geomorphology

Anne Jefferson, a hydro-geomorpho-climate geologist at UNC-Charlotte, has officially joined Highly Allochthonous as Chris Rowan's co-blogger. Anne's been unofficially co-blogging there for a while, but it's great to see her role made more official. And it's especially great to see someone with expertise in water and surface processes on Sb. (Anne and I are also working together on a survey about women geoscientists and blogs - if you haven't taken it, please check it out.)
I had no idea there was magma beneath Socorro, New Mexico. When I read about it in this month's Geology, my first reaction was OMG WE'RE GONNA DIE!. (I've been occasionally using the electron microprobe at New Mexico Tech to look at rocks that were metamorphosed around a 380-million-year-old granite. I had no idea that the same kinds of processes were going on, right then, beneath my feet.) The magma body is 19 km deep in the crust. That's about 2/3 of the way to the mantle - pretty far from the surface. But the effects are still noticeable, at least if you look at interferometric synthetic…