There have been a plethora of new scientific articles, discoveries, grant awards, and accomplishments coming out of Arizona universities in recent weeks, and I hope to catch up on them soon, but let me make a quick note that Pete Reiners at UA with co-author David Shuster at UC Berkeley, have a nice review article in the current issue of Physics Today (Sept 2009) on how thermochronology techniques are being used to decipher the evolution of the Earth's surface, which in turn "express how the surface affects dynamic deep-Earth processes such as mantle convection." The full article is only available to subscribers but the abstract is public. [right, apatite (U-Th) He ages in the Cascades. Credit, Peter Reiners]
Ref: Thermochronology and landscape evolution, Phys. Today 62, 31 (2009)
http://link.aip.org/link/?PHTOAD/62/31/1