ars Technica
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Devastating supervolcanoes can erupt simply due to changes that happen in their giant magma chambers as they slowly cool, according to a new study. This finding marks the first time researchers have been able to explain the mechanism behind the eruptions of the largest volcanoes on Earth.
Mosaic of Lakes and Seas Spotted at Saturn's Moon Titan
Scientific American
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Editor's note: The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The joint NASA-ESA Cassini space probe, exploring Saturn and her moons, has revealed extraordinary lakes and seas of liquid methane around the north pole of Titan.
Hydrogen squeezed from stone could be new energy source
BBC
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By Simon Redfern Reporter, BBC News. Scientists from the University of Lyon have discovered a new way to split hydrogen gas from water, using rocks. The method promises a new green energy source, providing copious hydrogen from a simple mixture of rock and water. It speeds up a chemical reaction that takes geological timescales in nature.
Meet the Kraken: Hydrocarbon seas spotted at Titan's north pole
Ars Technica
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The joint NASA-ESA Cassini space probe, exploring Saturn and its moons, has revealed extraordinary lakes and seas of liquid methane around the north pole of Saturnian moon Titan. Scientists associated with the Cassini mission described a strange rectangular area of large seas, picked out by imaging instruments aboard the probe.
Cassini Spots Mosaic Of Extraterrestrial Seas
Popular Science
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The joint NASA-ESA Cassini space probe, exploring Saturn and her moons, has revealed extraordinary lakes and seas of liquid methane around the north pole of Titan. Scientists associated with the Cassini mission described a strange rectangular area of large seas, picked out by imaging instruments aboard the probe.
Could Los Angeles withstand a 'megaquake'?
BBC
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By Simon Redfern, BBC News. It's not a question of if the San Andreas fault ruptures in Southern California, but when. This was the message of US Geological Survey (USGS) scientist Dr Lucy Jones here at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.