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you
so geologists are the people that study
the world around us whether that’s the
ground beneath our feet the volcanoes
raging across the surface or the rocks
beneath the deepest oceans across our
planet we’re trying to work out what has
happened earth since it formed 4.6
billion years ago how have those changes
affected the world in which we live in
and as a geologist myself I got
interested very early on by looking at
volcanoes and I think if you speak to
any geologist it’s always volcanoes or
dinosaurs at a young age and you just
don’t grow out of it and you try and
make a career out of it but you get to a
certain point when you’re studying
volcanoes like the volcanoes on Hawaii
all those in Italy or Iceland we’re very
fortunate in Europe to have so many of
them accessible to us but actually these
volcanoes just aren’t cutting it anymore
where are the most exciting volcanoes
that we can go to where are the ones
that we can really explore and unlock
new secrets
well the answer to that doesn’t have to
be Earth even as a geologist there are
volcanoes all throughout our solar
system not just on the other planets
like on Venus or extinct volcanoes we
think we see on Mercury we’ve got
volcanoes on Mars that are larger than
anything we’ve ever seen there are
volcanoes elsewhere throughout the solar
system on the moons around Jupiter and
Saturn with different types of volcanism
that we don’t witnessed anywhere here on
earth that might be cryovolcano
volcanism ice volcanoes completely
different everything that we as
geologists rained for here on planet
Earth so I’d like to take you on a
little tour of some of my favorite
volcanoes throughout the solar system
and I think this has to be my favorite
of all time
this is Olympus Mons it’s on Mars and
I’d like you to think about every image
of every volcano you’ve ever seen or if
you’ve been fortunate enough to stand in
front of a real volcano on its flanks
and look at it have you ever seen a
picture or can conjure an image of a
volcano where you can actually see the
curvature of the horizon behind the
volcano itself Olympus Mons on Mars is
so huge that you can see that curved
horizon behind it Olympus Mons is almost
three times the height of Mount ever
here on earth and the slope on Mount on
Mount Olympus is so shallow that if you
were to climb up it you probably
wouldn’t even notice the incline and
you’d be walking for hours and hours if
not days to get from the very bottom to
the very top of that cold error but as a
geologist that’s the most exciting thing
right we get to go and explore these
worlds we get to go and explore
different terrains look at different
volcanoes in the field and fieldwork of
course is one of the greatest things
about being a geologist so do we get to
do that elsewhere in the solar system
well of course there are plenty of
astronauts that work on for the
International Space Station and there
are astronauts that in the past have
been fortunate enough to walk another
celestial bodies like the Apollo
astronauts managed to walk on our own
moon they took some fantastic images of
our own earth looking back from that
lunar surface looking down on us from
above and they were able to look at the
rocks beneath their feet and describe
them in great detail it’s a very
privileged position to be in but not all
space exploration is done by astronauts
a lot of it is done by robotic missions
by satellites by Rovers by Landers that
we send out into the cosmos and asked to
send back images and he didn’t start
with the Apollo missions either the
space race actually began long before
Apollo it began in the mid 1940s when we
were actually starting to take images of
Earth from space by repurposing disused
or unused I perhaps should say World War
two rockets so this is a this is the
first image that was ever taken of Earth
from space in 1946 and it’s a hundred
and five kilometers above the Earth’s
surface looking down on us and you can
see the clouds even in this grainy early
image of the Earth from space but since
1946 images have increased greatly in
resolution just a few weeks ago Juno and
NASA mission as orbiting around Jupiter
sent back some absolutely stunning
images with with the resolution that has
been completely unrivaled we can see the
storms raging on the surface of this
planet real storms that are changing in
real time that we can observe and it’s
not just the satellites that are sending
us this data either
we’ve got plenty of Rovers these robotic
creatures that we’re sending out to do
our investigations for us so we don’t
always have to have real people as
astronauts we can have astronauts in the
form of the Curiosity rover that’s
driving around on the surface of Mars
and analyzing the rocks that it finds
zapping them with a little laser taking
images and sending them back to us
including plenty of selfies but it’s
geologist does anything really really
make up for not being able to go onto a
planetary surface some men did walk on
the moon and in fact there is one Apollo
astronaut there is a professional
geologist just the one and he is the
only geologist that’s ever examines a
world in situ beneath his own feet and
this is him here you can tell he’s a
geologist rather than just to the
average astronaut because he is
absolutely covered in rocks and dust is
the dirtiest spacesuit you’ll ever see
in an Apollo mission and that’s because
he was down on his hands and knees
scrabbling around in the ground to have
a look at the material beneath him so as
a geologist myself that’s interested in
extraterrestrial volcanoes I can tell
you that unfortunately I’m not a
national I describe myself as an
Earthbound astronaut I have aspirations
of being in space but I have to work
down here on earth for now so how do I
get to look at these other worlds how do
I get to study the volcanoes on Mars
that I hold so close well the answer is
actually we have a very random but very
natural delivery process that brings
parts of these other worlds to earth so
that we can study them here in our own
labs on earth wherever we are or you can
look at them in your own homes and for
anyone that’s ever seen a shooting star
that’s a very disappointing event for
geologists who want to study these
things because a shooting star is a
little bit of a different world that’s
actually burning up in our atmosphere
above us never to reach the Earth’s
surface but every now and then an object
comes through the Earth’s atmosphere and
it manages to survive that atmospheric
entry space is very very cold and our
atmosphere is somewhat of a greenhouse
and very very warm so when cold things
come into a warm atmosphere they suffer
thermal shock and sometimes that’s far
too much for that object to survive and
they don’t make it but every now and
then we’re fortunate and something lands
a solid object
on the surface of the earth that we can
pick up we can hold in our own hands
and we can start to tell a little bit
about one of these extraterrestrial
worlds now unfortunately when you find a
meteorite it doesn’t come with a label
telling you where it’s come from it
doesn’t have GPS coordinates of where it
originated elsewhere in the solar system
and the meteorite family tree is ever
increasing
there are many many groups of meteorites
and all of them look very very different
on the inside so how do we find them how
do we know where to go looking well
there are two ways in which we can do
this one way and it’s a very labor
efficient way is to have cameras that
just pointed up at the night sky all
over the place we’ve got some of these
cameras up on Dartmoor we’ve got some of
these cameras all throughout the UK and
the rest of the world there’s a global
network of these all skycams and they
just watch the night sky every night
constantly recording and they’ll capture
weather storms they’ll capture
helicopters they’ll capture anything
that happens to sit and land on one of
these cameras but if we’re lucky and
there’s a fireball event a really bright
shooting star something surviving that
atmospheric entry hopefully we will
catch that event on the camera too and
if you have enough of these cameras
pointing up at the night sky in
different locations and you find an
event like this you can correlate your
images with the images of other people’s
cameras and perhaps try and triangulate
where that meteor may have landed if it
did make landfall at all but of course
cameras can be expensive they can be
very difficult to maintain and access to
them are not always possible so the
other way in which we can find
meteorites is simply by going and
looking for them now geologists love
fieldwork we love being out in the field
walking around on different terrains
exploring different environments so if
you say to a jawless why don’t you just
go out and have a look for some
meteorites most of them will be very
happy to oblige and I was fortunate
enough just a couple of years ago to be
invited along on an expedition to the
Australian outback to do just that
literally just walking around there was
a team of us all walking in different
directions for 9 10 11 12 hours a day
looking for meteorites on the ground
so why do we go to the Outback well
these things fall from space and they
fall very randomly we can’t predict
where they’re going to fall and they
fall evenly across the globe
unfortunately with a rather large
proportion of planet Earth covered in
water there is a high high proportion of
meteorites that will never find because
they end up at the bottom of the ocean
or on a seabed and breaking down
underwater currents or being eaten by
the creatures there so how do we go
finding them well if they do land on
land and not in water then we need to
look an environment where everything
looks absolutely identical so that
something landing falling through the
sky from space will stand out very very
clearly and the best place to go and do
that is in a desert and that doesn’t
have to be on warm desert like the
Australian outback it could be a cold
desert and there are plenty of meteorite
recovery expeditions that go out to
Antarctica every year because if
something falls from the sky and lands
on the ice in Antarctica it’s going to
stand out and in Australia something
falling from the sky and landing on the
sand in the outback does stand out too
so we went out we went out for 14 days
and we were walking anything between 10
and 25 kilometers a day just looking
down at the ground belief our feet
looking for meteorites and for 14 days
of a 14 day trip we didn’t find very
much at all from a few metres away
certain things you can convince yourself
because you really want to find a
meteorite you can convince yourself that
these things are meteorites from a
distance so the amount of times that we
all walked up towards something which
was very exciting and actually later
turned out to be something like kangaroo
poo in the outback is a little bit
disappointing but just a few hours
before we turned around to come home I
was very very fortunate to find a
meteorite now these things may not stand
out to the everyday person if you don’t
know what you’re looking for in fact
there’s a meteorite this particular
meteorite is actually right down in
front of me on the stage here and has
been here all the while so finding
something like that if you know what
you’re looking for can be one of the
most rewarding things about being a
meteorite scientist and a geologist out
in the field but that’s only where the
story begins because as I said when you
find a meteorite there’s no label on it
tell
where it came from did it come from the
moon did it come from Mars did it come
from the asteroid belt in between Mars
and Jupiter that it come from further
afield it’s only the beginning of the
story because now the hard work starts
and we have to work out where they’ve
come from now let me track family tree I
showed earlier each one of those
different types of meteorites are some
defining characteristics but most
importantly about all of those
characteristics is the parent body the
original origin of where that meteorite
may have come from out in space and
there are hundreds of potential source
regions for meteorites and we don’t know
where they come from it’s nice when you
look inside them that we can work out
well do we think this one has come from
the main asteroid belt in between Mars
and Jupiter which you can see behind me
here has it come from the moon can I
compare it to those moon rocks that were
brought back by the Apollo astronauts in
the 60s and 70s if you’ve got something
to directly compare it to and you know
where I’ve come from that makes it very
easy but sometimes we don’t quite know
so its might as well you look inside a
meteorite and have a look at the texture
the composition of it you can really
start to unravel how it formed when it
formed and where so we have a group of
meteorites which are very very common
these are the ordinary ones these are
the ones that even if you’re so excited
that you find in me too right your heart
sinks a little bit if you work out that
it’s one of these types of meteorites
it’s a type of meteorite called a
chondrite meteorite and most meteorites
tend to be this type when you cut them
open chondrite meteorites are full of
these spherical round mineralogical
components called con draws and that’s a
defining characteristic of a chondrite
meteorites YZ condors so if you cut open
your meteorite or use x-ray data to have
a look inside it without cutting it and
you find these condors you know you
found a chondrite and these probably
come from that main asteroid belt in
between Mars and Jupiter but not all
meteorites are the same we have other
meteorites that we think have come from
elsewhere maybe from the cause of some
of these asteroids that partially
differentiated cause similar to our own
earth core made of solid iron and nickel
metal combination and these ones look
quite different to the chondrite
meteorites they don’t have those round
condors they’re actually metallic in
composition and when you cut them open
they look like they’re May
solid metal and you can usually tell if
you’ve got an iron meteorite pretty
quickly because when you pick it up it’s
very very dense compared to those other
rocky ones and the final type of
meteorite which I personally find very
exciting are the ones that come from
surfaces of asteroids or from planets or
from the moon and these ones look very
rocky like this one here this is a very
famous Martian meteorite that we’ve
established has come from the planet
Mars on the surface and it’s a volcanic
rock that came out of a volcano similar
to something like Hawaii or Iceland
perhaps it came from Olympus Mons that
large volcano I showed you earlier we’ve
still got some work to do to pinpoint
exactly where they come from when you
cut them open they look quite
considerably different to the contours
they don’t have those nice round
spherical features they’ve got angular
crystals and when we look at the
composition of them we can break them
apart we can start to try and unravel
the volcanic history these are minerals
these are rocks that are very similar to
the terrestrial volcanic rocks that I
started looking at many many years ago I
see the same minerals in the volcanic
rocks I find from Mars even if I haven’t
brought them back from Mars myself and
no that’s precisely where they came from
so ultimately when you find a meteorite
you still don’t know quite where it’s
come from until you start to look inside
it whether you cut it open and polish
the surface to reveal that really
striking metallic pattern or whether use
x-rays and CT data to have a look inside
the meteorite without destroying it and
try and work out whether you’ve got
those round condors or wave whether
you’ve got angular minerals that you
might find in a volcanic rock so we
still got quite a lot of exploring to do
and there isn’t just one way in which we
can explore the solar system we’d all
love to be astronauts I’m sure and our
time I know I certainly would be and
perhaps that’s in my future career but
for now I’m satisfied that I can study
the whole solar system by looking at the
samples in my own lab in front of me and
these are the Apollo 11 astronauts after
they got back from their journeys to the
moon in the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington being shown a meteorite for
the first time and if the guys that were
walking on the moon the first people to
ever walk on the moon on another surface
outside of our own planet earth can get
this excited about a meteorite then I
think I’m on to a winner
so it’s human nature to go to sea and to
try and understand that world around us
exploration isn’t a choice really
as astronaut Michael Collins said it
very well it’s an imperative thank you
very much
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