Geology Rocks: Dinosaurs, Volcanoes and Magma

In December 2018, Anak Krakatau collapsed without warning, generating a devastating tsunami. In the weeks following, the volcano’s eruptive style shifted drastically, and resulted in the island’s rapid regrowth. However, this new growth raises some important questions – How quickly will Anak reach its former size? Will another major collapse occur in the near future and is it possible to forecast? The key to these lies mostly in the past. This talk discusses how modelling Anak’s morphological history can be used to better assess the volcano’s future growth trajectory and potential hazards.

56 million years ago two things were happening at once; between the UK and Greenland vast quantities of molten rock were moving within the Earth’s crust and at the same time up on the surface a period of rapid global warming occurred, with global temperatures increasing by around 5°C in just a few 100,000 yrs. This talk will look at how new geophysical data is helping uncover the relationship between these two events and potentially providing scientists with the rare chance to look at both the cause and effect of a massive change in Earth’s past climate.

The fossilised bones of more than twenty small dinosaurs (known as Hypsilophodon) have been found in a thin layer of rock in the cliffs of the Isle of Wight. How the dinosaurs ended up there – and what killed them – is a question which has been puzzling scientists for the last 150 years. In this talk, we will travel back more than 125 million years to visit the crime scene – the Isle of Wight during the time period known as the Cretaceous – and discover how sedimentary rocks can be used as a “key witness” in understanding how dinosaurs like the Hypsilophodon lived and died.