February 7, 1784, the Laki eruption on #Iceland, one of the largest basaltic fissure eruptions in recorded history and the deadliest volcanic eruption in Icelandic history, ends after 8 months of activity 🌋🇮🇸
January 26, 1905, world's largest #diamond, the 3.106-carat Cullinan, is found in South Africa. It was named after the mine's chairman Thomas Cullinan.
The single crystal was split into nine smaller ones to be made into gemstones 💎👑
January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh reach with the bathyscaphe Trieste the deepest point on #Earth's surface - the Challenger Deep at 10,924 ± 15 m formed by the subduction of the Pacific Crust beneath the Philippine Sea Plate 🐟
January 23, 1857, birthday of Croatian meteorologist and seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić. He discovered the crust-mantle boundary - known also as Moho by geologists - analyzing the seismic waves generated by an #earthquake in 1909 .
January 14, 2005, the Huygens probe landed on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan and took this image from the surface, showing pebbles of methan-ice in a river of liquid C-fluids 🪐
December 29, 1927, in the 1883 caldera of #Krakatau a volcanic dome starts to grow.
Anak Krakatau - the "child of Krakatau" - will rise to the sea surface a month later 🌋
December 29, 1867, birthday of Annie Montague Alexander, naturalist & fossil hunter. She co-founded the Museum of Natural History of the University of California 🦖
December 28, 1905, American journalist, industrialist & charity worker Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (1864-1922) receives a U.S. patent for the invention of the 55-gallon steel oil drum 🛢️
French geologist Paul Tapponnier passed away on December 24th 2023 at the age of 76.
He introduced the concept of intender-tectonics, also known as escape-tectonics, to explain fault systems in Asia 🌏
December 22, 1938, Marjorie Courtaney-Latimer, a museum curator in the town of East London (South Africa), couldn't imagine that a simple phone call that morning would lead to an incredible discovery - a "living #Coelacanth" 🐟
December 22, 1689, a strong #earthquake strikes #Innsbruck in Tyrol (Austria). As a response "earthquake pillars" - reinforced stone pillars made from the local "Höttinger Breccia" & build into the walls to stabilize the buildings - become mandatory.
December 15, 1852, birthday of French physicist Antoine H. Becquerel. His discovery that certain ores emit a unknown radiation lead to the discovery of #radioactivity 🪨☢️
December 13, 1640, birthday of British physician & naturalist Robert Plot. His "Natural History of Oxfordshire" (1677) features what could be the 1st depiction of a #dinosaur bone 🦖
December 5th is #Krampusnacht in the #Alps.
According to local #geomythology, the devilish #Krampus - a half-man & half-goat demon - leaves his cloven hoof-prints all over the rocks in the #Dolomites 😈⛰
December 5, 1918, Elisa Beatriz Bachofen graduates from the University of Buenos Aires becoming the 1st female civil engineer in #Argentina & Latin #America, working later on bridge & road construction. A TBM, satellite & conference are named in her honor.
December 4 is Saint #Barbara day, patron saint of artillerymen, including miners working with explosives underground. So she became also patron saint of #geologists ⚒️