astronomy

Joanna Morgan

Joanna Morgan is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Joanna Morgan rather than just read about it. In short: Joanna Victoria Morgan is a retired British seismologist and geophysicist known for her analyses of the Chicxulub crater the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, and the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event in which many dinosaur species became extinct, all believed to have been caused by a large meteor impact. Her research on Chicxulub was highlighted by a 2017 BBC documentary, The Day The Dinosaurs Died.

Key takeaways

Joanna Morgan belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Joanna Morgan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Joanna Morgan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Joanna Victoria Morgan is a retired British seismologist and geophysicist known for her analyses of the Chicxulub crater the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, and the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event in which many dinosaur species became extinct, all believed to have been caused by a large meteor impact. Her research on Chicxulub was highlighted by a 2017 BBC documentary, The Day The Dinosaurs Died. She is an emeritus professor of geophysics in the Department of Earth Science & Engineering of Imperial College London.

Education and career Morgan read geophysics at the University of Southampton, earning a bachelor's degree there in 1980. After field work as a geophysicist and engineer in Australia and Italy, she returned to England for graduate study in marine geophysics at the University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in 1988, with the dissertation Seismic studies over continental margins. She became a senior lecturer at Imperial College in 2000, a reader in 2004, and a professor in 2011.

Recognition Morgan was the 2020 recipient of the Barringer Medal, an annual award of the Meteoritical Society given for outstanding research on impact cratering. The award recognized her 2016 work on the Chicxulub crater performed through the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling, which was also a runner-up in the 2019 Breakthrough of the Year competition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She became the first UK recipient and the second woman recipient of the medal.

References

External links Joanna Morgan publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Joanna Morgan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Joanna Morgan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Joanna Morgan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Joanna Morgan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Joanna Morgan

In research: Joanna Morgan appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Joanna Morgan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Joanna Morgan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academics of Imperial College London, Alumni of the University of Cambridge, Alumni of the University of Southampton, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Joanna Morgan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Joanna Morgan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Joanna Morgan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Joanna Morgan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Joanna Morgan in simple terms?

Why does Joanna Morgan matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Joanna Morgan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Joanna Morgan.