2019 : Découvertes & Catastrophes

Now that we have done our 900 million kilometers around the sun, it is time to look back at the geological events that left their mark on 2019. Let’s rewind, and we shall open the year with an incredible discovery. What you see here, are the oldest traces left by the motion of a living being. A burrow that was made 2 billion years ago. Ten years ago, we still thought that the oldest multicellular organisms only appeared 600 million years ago.

00:30 - But this idea changed in 2008, when the fossils of these small creatures were found in Gabon. And now, in 2019, we can finally visit the burrows they made by digging through the african mud, 2 billion years ago. And this year was going to be full of surprises. A month later, in the same scientific journal, paleontologists announced their discovery of rocks that captured the events that took place on the day that dinosaurs disappeared. We already talked about this event, so we’ll make it short.

01:05 - They found numerous fossils of fishes in two meters of mud and sand that were laid by a river running on this fateful day. In their gills, they found small glass balls. These balls were formed by the impact, which ejected a huge amount of drops made of molten rocks, which then cooled in the atmosphere. Paleontologists have also found the impacts made by the fall of these small glass balls. All these sediments were later on covered by a thin layer of Iridium, formed when the dust created by the impact settled.

01:38 - Fossils may be interesting, but what scientists had prepared for us in April was literally out of this world. What you hear is not an earthquake. For the first time in history, you can actually hear a marsquake. And we are lucky that the sound of this quake was captured, because marsquake are much rarer than their earthly cousins. Our earthquakes are generally caused by the motion of lithospheric plates, as is the case in countries located near subduction zones, like Japan. But plate tectonics doesn’t really exist on Mars.

02:32 - But we can still see faults, such as the one in Cerberus Fossae. According to scientists, this region may be the one causing these quakes. These recordings are quite an event. Less than a hundred years ago, Orson Welles was able to fool us into believing that martians do exist. And know, we can actually listen to the workings of the planet’s inside. Mars and its little green men have intrigued generations, like another favorite of children. The dinosaurs.

And in July, a few frenchmen were in for a surprise. They have now been digging in the Charentes region for 9 years. They already found in 2010 a femur that aroused a number of newspapers. But in 2019, another two-meter long femur was unearthed. And it’s probably not the last amazing discovery that this site has in store. You can sometimes visit the site in July, so if you ever stop by the area in July, make sure to ask for it. We’ll also take a second to thank the owners of this land, who continues to allow paleontologists to hunt for incredible fossils. But Earth’s crust doesn’t always have nice surprises for us. Every year, it shakes. The only question is to know where it will happen. Within the span of two days, and in two different countries, 80 persons lost their life. And these two quakes had something in common. They are both the result of the closure of the Tethys.

04:00 - An ocean, stuck between the two hemispheres of Pangaea. It’s the closure of this ocean, and the collision between two pieces of crust, that made the mountain belts which span Europe and Asia, and which still expresses itself by shaking the subduction zone around Indonesia. But sometimes, earthquakes happen where you don’t expect them. This is exactly what surprised the inhabitants of Le Teil on November 11. The Montelimar area experienced on this day one the most powerful earthquake recorded in metropolitan France over the last two decades.

This shaking caused a lot of damage in Le Teil, 04:33 - and it sent geologists hunting for its trace. And they found it ! The fault has here moved the road by a few centimeters. The localisation of this earthquake has intrigued more than a single geologist, because the part of the crust which moved is placed right underneath a quarry, where a large amount of rock has been removed over the years. But if we remove weight from the crust, it also takes off the stress which was keeping it in place. Some geologists are thus wondering if the quarry’s activity is not to blame for this quake.

05:09 - The reason for this suspicion is this : when you remove weight, it becomes easier for the crust to move. The first officials reports are not really supportive of this idea, but we’ll surely hear more about this earthquake in the following years. Albania will also remember the one that shaked them on the 26 of November. An earthquake which cost the life of 52 persons, which makes it the deadliest one this country has experienced in the past 99 years. And New Zealand will also remember how dangerous our planet can be.

05:36 - On December 9th, while around 40 tourists were touring the crater, White Island’s volcano suddenly woke up. The surprise came from the type of eruption. An eruption without lava, which was caused by the infiltration of water near the magma chamber. This water was rapidly heated, and it was then suddenly released out of the ground, bringing with it ashes and toxic gas. A phreatic such as this one often results in a large number of burn victims.

06:05 - It’s thus by wishing them the best recovery possible that we’ll close our geologic tour of 2019. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that 2020 will be richer in discoveries than in catastrophes, and I wish you all a happy new year. .