Surprising to many, including myself at one time although I am a marine geophysicist, the deep seafloor in many parts of the world's oceans is strewn with fist-sized nodules chock full of what have come to be called critical metals (or minerals). They are known as polymetal nodules, or maganese nodules. A typical example is shown below. They contain manganese and a lot more metals including copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, silver, gold and Rare Earth elements. That’s what’s mean

The 7.8 Mw earthquake just south of the Philippines island of Mindanao was not exactly unexpected. The region is tectonically active and has seen many historic earthquakes. An earthquake with magnitude Mw 7.8 is not huge and doesn't qualify for the terminology of the science to be described as a Great earthquake. In the the map below the recent earthquake is shown with a yellow star embedded in a background of hundreds of historic eartquakes identified by circles of differe

Why did so many die in Kerr County Texas? The death toll estimate now significantly exceeds 100, by how much will not be certain for a...

We now know that the death toll from the earthquake in Myanmar exceeds 10,000. Any number with four zeros after it is suspicious and it...

That sounds rediculous. And in the short term it is rediculous. People die in disasters. That can never be good. In Myanmar we will not...