A good post yesterday on Andrew's geology blog at About.com : "How many plates are there?" Some excellent points made, and made well.

All in favor of drawing the Somali Plate as its own entity on plate tectonic maps? Aye!

Labels: blogs, maps, plate tectonics

Yesterday, there was an excellent post on Stratigraphy.net about what we are calling the various time-slices of the Cenozoic. As has already been noted, "Tertiary" and "Quaternary" mean "third" and "fourth," definitions which rankle those of us who think that there was a lot more time before them than two (or three) periods. So the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) officially dropped Tertiary and is in the process of sorting out how best to drop Quaternary too.

Anyhow, trace the evolution of the nomenclature, as defined by the ICS.

Labels: blogs, geologic time, stratigraphy

My favorites from a recent raft of geoblogosphere posts:

• Field work on sedimentary rocks in the Dead Sea region of Jordan (from Nologic)
• Anomalocaris fossils (from Ediacaran)
• Charming but obsolete mining terms (from Hypocentre)
• Other cool stuff in a similar conglomeration from BrianR (at Clastic Detritus)

Labels: blogs, field trips, fossils, geology, mining

Beautiful. Hat tip to Unexpected Entropy.

Labels: blogs, volcano

Chuck Bailey of William and Mary has started a geo-blog. Check it out at:
http://www.wm.edu/blogs/wmblogs/chuckbailey/index.php

Labels: blogs, geology, virginia

Today, I'm honored to present my first NOVA Geoblog guest post. After listening to my talk "Rise of the Geoblogosphere" at the Geological Society of Washington in September, E-an Zen (former president of the Geological Society of America, member of the National Academy of Sciences) approached me with some concerns about the nature of blogs as a vehicle for communicating science. I encouraged him to put his thoughts together, and that I would publish the resulting manuscript here as a guest post. Collaborating with Allison "Pete" Palmer, Dr. Zen provided me yesterday with the post you find below. Enjoy reading it, and please enter your comments below. --CB

WHAT IS "THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD"?
DISTINGUISHING VALID SCIENCE FROM PSEUDO-SCIENCE

E-an Zen and Allison R. Palmer
October 25, 2008

Debates about the nature of science and of science education are being actively carried out in our society, apparently reflecting a real need for improved understanding of what is at stake. On one side of the conversation are those who consider that science and "scientific research" represent efforts to rationally comprehend the physical aspects of the universe; in this process of understanding, the supernatural can play no part. Many advocates of this "rational" perspective consider their efforts to transcend cultural and institutional boundaries of human institutions.

There are others in our society, however, who point out that there are different ways of "knowing", and question whether the "rational" approach is adequate as a way to comprehend the universe. Particularly active against this "rational" model are some who consider the world we live in, and the life forms it carries, as creations of a transcendental being (some people of Abrahamic faiths might identify this being as the personal God). Among these advocates are some who deny the fundamental proposition that scientific investigation must exclude the "supernatural" because the latter is beyond rational and observation-based understanding. They point out that this exclusion is based on a particular model of knowing, and they challenge its validity in a real, rather than a model, world. Some Christians who belong to this group regard the Bible as literally inerrant and in situations of conflict the Bible trumps science-based inferences; others avoid the explicit invocation of a Christian God, yet claim that the world's life forms include products of direct and specific creative intervention of a super being (see Miller, 2008 for a thorough and informative exploration of this issue).

These apparently incompatible perspectives have generated passionate public concern because the public policy derivatives of the discussion include science education in public schools. Some who accept a role for the supernatural also promote the concepts of Young Earth Creationism and of Intelligent Design. Thus we must ask: under what circumstances could these be regarded as valid alternatives to observation-based science, acceptable not only for discussion among intellectually mature citizens, but suitable for pre-college science education? The debates, unfortunately, have devolved into legal contests resulting in judicial rulings which can make it difficult to carry out rational debate of the merits of the issues. Any educational value in a classroom setting with well-informed teachers is thereby forfeited.

The advent of the blogosphere has changed the landscape of this discourse: advocates on both sides can now broadcast, with limitless distribution, their arguments in cyberspace as "information" with neither peer review nor intellectual constraint. Blogs can be accessed directly by school-age readers, and the legal barriers about what may be taught in science classrooms cannot be enforced. There is no institution for prior review or vetting of mis-information about science by school boards, teachers, or parents.

How should the community deal with this challenge? Can we establish some consensus about what should be off-limits in blogs directed to school-age students, while keeping due respect for the sanctity of diversity of views about our world and its origins? How could we ensure that the students will be able to use the blogosphere for better understanding of the "scientific method of inquiry"?

We claim that "academic freedom" is not an adequate excuse for free-wheeling teaching in a science class. In a science class, the first order of business should not be to pass down masses of data and "facts", but to tell the students what doing or thinking about science amounts to. The core of scientific inquiry is its open-ended nature: We let the evidence lead us to the appropriate inferences, rather than use science as a tool to justify a predetermined conclusion. Scientific investigation never ends, because the answer to one question invariably leads to the next, deeper question of "why", "how", "when", or "where".

Let us describe our notion of the "scientific method" of inquiry, even as we recognize that this is not the only method for asking questions about our universe. We can do no better than quote Karl Popper. In his essay "Science: conjectures and refutations" (1963, p. 47-48 in the 2002 reprinted edition), Popper made the following (excerpted) sequential points:

"(1) It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every
theory - if we look for confirmations. (2) Confirmations should count only
if they are the result of risky predictions ... (3) Every "good" scientific
theory is a prohibition: it prohibits certain things to happen ... (4) A theory
that is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific.
Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a
vice. (5) Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or
to refute it. ... (6) Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the
result of a genuine [italics his] test of the theory; and this means that it can
be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory."

Popper concluded that "One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability*, or refutability, or testability."

* Popper used "falsify", "refute", and "test" as interchangeable synonyms. This is unfortunate because in common parlance "falsify" means to commit a fraud, to cheat, or to alter the record deliberately for nefarious purposes. The word "to falsify" should be avoided in the discussion of the scientific method (unless we want to say "to cheat"); instead, use either "refute" or "invalidate."

Popper went on to this bold, but important conclusion (2002, p. 61):

"This was a theory of trial and error - of conjectures and refutations... I
thought ... that scientific theories were not the digest of observations, but
that they were inventions - conjectures boldly put forward for trial, to be
eliminated if they clashed with observations; with observations which were
rarely accidental but as a rule undertaken with the definite intention of
testing a theory by obtaining, if possible, a decisive refutation."

It goes without saying that the initial conjecture must be triggered by some observations; It is not something pulled out of thin air.

The stories of Creation, in the version advanced by the Young Earth Creationists, or even by those who advocate Intelligent Design for the "irreducibly complex" apparatus of life organisms (see Dembski, 1999; Behe, 2008) are, by contrast, show-stoppers, because there is no way to apply to supernatural processes the method of scientific testing.

The process of invalidation, or refutation, of a scientific conjecture is a public process; it is open to everybody. The process includes peer review, formal or informal, of the reasoning as well as the conclusions. The scientific explanations, "theories" if you will, are forever on probation. There are varying degrees of certainty, but that certainty is never absolute and the most venerable hypothesis or theory may be demolished by a single "decisive refutation." The process of inquiry represented by invalidation never ends; Doing science requires a deep sense of humility and readiness to admit mistakes.

Those of us who subscribe to the Popperian method of scientific inquiry, however, could and should do a lot better when we communicate with our friends who admit a role for supernaturalism in science. We suggest that in debating this issue, we should:

1. Show respect for those who disagree. Do not condescend: many of those who disagree are highly trained, very bright people. Our differences are one of philosophy, not intelligence!
2. Seek to build dialogues that could enhance mutual understanding and mutual trust. That need includes a shared awareness of "trojan horses" that could sneak into a conversation. We need to be not just open, but honorable; We must understand that others may distrust us as much as we do them, often, alas, for good reasons!
3. Be careful in the use of words. Words may have connotation that are objectionable to others, or that can confuse an issue through misunderstanding. We already mentioned "falsify" as an example. "Theory" is another one; Even "creation" has conflicted meanings. Each of us can think of additional examples. Let our discussions not run aground on such silly shoals!
4. Emphasize that in teaching about science, the exploration of the METHOD OF SCIENCE is more important than the recitations of theories and facts. We should describe stories of both successful and failed "rational" ideas (for instance, the displacement of Newton's physics of the universe by Einstein's; Popper's essay contains a nice discussion). We should also analyse the "supernatural" perspectives to test for ways they either conform to, or fail to meet the demanding criteria of Popper. Remember that the Popper method is ideologically impartial. Philip Johnson, the intellectual guru behind Intelligent Design, used Popper's approach to challenge the logical underpinnings of Darwinian evolution (see Johnson, 1991, p. 145-148, for a lucid summary of Popper's thesis). The question is not whether Johnson is entitled to challenge Darwinian evolution as valid science. Of course he is. The issue is, was the challenge launched within the bounds of Popper's criteria for valid science, and did Johnson come up with valid refutation?

References

Behe, M.J., 2008, The edge of evolution: the search for the limits of Darwinism: New York, Free Press, 320 p.

Dembski, W.A., 1999, Intelligent Design - the bridge between science and theology: Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 312 p.

Johnson, P.E., 1991, Darwin on trial: Washington, DC, Regnery Gateway, 195 p.

Miller, K.R., 2008, Only a theory - evolution and the battle for America's soul: New York, NY: Viking, 244 p.

Popper, Karl, 1963, Science: conjectures and refutations, p. 43-86 in Conjectures and Refutations, London, Routledge (reprinted edition of 2002), 582 p.

Labels: blogs, evolution, pseudoscience

Tom Bain's Earth Insight Cache -- check out the post on carbonate "cannonball" concretions in the Ohio Shale! Very impressive... looking forward to future posts.

EDIT: The URL is http://earthinsightcache.blogspot.com/

Labels: blogs, concretions, geology

Student geobloggers: this has you written all over it! Have fun with that $10,000. Learn some good stuff, and keep on blogging about it.

Labels: blogs, economics

If you didn't already catch it elsewhere, there's a new fossil from the Chengjiang Fauna that suggests a bunch of arthropods following one another in a line. Matt at the HMNH reports on it here.

Labels: arthropods, blogs, cambrian, fossils

Geo-bloggers: It's your last chance to sign up for Science Online '09.

Chris Rowan and I are both planning on attending. Hopefully some other geo-bloggers too?

Got this today from the conference organizers:
"Registration is almost full! We are already at 196 registrants - and the capacity is 200. Counting on some people to unregister or not show up, we will cap at 230, but we expect to get there within the next day or two - so it is the last chance to register right now. If something comes up later, you can unregister easily...."

Labels: blogs, conferences, meetings

Would you like a little geoblogosphere with your coffee this morning?

There's some great stuff out there today...

Andrew Alden (Geology.About.com) showcases the Fransiscan melange on a trip to Shell Beach.

Watch Perito Moreno glacier do some AWESOME calving at En Morrenas (Spanish-language geoblog). Watch the whole thing for perspective (3 minutes), but the really spectacular collapse occurs at ~2 minutes into the video. Watch the splash and watch the huge chunks of ice go zinging off into the surrounding air. Wild!

Dave Petley (Dave's Landslide Blog) reviews the dangers of a collapse of a volcanic flank in the Canary Islands, and what it means for Atlantic Ocean tsunami risk.

And for the geobloggers in the house, Chris proposes getting together in January at a science blogging conference in North Carolina. I think this could be cool. I just signed up.

Time for another cup of coffee... Good morning!

Labels: blogs, california, geology, glaciation, landslide, meetings, north carolina, south america

Just a reminder that I'm curious to know which analogies my fellow geobloggers prefer to communicate various geologic concepts. At 4:30pm today, I'll post mine.

Labels: blogs, geology, teaching

Lutz at Geoberg.de has compiled an impressive list of known geoblogs... 97 of them!

My hat's off to Lutz for this tremendous effort! And doubly so for taking the time to translate it into English! I nominate him as the keeper of the official list of the geoblogosphere... Do I have a second on that motion?

Anyhow, here it is:

General
About Geology by Andrew Alden - diverse geoscientific news and information
Earth Learning Idea - every week a new geodidactic idea
The Accretionary Wedge - Blog collecting the results of geoblog carnivals
EffJot by Florian Jenn (partly in German)
geoberg.de-Blog by Lutz Geissler - News and more about geosciences, especially economic geology (in German)
The GeoChristian by Kevin Nelstead - Blog about geosciences from a view of a Christian
geolismus.de by Lutz Geissler and guest authors - Blog about public relations and education in geosciences and mining (in German)
Geological Musing in the Taconic Mountains by John van Hoesen - diverse topics from field works to history of geology
Geology Happens - experiences and results of the authors field work
Geology News by Dave Schumaker - geoscientific news
Geology News by Hobart King - geoscientific news
Geotripper - geology of the Western USA
goodSchist - posts from geology to astronomy (inclusive the 'podClast')
Gunnars Geo-Blog - links to geoscientific papers and news (in German)
The Limonit Blog - diverse geoscientific topics
The Lost Geologist - geological life and research of a German geology student
Lounge of the Lab Lemming - Blog of a geochemist and field geologist
The Musings of a Life-Long Scholar - Blog of a long-life geostudent
NOVA Geoblog by Callan Bentley - diverse geoscientific topics, especially about education
Olelog by Ole Nielson from Denmark - from tectonics to volcanism, climate change, mineralogy and more
Ron Schott's Geology Home Companion Blog by Ron Schott - Blog about GigaPan (among other topics)
Terra incognita - diverse geo-topics (in Swedish)
Geo-Hazards / Geoengineering
Dave's Landslide Blog by David Petley - landslide news and research
Geomorphic Hazards by Dawn and Dave Nicholson - news and links about geo-hazards
GeoPrac.net - Blog about geoengineering and related topics
Strike Slip - news about extreme geo-cataclysms
The Great Southern California ShakeOut - official blog of the Shake Out 'event'
Geo-Information (GIS etc.)
The Geo Factor by Ron Exler - Blog about GIS, GPS etc.
Geologic Froth - blog about geoscientific data-processing with focus on GPS and GIS
MiGeo - Blog from Peru about web-based geoscientific applications (in Spanish)
Geomorphology
Arctic and Alpine by Dawn and Dave Nicholson - news, discussions and links about geomorphology in cold climates
Geophysics
Harmonic Tremors - articles about seismic and seismology
Hypo-theses - earth quakes and more
Sismordia by Alessa Maggi and others - seismology in the Antarctic
Hydrogeology / Hydrology
Ordinary High Water Mark - experiences from water research
Pools and Riffles - hdyrology of Nevada and other regions
Palaeontology
Alberta Vertebrate Palaeontological Association-Blog - vertebrate palaeontology of Arizona
Ask Dr. Vector by Matt Wedel - palaeontology and biology of mainly flying animals
Bio/Rocks by Sarah Werning - vertebrate palaeontology and biology
Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings by Dave Hone - palaeontology of dinosaurs
Dinochick by Rebecca Foster - palaeontology and other stuff
Dino Frey's Weblog by Dr. Eberhard Frey from Germany - Blog about dinosaurs (especially Pterosaurs)
Echinoblog by Christopher L. Mah - vertebrates and collection work
The Ethical Palaeontologist - some palaeontological articles
Geologia online - mainly palaeontological posts (in Italian)
The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Big Lie by Sherry Konkus - articles about the controversial creationism and the role of dinosaurs
Laelaps by Brian Switek - Blog about evolution
The Open Source Paleontologist - Blog about open source software for Geoscientists
Palaeoblog by Michael J. Ryan - diverse palaeontological topics
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week by Darren Naish, Matt Wedel and Mike Taylor - every week a new picture and additional articles about sauropods
Triloblog - Blog about trilobites
Why I hate Theropods - Blog about Mesozoic reptiles and evolution
Petrology/Mineralogy/Economic Geology
Antimonite - palaeontological and archaeological articles
GeoCosas from Chile - Blog with focus on metallogeny and tectonics (in Spanish)
Green Gabbro by Maria Brumm - diverse, often petrological topics
Looking for Detachement by Silver Fox - articles about field work and exploration
Mineraland Chile - Blog about Chilean minerals with many photographs (in Spanish)
Rocks & Minerals - a kind of encyclopedia about rocks and minerals
Quarternary Geology
Cryology and Co. - geology of ice
Regional and Local Geology
Arizona Geology by Allison - diverse geo-topics about Arizona and neighbouring states
Oakland Geology by Andrew Alden - geological outcrops in Oakland
proreg news by Michael Hahl - articles about the geology of the German Odenwald (in German)
Sedimentology
Active Margin by Jim Repka - sedimentology and geoscientific education
Clastic Detritus by B. W. Romans - blog with comprehensive articles
The Dynamic Earth - Blog with mainly sedimentological topics
Hindered Settling by Zoltan Sylvester - comprehensive geo-articles
In Terra Veritas - Blog of a sedimentologist about the geo-world
Ramblings of a Geologist by Katherine Allen - Blog about the sediments of Lake Erie and climate change
Reporting on a Revolution by Suvrat Kher - climate change, evolution and more
Ripples in Sand - Blog by a graduate student from the Rocky Mountains
Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum Geology by Paul Wilson - comprehensive geoscientific articles
Stratamodel Blog by Tom Bell - Blog about the field work of the Stratamodel Inc.
Ten Million Years of Solitude - sedimentological, Quarternary geological and climate-related topics
Structural Geology/Tectonics
Al my faults are stress related by Kim Hannula - articles about geoscientific education and climate (besides structural geology)
Apparent Dip - useful articles about geo- and thermochronology
Vulcanology
ECRIS & CEVP - comprehensive articles about the European Cenozoic Rift System (ECRIS) and the Central European Volcanic Provence (CEVP) (in German)
Eruptions by Dr. Erik W. Klemetti - Blog about active volcanos worldwide
Magma Cum Laude - blog about volcanos and their molten and solidified products
Volcano Summer - Blog about a research stay of a geology student at Mauna Loa (Hawaii)
The Volcanism Blog by Dr. Ralph Harrington - Blog about worldwide volcanos, especially Chaiten, Llaima, Kilauea and Tungurahua
Miscellaneous
Accidental Remediation - articles about environmental geology and remediation
A Thin Section - Blog of a former economic geologist with spradic posts
Branner Blog by the Branner Library (Standford University) - News about geo-libarary work
Christie at the Cape - Blog about the experiences of a geological emigrant
The Chronicles of the Angry Geologist - diverse topics, minor about geosciences
Earth Sciences and Maps Library Blog of the University of California in Berkeley - Blog about maps
Geo/Arch/Sci Blog by Ellery Frahms - articles about geoarchaeology
GeoLibros by Make Stannen from Chile - normal and e-books are presented (in Spanish)
Geology Joe - diverse topics, partly about geosciences
Ontario-geofish by Harold Asmis - diverse topics
Natural History Now! by the Utah Museum of Natural History - geological, geographical and biological topics from Utah, USA
Reel Geology - Blog about geologists and geology in movies
Rising to the Occasion - Blog about field trips and education experience
SEG Geo-Mentoring - Blog about the mentoring-program of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists
Slightly Diktytaxitic by Tom Hinterberger - reports about research, education and university life of a student
Southern Exposure - Blog about geological education
Uncommon Vistas - Blog about a travelling geologist (not really geoscientific articles)

Labels: blogs, geology

• "Once I graduated from Graduate school it was tough to really hang out with an entire group of people who like to talk about geology...the geoblogosphere is like a group of friends who like to talk geology...I just wish there was such thing as cyber-beer to go along with the blog-o-sphere ."
• "It's an expanding, welcoming community. You get to experience all sorts of fieldtrips and research through the eyes of other geologists."
• "I have met many professionals in the process of blogging who have given me lots of great help and advice. It has served as a great introduction to specialists I wouldn't otherwise be in touch with."
• "The geoblogosphere connects together a community that otherwise only gets together at a meeting or two per year."

• "It has grown so much and so fast. It is difficult to keep up."
• "Another issue which may arise is priority of ideas. There are now written records of what, in the past, would have been "debates over a beer". Will this lead to debates about who originated an idea, or who has priority on a description?"

As for why geobloggers bother with blogging, the most common response was that they wanted to share information and perspectives with others, followed closely by the sense of connecting with other interested individuals and public outreach. A significant minority also mentioned the pleasure they take in the act of writing, or a desire to practice/improve their writing skills. Some comments from the survey on why geobloggers blog:

• "Narcissism"
• "It's a good outlet for my geological musings, and can really help to jumpstart a day of geo-thinkin'..."
• "An increasingly effective method of public outreach, which is part of my responsibilities as a publicly funded researcher; a way of clarifying my own thoughts on geological topics and issues."
• "Stop mom from emailing me for news all the time"
• "Cogito Ergo Blogo"
• "I like to share what I think is interesting but don't like 'bothering' people. I see blogging as the modern equivalent of the person who tacks magazine/newspaper articles outside their office, but with a much bigger/wider audience."

Labels: blogs, gsw, meetings

Geological Society of Washington
Meeting 1424
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sarah Penniston-Dorland, University of Maryland, College Park - "Multiple sulfur isotopes reveal a magmatic origin for the Platreef PGE deposit, Bushveld Complex, South Africa"

Callan Bentley (me!), Northern Virginia Community College - "Rise of the geoblogosphere"

Matthew Jackson, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (Carnegie Institution) - "The fate of subducted continental crust in the Earth's mantle"

*********************************
Refreshments start at 7:30 p.m. The formal program starts at 8:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public.

Meetings are held at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium (go in via the fenced-in parking lot on the corner of Florida Ave and Massachusetts Ave, NW) of the Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.

GSW Web Site address: http://www.gswweb.org/
Future meetings: Oct. 22, Nov.12, and Dec. 10

Labels: blogs, dc, geology, gsw, meetings

Yesterday's mineral meme spread like wildfire!

Brian at Clastic Detritus, Kim at All my faults are stress-related, MJC Rocks at GeoTripper, the Lost Geologist, Chris at Highly Allochthonous, Dave at Geology News, me here at NOVA Geoblog, Silver Fox at Looking for Detachment, ReBecca at Dinochick Blogs, and A Life-Long Scholar at Musings of a Life-Long Scholar all followed the inaugural post by Chuck at Lounge of the Lab Lemming in offering a list of fifty minerals they thought others should see before they die...

It's interesting to see the different ways people interpreted the point of the exercise. A lot of folks copied Chuck's list and then changed the formatting (bold, italics, etc.) to match their experiences with the minerals, while others of us made our own list of what we considered important. This latter approach was the one I followed, but I confess to copying Chuck's list and then going through it to figure out which ones I felt deserved to be in the "top fifty" based on my own experiences. I deleted some, and added new ones in their place. I wonder if I would have gotten a different list if I had started from scratch. I'll bet I would have come up with some different minerals, like chlorite. So far as I can tell, chlorite didn't make anyone's list... but I would argue it's a pretty important mineral, especially in the Appalachian mountain belt. Given the option to revise, I'd probably drop azurite off my list, and put chlorite in that spot instead.

So let me issue a new challenge for my fellow geobloggers... Which five minerals do you think are the most important ones to know, and why? In other words, if you had to introduce a non-geologist to just five of the earth's multitudinous building blocks, which ones would you choose to share, and offer a justification for each.

Mine:

1.) Quartz: Toughest major (zircons are minor) constituent of the continental crust, most stable at Earth-surface conditions of temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. It's pretty much at equilibrium at the surface of the Earth, so while feldspars and amphiboles and what not break down into clay and rust and ions, quartz sticks around unchanging. Hence, mature terrigenous sedimentary rocks contain a high proportion of quartz.

2.) Clays: Ditto: stable at the Earth's surface.

3.) Plagioclase feldspar: The most common mineral in the Earth's crust. Why? It's made of the most common elements in the Earth's crust, and is versatile in its composition, depending on what ions are available to fill in the appropriate gaps in its crystal lattice (K, Ca, Na).

4.) Olivine (also maybe Garnet, Spinel & Perovskite?): Major constituent(s) of the mantle, the most volumetrically significant portion of our planet. Compared the portion of our planet that is ultramafic, the quartz and clays are diddly-squat. We may not live in the mantle, so it's less familiar... but Earth is mostly mantle, so it's important to know what minerals make it up.

5.) Ice: Possibly the mineral we encounter most frequently in our lives, and for many people a surprising member of the mineral list. Ice has played a major role in Earth history (glaciations in the Paleoproterozoic, Neoproterozoic, Paleozoic, and Pleistocene), the important role of ice in determining sea level (of consequence in the modern day's episode of climate change), the usefulness of ice melting/freezing in teaching about other minerals melting/solidifying, the unique nature of ice being more voluminous (lower density) than liquid water (which essentially has allowed freshwater ecosystems in temperate climates to survive, because they freeze from the top down, rather than the bottom up) and the fact that ice helps make a margarita the splendid thing that it is.

What are your Top Five?

Labels: blogs, minerals

An interesting development in the geoblogosphere today. Everyone's posting lists of their "fifty great minerals," where "great" is left in the eye of the beholder/blogger. So far the following geobloggers have offered their lists: Lab Lemming, Hypocentre, & Silver Fox. I'll jump on the meme wagon, too...

Minerals in bold are those I've seen in the field, while italics indicate sightings in the lab or museum. My fifty:

Augite
Azurite
Barite
Beryl
Biotite
Calcite
Chromite
Chrysotile
Clays
Corundum
Diamond
Dolomite
Epidote
Fluorite
Galena
Garnet
Gold (native)
Graphite
Gypsum
Halite
Hematite
Hornblende
Ice
Kaolinite
Kyanite
Lepidolite
Limonite
Magnetite
Malachite
Monazite
Muscovite
Olivine
Opal
Orthoclase ('potassium') feldspar
Perovskite
Plagioclase feldspars
Pyrite
Quartz
Rutile
Sillimanite
Sphalerite
Spinel
Staurolite
Sulfur (native)
Talc
Tourmaline
Tremolite
Vermiculite
Zeolites
Zircon

Labels: blogs, minerals

Hi everyone in the geoblogosphere,

I'm scheduled to give a talk in a couple of weeks (at the Geological Society of Washington) entitled "Rise of the Geoblogosphere."

With the talk, I would like to give a comprehensive overview of the geoblogosphere as it stands today, including data about who is blogging, where they're blogging from, when they're blogging, why they're blogging, what they're blogging about, and what they think about this whole blogging deal.

To acquire this information, I've put together a short web-based survey using the "Survey Monkey" service. It's only 10 questions, and shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to do. By participating, you'll be helping create an accurate census of the geoblogosphere's current state, and I will publish the results of the survey here within a couple of weeks.


I will need all responses by Monday, September 15. Please help spread the word by linking to this page (or to the survey itself) from your blog. (Not everyone reads my blog, but maybe they read yours.)

UPDATE (9/11): I've gotten 39 responses as of Thursday morning (only one new addition in 48 hours). There are a more geoblogs out there than 39... If you're a geoblogger, please take the survey sometime this week.

Thanks for participating,

Callan

Labels: blogs, gsw

When I look back on my four years of undergraduate geology education, the one thing that strikes me as the most important thing I learned is the age of the Earth. It sent my mind reeling to recognize what a huge old planet I was on, and how ephemeral was my own species' time on it. I was a blip, a temporary arrangement of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and a handful of other elements that would last a while, and then disassociate. Material and energy passed into me, and out. This kinetic chemical phenomenon known as me would soon pass, and the Earth would keep turning. The human species would reach its zenith, then collapse (or evolve into something else), and the Earth would keep turning. The continents would rift and crash and the map of the Earth would soon be obselete, and the Earth would keep on turning. Climates change, meteors hit, "rivers shift, oceans fall, and mountains drift" (REM, 1985), and still the planet keeps on spinning, keeps on orbiting, keeps on keeping on.

The day I really realized the age of the Earth wasn't the day I heard "4.6 billion" in lecture. It was the day I sat there studying and grasped it internally -- it clicked that it was immensely, unimaginably old. My temporary human mind was a short-time-scale phenomenon, and it was impossible for this small cerebral system to get a grip on the true scale of the planet's age. While I would never really know (comprehend/appreciate) the age of my planet, I tapped into something fundamental that day. Looking back on it now, I'm reminded of John Playfair's words when his pal James Hutton took him to Siccar Point for the first time: "The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time" (1805).

When I made that cognitive leap (by essentially realizing it was impossible for me to fully make the cognitive leap), I got stuck on geology. I connected to the study in a way I hadn't done before. Suddenly I was subject to a dizzying temporal vertigo, as if a layer of flooring had crumbled away leaving me gazing into a bottomless pit. The realization gave a whole new perspective on things, and it was exhilarating. It felt like one of the conversations when you're getting to know someone, and realizing that they are both intriguing and yet never completely knowable. It draws you in, connects you. Without getting too gushy, it's kind of like falling in love. I've been a geologist ever since.

As I learned more, both in school and on later peregrinations around the world, I found that geology was a great traveling companion. No matter where I went, geology was there with me, showing me new things, giving me insightful perspective. I was looking at the world through geology-colored glasses, and finding that it had a lot to show me. The world made more sense on an elemental level. Hills made sense; rivers made sense; mountains made sense. While I couldn't claim to fully understand any of these phenomena, I could claim a connection to them now that wasn't there before. They were no longer random in my mind; they had a place in the overall system, and it took geology to make me realize it.

So this perspective has stuck with me, and it's what inspired me to pitch "geology as a connector" as this month's Accretionary Wedge theme. (Newbies: the Wedge is a semi-monthly geoblogosphere carnival wherein different geobloggers contribute posts organized around a central theme.) I was curious about what I would get, and I didn't want to restrict my peers' submissions by specifying what kind of connections should be written about.

Sure enough, different people interpreted connection differently. Tromping around in the mountains doing geologic mapping yields more than insights into local structure and stratigraphy, as BrianR of Clastic Detritus discusses how his field work has connected him to the messy reality that is nature.

Jess at Magma Cum Laude is starting her first semester as a graduate T.A., and is going to employ a teaching technique that connected her to the pervasive nature of geology: everything that the Earth puts out for the purpose of assembling Oreo cookies. Something as simple as an Oreo can be the vehicle through which students realize the manifold ways they depend on the Earth every day.

Where are the boundaries between sciences? Is geology a subset of environmental science, or physics? Or both? How do we define the different parts of Nature that we study? Using a Venn diagram, Hypocentre at Hypo-theses explores the connections between geology and other sciences, particularly in the environmental realm.

Similarly, Mel uses a diagram to explore connections in her post at Ripples in Sand. How does geology connect to paleontology? Join Mel in looking at the taphonomic bridge. (And wish her congratulations on her wedding while you're at it!)

Joining the crowd in her first Accretionary Wedge post, A Life Long Scholar (at The Musings of a Life-Long Scholar) makes a connection between the very small and the very large. In trying to answer questions about massive tectonic plates, sometimes geologists must turn to little bundles of mass a few micrometers across. Check out her post to see how garnets can reveal the secret histories of the continents.

And then there are the personal connections. In Looking for Detachment, Silver Fox was the first one to submit a post on the "connection" theme with her description of how different members of the mining and exploration community connect to one another over time and space (Nevada, of course). How do Charles Manson, Kevin Bacon, and exploration geologists all fit together? Read her post to find out.

MJC Rocks of the Geotripper blog has contributed a real treat: an exploration of the connection of geologists teaching geologists through time. It turns out that his academic lineage goes all the way back to Agassiz and Cuvier! A pretty impressive consideration which will surely inspire the rest of us to investigate our own geologic pedigrees.

Finally, over at Harmonic Tremors, Julian shares a story of how his knowledge of geology led him to make a personal connection with one of his cinematic idols, director Brad Bird. If you've seen the Incredibles, you're familiar with Bird's high quality entertainment. When Julian heard that Bird was working on a movie called 1906 about the great San Francisco Earthquake, he wrote a letter to clear up some inconsistencies in the book upon which the movie is based. The talented director took the time to write back to Julian, thanking him for the "seismic tutorial."

Enjoy the various and sundry posts -- follow these digital connections to other geologists in other parts of the world, and feel connected to the larger community of earth scientists. Thanks to everyone who contributed. If I've missed anyone or if anyone wants to submit a late post, give me a shout or post a link in the comments.
________________________
References:
Playfair, John (1805). Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. V, pt. III.
REM, (1985). "Feeling Gravity's Pull," Fables Of The Reconstruction, IRS records.

Labels: blogs, earthquakes, field trips, geology, metamorphism, minerals, mining, movies, plate tectonics, teaching

Adding to the list of visitors' countries that I detailed halfway through the week, the last four days have brought in new visitors from: Iceland, the Palestinian Territory, Jordan, Latvia, Kuwait, China, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Algeria, Thailand, Indonesia, the Canary Islands (Spain), Ireland, Taiwan (China), Panama, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Hong Kong (China). I think that brings us up to 56 total... Whoa.

Labels: blogs

Just a friendly reminder that I'm soliciting posts for the August edition of the Accretionary Wedge (a geoblogosphere carnival).

Geobloggers, take some time over the weekend and let me know your thoughts on how geology serves as a "connector science." (Interpret however you want!)

I'd like to organize the Wedge on Monday the 25th, so please get your posts (link below in the comments section or send me an e-mail) by Sunday at midnight (or so).

Thanks. Again, I'm looking forward to hear what people have to say.

UPDATE: The FTP issue has been resolved, and I can again post to the blog, so watch for the Wedge to be published later today. Thanks for your patience.

Labels: blogs

A week ago today, I installed SiteMeter on this blog, to get a sense of who's visiting. I put a counter on a couple of months ago, and I've been somewhat astonished at the numbers it's telling me (which are supposedly individual IP addresses, not page clicks). I mean, really: more than 14,600 people reading NOVA Geoblog? How can that possibly be right?

So I installed SiteMeter to get a better handle on the data. This might be some pretty indulgent navel-gazing, but it's also astonishingly rich data. There is a huge amount of information that a service like SiteMeter collects about you every time you visit a website, and this experience has been eye-opening for me...

In the week since I installed SiteMeter, I've had 647 visits (unique hits, but some of these represent repeated visits by single individuals), and some of those people visited more than one page during their time on the site (a total of 1,097 page views in total over 7 days). The average number of visits per day is 91, but the average time people spend on the blog is only 1 minute and 30 seconds!

Check out a couple of World Maps of visitors to this blog in the past week. I can only display 100 visitors at a time, so here's Monday morning's map:

The red dot was the last visitor at the time this map was generated, and the green dots are the nine previous visitors before that. The white dots are the remaining 90 to sum up to 100 total.

Here's today's map (again, "just" the last 100 visitors):

Overall, in the past week, NOVA Geoblog has had visitors from Panama, Hong Kong, Korea, the Philippines, Austria, Spain, Iran, Switzerland, Mexico, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, France, Argentina, Canada, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Norway, France, the U.K., Sweden, South Africa, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil, Russia, Finland, Portugal, Romania, India, Germany, Belgium, Israel, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, and Egypt. Whoa! Including the U.S., where most NOVA Geoblog visitors visit from, that's 40 countries in a week... I'm somewhat astonished.

SiteMeter generated a pie chart to show the relative proportions of these different locations:

SiteMeter gives you all kinds of crazy data. Here, for instance, are the last 20 visitors' entry pages (the first page they hit on visiting this blog):

1 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/labels/geology.html
2 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/labels/geology.html
3 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/02/biofuels-cartoon.html
4 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/02/totem-pole-tasmania.html
5 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/promoted.html
6 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/perspectives-on-coastal-tectonics.html
7 http://www.nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/
8 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/perspectives-on-coastal-tectonics.html
9 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/02/riddle-of-cake-revealed.html
10 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/is-georgia-in-europe-or-asia.html
11 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/unconformities-of-grand-canyon-part.html
12 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/labels/geology.html
13 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/perspectives-on-coastal-tectonics.html
14 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/perspectives-on-coastal-tectonics.html
15 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/is-georgia-in-europe-or-asia.html
16 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/01/columnar-jointing-and-weathering.html
17 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008_02_01_archive.html
18 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008_02_01_archive.html
19 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/01/life-during-anthropocene-time.html
20 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/perspectives-on-coastal-tectonics.html

There are some trends here, but you don't need to puzzle them out on your own, because SiteMeter will do it for you. Here are the most popular pages over the past week that initially lured visitors to the blog (black number on left is the number of times visitors hit that page first):

13 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/perspectives-on-coastal-tectonics.html
11 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/beer-is-bad-for-science.html
8 http://www.nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/
7 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/labels/geology.html
5 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/is-georgia-in-europe-or-asia.html
5 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008_02_01_archive.html
5 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/labels/fossils.html
3 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/
2 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/scary-map-du-jour.html
2 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/accretionary-wedge-call-for-posts.html
2 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/08/unconformities-of-grand-canyon-part.html
2 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/labels/msse.html
2 http://www.nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/chaiten-update.html
2 http://www.nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/05/shenandoah-np-corbin-cabin-area.html
1 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/01/asteroid-news.html
1 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/01/brrr.html
1 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/01/columnar-jointing-and-weathering.html
1 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/01/fault-photo.html
1 http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/...-during-anthropocene-time.html

Wondering about what browsers these visitors are using to access these pages? Turns out SiteMeter keeps track of that too (as well as what kind of monitor you're using, your internet service provider, and what you ate for breakfast!):

Where are these people coming from? What's the referring page that links them to NOVA Geoblog? Turns out SiteMeter can tell me that too! A lot of visitors were brought here by web searches, including a lot of image searches. People searched on Google or Yahoo for "biofuels cartoon," "totem pole tasmania," "unconformities in the grand canyon," "geoblog," and many more. Others were linked to my site from other geology blogs, and a few came from my NOVA website and my Blackboard courseware platform.

If this sort of stuff interests you (and I can't imagine why it should), you can explore details of each of these searches on the SiteMeter's "NOVA Geoblog" page (click on the SiteMeter icon below the counter in the right column, or click here).

Labels: blogs

The Freakonomics blog draws our attention today to a new study suggesting that beer consumption and low publication records are correlated. Hmmm.

Labels: blogs, news, science and society

In his "Achenblog" today, the Washington Post's Joel Achenbach discusses whether the former Soviet republic of Georgia is in Europe or Asia. A bit of geography to start your day.

Being a geologist rather than a geographer, I'm of the opinion that it's in Eurasia, but no one's asking me...

Labels: blogs, news

Fellow DC metro area residents -- there are a bunch of geology events coming up in the next couple of months that you may be interested in. Everything* listed here is free and open to the public.

Next Sunday, August 24, I'll be leading an event called "Geology Along the C&O Canal," at the Lock 8 River Center from 10am until 11am. My plan is to give an overview of the Appalachian mountain belt, then focus on the Piedmont "chapter" of that story, using local outcrops to illustrate the rock types produced. I'm not sure if you need to reserve a spot or not; Call Bridget Chapin at the Potomac Conservancy (number at link above) to inquire about details.

Friday, September 5: "Geology Along the Billy Goat Trail," I'll lead this hike along the famous Billy Goat Trail, examining its exquisite display of metamorphic geology and geomorphology. 12:30pm-4:30pm. Reserve a spot through the good folks at the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center.

Wednesday, September 10: first Geological Society of Washington meeting of the fall. Beer served at 7:30pm, and the formal program begins at 8pm. At the Cosmos Club in Dupont Circle.

Saturday, September 20: I'll be leading my "History Before History: the Geologic Saga of Washington, DC" walking tour as part of Walkingtown, DC. The tour runs from 1pm until about 4pm, and involves about 2.5 miles of walking from Adams-Morgan to Georgetown. Limit of 30 people; interested walkers should reserve a spot with Cultural Tourism, DC, the nonprofit group that sponsors Walkingtown, DC each spring and fall.

Sunday, September 21: For those who can't make it Saturday, I'll again be leading my "History Before History: the Geologic Saga of Washington, DC" walking tour as part of Walkingtown, DC. The tour runs from 1pm until about 4pm, and involves about 2.5 miles of walking from Adams-Morgan to Georgetown. Limit of 30 people; interested walkers should reserve a spot with Cultural Tourism, DC, the nonprofit group that sponsors Walkingtown, DC each spring and fall.

Wednesday, September 24: Another Geological Society of Washington meeting, but I'll be delivering a talk at this one. My talk's title is "Rise of the geoblogosphere."

Sunday, October 5: I'll be delivering a talk called "A Geologist's Perspective on Climate Change" at the Chinn Park Regional Library in Woodbridge, Virginia. 2pm-3pm.

Friday & Saturday, October 10-11: The Virginia Geological Field Conference, in Marion, VA. "Geology of the Saltville and Pulaski Fault Blocks" is this year's topic. *This is the one item on the list that is not in the immediate DC metro area, and also the one item on the list that costs money -- registration is $45 for professionals, $20 for students. Transportation, lunch, and guidebook will be provided. See more details on the website. If you're interested in comparing and contrasting two Valley and Ridge fault blocks shoved westward during Alleghenian mountain-building, this might be of interest to you.

Thursday, October 23: the Earth's birthday, according to James Ussher. 4004 BC to 2008 AD; does that make it 6012 years old? Or is it 6011 years old, since there was no year "0"? Tricky... Regardless, I'll be serving lithosphere/asthenosphere cake/pudding to NOVA students in celebration of the day. (I posted on visiting Archbishop Ussher's church here.)

Wednesday, October 22: Another GSW meeting. Same time, s