Ian G. Stimpson

@hypocentre.bsky.social

Seismologist, geophysicist, structural geologist, geoconservationist, not necessarily in that order.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. This is my academic family tree (parent = PhD supervisor; grandparent = their supervisor, and so on.) I'm astonished to be able to get back to the early 1600s (I serendipitously discovered a short-cut). There are some illustrious scientists in this list.

Ian G Stimpson (Cardiff – geophysics)
Robert G Pearce (Newcastle – geophysics)
Ronald W Girdler 1930-2001 (Cambridge – geophysics)
Edward C Bullard 1907-1980 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Patrick M S Blackett 1897–1974 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Ernest Rutherford 1871–1937 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Joseph J Thomson 1856-1940 (Cambridge – nuclear physics)
Edward John Routh 1831–1907 (Cambridge – mathematics)
William Hopkins 1793–1866 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Adam Sedgwick 1785-1873 (Cambridge – geology)
Thomas Jones 1756–1807 (Cambridge – mathematics)
John Cranke 1746-1816 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Thomas Postlethwaite 1731-1798 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Stephen Whisson ?-1783 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Walter Taylor c1700-1743/4 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Robert Smith 1689-1768 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Roger Cotes 1682—1716 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Isaac Newton 1642-1727 (Cambridge – mathematics)
Isaac Barrow 1630–1677 (Cambridge – mathematics)
James Duport 1606-1697 (Cambridge – classics)
Robert Hitch ?-1677 (Cambridge – divinity)

I do dislike the in-built obsolesce of modern things. Perfectly good laptop destined for the scrap heap because progressively cut off from various software through lack of updates to os. Let’s give this linux thing another try.

A MacBook Air laptop running linux mint.

OTD UK Earthquakes: 00:25 June 7, 1931. M6.1 Dogger Bank, North Sea. UK’s largest historic earthquake. Ellen Bradley in Hull, "unnerved as a result of the shakes”, heart attack next day and died. Felt across British Isles and NW Europe. Possibly associated with the Outer Silver Pit Fault Zone. ⚒️🧪

On this day, June 7th, back in 1931 was the UK’s largest earthquake for which we can reliably estimate the magnitude. Occurring below the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, to the east of Bridlington was an earthquake with a magnitude estimated at 6.1. This would correspond to about 20 centimetres of slip on a fault 20 kilometres long.

The felt area included the whole of the British Isles and much of northwest Europe, as far away as Denmark. The church spire at Filey was twisted with chimneys and plaster damaged around Bridlington Beverly and Hull. There are also reports of ‘earthquake lights’. The only recorded fatality was one Ellen Bradley in Hull, "unnerved as a result of the shakes”, apparently had heart attack the next day and died.

Approximate location of 1931 Dogger Bank earthquake. Background Image: BGS 1:1,500,000 Tectonic map of Britain, Ireland and adjacent areas, Pharaoh et al. 1996.

Can’t vote today for the party I support (not standing in my ward) and can’t even afford to vote for my better half who is standing to be a councillor (not going to win). Have to vote for party I intensely dislike to attempt to keep out a party of racists, fuckwits and sociopaths that I despise.

I have been teaching introductory computer programming for geoscientists for almost forty years now. This year I have added in using AI. [Insert expletive here], what a game changer. Still have to cover fundamentals for understanding but I can spend far more time actually explaining things.

“I say, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify siphoning off the bulk of our research funding to our chums at Oxbridge, IC and UCL” “Try giving ChatGPT a go” "reward institutions for specialisation by making them a “partner of choice” in specific areas of research’” “Trebles all round!”

Rebecca Williams@volcanologist.bsky.social · 9mo ago

"reward institutions for specialisation by making them a “partner of choice” in specific areas of research" - I dislike this. Sounds like we're going to reduce the diversity of folk tackling research topics and create elitist silos. UKRI chief pledges shift from short-termism in research funding