My friend Eric Roston made a guest appearance on Andy Revkin's Dot Earth blog yesterday. Eric wrote The Carbon Age, but more importantly, he occasionally gets together with me and some mutual friends to drink homebrew. Good work, Eric: Cheers!

Labels: blogs, books, climate change, india

Heh! I love it.

Labels: art, blogs, evolution, history, humor, websites

A trio of recommendations for a Tuesday morning:

• Thomas Friedman on the three bombs (nuclear, climate, debt). Wise words. (Hat tip to Cathy Manduca, via the Earth and Mind blog)
• Betsy Kolbert on how the Internet enables non-rational thinking, from last week's New Yorker.
• And another one from Ms. Kolbert, on the 'geoengineering solution' for climate change, from this week's New Yorker. (It's a review of both Superfreakonomics and Al Gore's new Our Choice, and guess how she feels about those two books? Hint: she uses the word "horseshit" several times, and she's not referring to Mr. Gore.)

Labels: blogs, climate change, economics, global warming, politics

Yesterday, we had a joint NOVA-University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown field trip to Shenandoah National Park. It was a great day of examining new rock outcrops and old treasured favorites. UPJ is responsible for one of the only departmental student-centered geology blogs that I am aware of, Mountain Cat Geology. A couple of weeks ago, igneous and metamorphic petrology professor Elli Goecke contacted me about local rock options, and I invited her crew to team up with the NOVA GOL 135 field course to check out Shenandoah. [Geoblogger small world: Elli studyed under Kim Hannula in Vermont!]

Together, the sixteen of us checked out evidence for the two Wilson Cycles recorded in the rocks of Virginia's Blue Ridge province, and had a pleasant time hiking around and enjoying unparalleled fine weather. Unfortunately, November means the days are short, and we had the sun set on us before we got to the final stop (at Signal Knob Overlook). We took a group photo there: see if you can spot who's a NOVA person and who's a UPJ person...


The annotated version, to show who's who:


Thanks for a great day in the field, everyone!

Labels: blogs, blue ridge, field trips, national parks, nova, pennsylvania, shenandoah, virginia

Here's a photo of 18 of the 19 geobloggers who assembled on Monday night in Portland:



I had to do some photoshopping, as you might have deduced. Not everybody was in the same place at the same time: herding geobloggers is worse than herding cats! So... I've had to be creative to get them all in the same jpg space.

In alphabetical order, those pictured are:

• Andrew Alden, About.com
• Jessica Ball, Magma Cum Laude
• Callan Bentley, NOVA Geoblog
• "Silver Fox," Looking for Detachment
• Steve Gough, Riparian Rap
• Anne Jefferson, Highly Allochthonous
• Kim Hannula, All My Faults Are Stress Related
• Kyle House, Geologic Froth(ings)
• Erik Klemetti, Eruptions
• Jim Lehane (younger of the two Jims), Dino Jim's Musings
• Chuck Magee, Lounge of the Lab Lemming
• Marcella, Pooh's Thoughts
• Mary, a geo-Twitterer
• Jim Repka (older of the two Jims), Active Margin
• Brian Romans, Clastic Detritus
• Ron Schott, Ron Schott's Geology Home Companion Blog
• Peter Selkin, Oblate Spheroid
• David Williams, Stories In Stone

MAK was there too, but for some reason I don't have him in any of my photos... Sorry!

Labels: blogs, meetings, oregon

My final day at GSA was fruitful. I started off in the "Earth, et al." session hosted by ODU's Nora Noffke. It was devoted to the Precambrian, and had some interesting talks about fluctuating oxygen levels, mineral evolution, microbially-induced sedimentary structures, and Neoproterozoic glaciation. This last one was most interesting to me: UMD's Jay Kaufman talked about field work he conducted in Siberia last summer, documenting a diamictite unit between Ediacaran strata and Cambrian strata. There's even a carbon isotope excursion to match up with it! Cool... literally.

I had lunch with my friend David Dantzler, who I hadn't even realized was at the conference, until I saw him come in to one of the Darwin-focused sessions. In the afternoon, I attended another eight talks, including some on greenstone belts in South Africa, some on geological education, and a couple about the evolution of orogens, with an emphasis on South America. (One of these was an excellent talk by Brian Romans about his field area in Patagonia.) I finished up with Kim Hannula's talk about the geoblogosphere's role in supporting women geoscientists. Then it was time to bug out: back to the hotel, then to the airport, then to Los Angeles, then to Dulles, where I arrived this morning at 6:30am. On the flight, I took an Advil PM, put in earplugs and wore one of those little eye-masks so I could get some decent amount of sleep... Mixed success on that front. Once I got to Dulles, I got some coffee, and headed straight to work! It's good to be back in the familiar environs of my office and lab again. Thanks for a great conference, everyone!

Also: GSA is maintaining a webpage summarizing the various posts from registered geobloggers. It's incomplete, but a useful idea: a repository for all the stuff being said about the conference from the various attending geobloggers.

Labels: archean, blogs, geology, hadean, meetings, oregon, patagonia, proterozoic, snowball earth

It's been a year since an attempt I made to characterize the geoblogosphere via an online survey, and two weeks since I asked you geobloggers to take the survey that geobloggers Lutz Geissler and Robert Huber put together. I reviewed a rough draft of their survey and made some suggestions. My biggest suggestion of all, though, is aimed at you: Please complete the survey!

It will be open through the end of this month, and after all the data is in, Lutz and Robert will chew on it, and eventually we'll disseminate our findings.

So... Please take the survey. Thanks!

Labels: blogs

In case anyone has not been following the thread at the old post on this topic, here's the plan for geology bloggers who want to meet up and quaff some ale at the GSA meeting in Portland the week after next: let's meet up 8pm at Tugboat (link to map) on Monday night, October 19.

If anyone is around on Friday Saturday, I'll also be at the Deschutes Brewery (link to map) on Friday night, October 16, at 8:30pm: A fan of NOVA Geoblog invited me out for a beer! (Why don't the rest of you do that?) You're welcome to join us: The more, the merrier.

Saturday night and Sunday night are wide open for me. Give a shout if you want to make a plan.

Labels: blogs, meetings, oregon

It's been a year since an attempt I made to characterize the geoblogosphere via an online survey. Now, geobloggers Lutz Geissler and Robert Huber have initiated a new effort at describing what's going on where geology and blogging meet. I reviewed a rough draft of their survey and made some suggestions, and was added on as a third investigator. The idea is that the survey will be open through the end of this month, and after all the data is in, Lutz and Robert will chew on it, and eventually we'll disseminate our findings. Schedule permitting, I'll present the results at the fall AGU meeting in San Francisco.

So... Please take the survey.

Thanks!

Labels: blogs, geology

"Earth and Mind," by the folks at SERC.

Labels: blogs, geology, teaching

Awesome: right-handed Anomalocarids!
Elizabeth Kolbert on getting things moving re: climate policy.
The volcanological blogs are all agog over tephra and teeth.
Lockwood tears into sloppy "press release" style "journalism."

Labels: blogs, climate change, evolution, politics, science and society

Working through my RSS feed from the past week when I was out of town: Sheesh, it sure builds up if you don't stay on top of it! A couple of notable items to share:

The geography of tapirs, from the Why Evolution Is True blog.

The declining emphasis on literacy in our society, from Alternet.

Women geoscientists who read and/or write blogs: complete this survey!, from Kim.

Outcropedia, a new web project to catalog and share key outcrops.

Climate change graph jam, from Tamino. (With follow-ups from Lockwood)

Skeptics & athiests visit the Creation Museum. (ABC News)

Labels: blogs, evolution, graphics, humor, maps, politics, websites

Bill Parker put up an interesting piece last night on the Chinleana blog about John Muir, the conservationist icon, studying fossils in Arizona's petrified forest (silicified trees in the Chinle Formation badlands). Great historical photos -- Check it out!

Labels: arizona, blogs, environmental, fossils, plants

It's been busy round these parts. My apologies for the lack of posts this past week.

I leave tomorrow for Montana, and I'll have limited e-mail access while out there. I'll do my best to post when I can, but it will likely be more on the ~weekly timescale rather than ~daily.

On the agenda: (1) Bahama Montana, (2) present and defend my MSSE capstone project, and (3) lead my Regional Field Geology of the Northern Rockies class for NOVA.

More later...

Labels: blogs, montana, msse, nova, travel

A funny coincidence transpired a couple of weeks ago. I posted about "Amygdules!" and so did Andrew. We were both so excited by these cool primary igneous structures that we added an exclamation point to our post titles. Over the weekend, I found some more. These are in Dark Hollow, in Shenandoah National Park, above the falls. Pretty sweet, eh?



I hereby give them two exclamation points. Let's see if anyone else can come up with two-exclamation-point-worthy examples of amygdules...

Labels: basalt, blogs, blue ridge, falls, igneous, primary structures, proterozoic, shenandoah

The June edition of the geoblog carnival The Accretionary Wedge is now live and ready for you to read. Where would geologist bloggers go if they had a time machine? Find out here!

Labels: blogs, geologic time, geology, websites

As a high school student in Arlington County, Virginia, I used to take regular hikes down a path called Windy Run, and then walk along the south shore of the Potomac River, upstream. It was in the days before I knew anything about rocks, and I was mainly appreciating other aspects of nature, like the plant life, the birds, the bugs, the salamanders, and occasionally something really cool like a raccoon. But I was aware that the scene I observed and enjoyed was not the same scene that had always persisted.

I heard rumors from my uncle about patches of woods inside the DC Beltway that preserved virgin forest -- giant trees that gave a hint of the former majesty of this eastern hardwood forest. I read about an eastern herd of bison that would migrate north and south through the Piedmont and Coastal Plain, crossing the Potomac near Alexandria (before we killed them all). I noticed a gazillion deer, and had it explained to me that the lack of predators like cougars and wolves resulted in the herbivores' population explosion. We used to have elk here, but European colonists had extirpated them. The last of the bison were killed off by 1800, and the final elk met a bullet around 1850. This used to be a pretty wild place!

I observed trash nearly constantly, often mixed obscenely with natural debris, sheathed in mud, or woven into birds' nests. Every few minutes, a jet airplane on its approach to National Airport would thunder overhead. Those of us who lived in the flight path would learn to automatically put conversations on "pause" during the 30 seconds it took for the planes to pass. Visitors didn't know what to do about the noise; it was too pervasive to be ignored. But live here long enough, and you learned to ignore it. You adapted, like the birds adapted by putting aluminum foil and plastic bags into their nests.

And the river itself? It's gross. In the modern day, it's constantly muddy and silty, with a foul-smelling sewage/sediment biofilm all over the rocks and logs in the water. There's scummy flotsam and rumors that you'll get a rash if you swim in it. There's people fishing down by Teddy Roosevelt Island, and you have to wonder why... They're not going to eat the fish they catch out of this polluted stream, are they?

The theme of this month's Accretionary Wedge is "time warp." The Wedge is a geoblog 'carnival,' though it's been inactive for a while, this month sees its return to 'accreting.' For those of you who are new readers to NOVA Geoblog, it's probably a great opportunity to check out some of the dozens of other interesting geoblogs out there. So what does this have to do with my reflections on the local woods, and the Potomac River? This month's Wedge host is Lockwood from Outside the Interzone. He asked geobloggers, "Where and when would you most like to visit to witness and analyze an event in Earth's history?"

I'm going to use my time travel experience to go back in time right here, in Washington, DC. I want to go back to 1491*. I want to see what my home looked like before European settlers showed up and brought their particular brand of industrialization / civilization / land use changes / ecological perturbations to the Potomac River valley. It may surprise readers to learn that I'd opt for this -- a simple experience of pre-colonization North American nature -- over something tectonic and structural, but that's what calls to me on a deep, emotional level. I want to see a vibrant ecosystem with big trees. I want to see the water of the Potomac River look like water; I want to go swimming in it. I want to see what bird migration looked like before it dropped off so precipitously. I want to see a passenger pigeon, a carolina parakeet. I want to see for myself what a healthy amphibian population looks like. And bison fording the Potomac in Alexandria... perhaps emerging from the clear water with the autumn colors ablaze on the far side of the river? That would just be... awesome.

* Note that there's a good book by this same name, on this same theme, 1491. The book makes the case that there was already a lot of landscape/ecological modification playing out before Europeans arrived: that native Americans played a significant role in messing with natural systems and we shouldn't imagine an ecological paradise, just less of an ecological disaster.

Of course, going back to 1491 may have some negative aspects to it: there would be malaria endemic to DC at that time, and the native tribes might not take kindly to a time traveler popping in to ogle their forested homes. But I'll take those risks (they exist today in other places I've visited), since the pay-off would be such a profound deepening of perspective.

If I had the ability to go back in time, I'd use it to gain experience with pre-colonial North America. I'd check out the same river banks I would walk 500+ years later, and see what we've lost.

...And, once I've seen that former world, I can't guarantee that I'd come back.

Labels: amphibians, birdies, blogs, dc, environmental, geologic time, mammals, piedmont, rivers, virginia

Totally cool... from those crazy kids at U-Pittsburg Johnstown: The Colors of Coal...

Labels: blogs, coal, microscopy

The Berkeley Seismological Laboratory (which initiated an RSS feed a few months back -- well worth subscribing to) has a post up today showing the seismic signals generated by last weekend's Yosemite rockfall. Check it out!

Labels: blogs, earthquakes, mass wasting

I hereby initiate a geoblogosphere meme...

What are ten things that every geology major ought to know about? The only restriction is you're not allowed to list anything that has already been listed by a previous geoblogger. You don't have to list everything, just ten important things.

My ten:

1. The relationship between cooling rate and crystal size in igneous rocks.
2. The fact that rocks can flow, given sufficient temperature and pressure [and low strain rate, for the purists out there].
3. The idea that sedimentary rocks reflect specific depositional settings. By studying modern depositional settings and the sediments they contain, we can interpret ancient sedimentary rocks in light of the conditions under which they accumulated.
4. The fact that the chemical stability of molecular configurations (minerals) changes with different temperatures and pressures (metamorphism).
5. Large Igneous Provinces, and their potential role in tectonics and expressing mantle plumes.
6. Elastic rebound theory for the origin of earthquakes.
7. The notion of partial melting, and its relationship to Bowen's Reaction Series.
8. An understanding of the carbon cycle, and an understanding of the atmospheric physics that facilitate global warming.
9. The role that rivers play in shaping the landscape: nickpoints, terraces, quarrying, abrasion, drilling of potholes, etc.
10. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, which is extremely old in comparison to human life -- and the reasons we think it's so old [Pb isotopes, etc.].

Please, add to these... So far Mel at Ripples in Sand, Chris at GoodSchist, Eric at The Dynamic Earth , Lockwood at Outside the Interzone, Bryan at In Terra Veritas, Kim at All My Faults..., Garry at Geotripper, and the Short Geologist at Accidental Remediation have added their top tens. Plus, Silver Fox at Looking For Detachment posted 4, and the comments section on this post has another suggestion from Michael Welland (of Through the Sandglass) and others. That's 85 things to know... and counting...

Labels: blogs, geology, teaching

GeoTripper asks about where should be the top places geologists should visit? Or more specifically: What are the places and events that you think should all geologists should see and experience before they die? What are the places you know and love that best exemplify geological principles and processes?

He's asked this question before, and it set off a satisfying kerfuffle in the geoblogosphere. "Satisfying" because lots of geobloggers chimed and shared their experiences (like me). "Kerfuffle" because it's fun to say... Um, also because the original "Geologist's Life List"was pretty America-focused. A few days later, I posted a series of suggestions for revisions to the list, and now I repost them in honor of the upcoming Accretionary Wedge, with some addenda and modifications:

Specific places

1. Do an Appalachian transect through the following physiographic provinces: Piedmont, Blue Ridge, Valley & Ridge, and Appalachian Plateau
2. Visit the Chalk (England, France, Ireland...)
3. Visit Iceland's Thingvellir Valley to see the mid-Atlantic divergent plate boundary
4. Visit Mt. Fuji, Japan
5. Visit Great Barrier Reef, Australia
6. Visit Ayers Rock (Uluru) Australia
7. Visit the Himalayas (Kashmir?)
8. Visit the Tibetan Plateau
9. Visit the Gobi Desert
10. Visit the Sahara Desert
11. Visit the Sonoran Desert (for the saguaros)
12. Visit the Atacama Desert
13. Visit the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter)
14. Visit Beijing or Shanghai (for the perspective on what really dirty air looks like)
15. Visit the big island of Hawai'i
16. Visit Yellowstone
17. Visit the Galapagos Islands
18. Visit Madagascar (for the lemurs)
19. Visit Patagonia
20. Visit the Andes
21. Visit the Alps
22. Visit the Canadian Rockies
23. Visit Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska (and/or neighboring Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory)
24. Visit Denali, Alaska
25. Visit the Aleutian Islands
26. Visit Mount Everest, the highest point above sea level.
27. Visit Chimborazo, Ecuador (furthest point from the center of the Earth, due to the equatorial bulge)
28. Visit Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain above its base.
29. Visit Antarctica
30. Visit the Siberian Traps
31. Visit the Deccan Traps
32. Visit the Columbia River flood basalt province
33. Visit Sumatra/Krakatau/Java, Indonesia
34. Visit the South Island of New Zealand
35. Visit the Dead Sea
36. Visit the Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
37. Visit the Great Rift Valley of East Africa
38. Visit the Nile River
39. Visit the Mississippi River
40. Visit the Amazon River
41. Visit the Grand Canyon
42. Visit the Owens Valley, California (or anywhere in the Basin & Range, but the Owens Valley is pretty darned special, and geologically diverse)
43. Visit Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada (walk on the "Moho")
44. Visit Siccar Point, Scotland (for the unconformity)
45. Visit Gibraltar, "UK"
46. Visit Vesuvius, Pompei, and the Pompei-to-be, Naples
47. Visit Victoria Falls
48. Visit Racetrack Playa's sailing stones, Death Valley
49. Visit Devils Tower, Wyoming
50. Visit the Moon

Geological features

1. A tectonic triple junction (Mendocino, CA is an example, or northern Burma, or Panama)
2. Tower karst (Guilin, China, or southwestern Thailand are examples)
3. Experience a regional flood
4. Experience a flash flood
5. Experience an earthquake
6. Ediacaran fauna fossils in situ (possibilities include the type locality of the Ediacaran Hills in Australia, or Charnwood Forest in England, the White Sea region in Russia, or maybe the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland)
7. Vertebrate fossils in situ
8. Visiting a laggerstatten site (e.g., Burgess Shale, Chenjiang, Sirius Passet, Solnhofen)
9. An alpine glacier
10. A continental glacier (ice cap or ice sheet)
11. A kimberlite pipe (preferably with diamonds, and good luck with that)
12. A coral atoll (take your pick)
13. A meteor impact crater (not a buried one, either)
14. A big river delta (Mississippi, Ganges, Nile, or any of the dozens of others)
15. Barrier islands (Padre Island, Texas, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina come to mind, but I'm sure there are others on other continents)
16. A craton (Canadian shield, Kaapvaal, North China, etc. etc. etc.)
17. A big estuary (Cook Inlet, Chesapeake Bay, Bay of Fundy: all North American examples. Give me some others)
18. See some karst.
19. Kayak (or other boat) through a fjord.
20. See a dropstone.
21. See an ophiolite.
22. Visit a major stike-slip fault (San Andreas in USA/Mexico, or North Anatolian in Turkey, or Tan Lo (sp?) in China)
23. Visit a nappe or thrust sheet (Glarus Thrust in the Alps, Chief Mountain/Glacier NP in Montana, Blue Ridge in Virginia/North Carolina)
24. Visit a really big cave (Mammoth, Lechugilla, or some other that I don't know about on another continent)
25. (#25-29 on this list is derived from Christie at the Cape's post on this topic...) See a famous "big wave" e.g. Maverics or Dungeons, breaking.
26. Watch a glacier calving into the sea.
27. Listen to singing beaches or dunes.
28. Walk across and observe a metamorphic aureole (like the classic Barrovian sequence in Scotland.
29. See a tidal bore.

Activities and experiences

1. A world-class natural history museum (London Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History all come to mind.)
2. Meeting of a classic scientific society (Royal Society, Explorers Club, Cosmos Club...)
3. Do some original research.
4. Present your research at a meeting of other scientists.
5. Publish your research in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
6. Visit an original copy of "map that changed the world" (William Smith's geologic map of England, Wales, and part of Scotland)
7. Experience a big earthquake (greater than 5.0 sounds like as good a cut-off as any)
8. Experience a volcano erupting something other than gases (lava, pyroclastics)
9. Go ice fishing (or just out onto a frozen lake/pond/sea/ocean and ponder the improbable nature of ice and how it freezes from the top down, preserving the living things underneath, like fish. Without this odd property, it would be tough to maintain freshwater lake life at high-latitudes/elevations through the winter months.)
10. Compare and contrast El Nino and La Nina by personally living through both in the same spot. (e.g., Peru, southwest U.S., Papua New Guinea, Australia)
11. Go on an oceanographic research cruise for more than two weeks at sea.
12. Experience a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone (preferably surviving it)

I welcome your additions and comments! Or just tune in for the Wedge when GeoTripper posts it.

Labels: blogs, field trips, geologists, geology, travel

Ha! The crazy things people do... Looks like LEEDS certification may hold the same moral high ground and real-life meaninglessness as the USDA "organic" label. Check out this gallery at Treehugger.com

Hat tip to the CCAN blog for alerting me to this.

Labels: blogs, energy, environmental

I discovered Julie Zickefoose's blog today. She's on NPR from time to time, which is why her improbable name may sound familiar. She's got a cool blog. I really liked this post -- the tales of walking outside with friends, sharing nature and settling indoors with pets and hearth -- it just warmed me up inside!

Labels: blogs, critters

Heh! A gem from Mr. Hrynyshyn.

Labels: blogs, evolution, grants, teaching

Cool idea. Check it out.

Labels: art, blogs, climate change, global warming, ice, oceans

The blog is in Spanish, and I can't quite make out where these photos were taken, but if you like concretions, you'll want to check these out.

Labels: blogs, concretions

While completing an Amazon impluse buy triggered by the "Climate Sale" post at The Way Things Break, I noticed a clever book cover:

Whoever designed that deserves a bonus. Pretty clever.

Labels: art, blogs, books, climate change, global warming, websites

My apologies if someone else has already called attention to these two:

Labels: blogs

Jesse Carlucci of the Diagenesis blog has an excellent piece up today about the term "Darwinism" and its pitfalls on many levels. You should go check it out immediately.

Labels: blogs, evolution, words

Strange Maps has an interesting piece up today about where West Virginia came from (as a state): turns out it was all about the Civil War. The accompanying map shows the original proposed name for West Virginia, "Kanawha," as well as a proposed demarcation between Virginia and Maryland that trended along the western margin of the Blue Ridge physiographic province. If this boundary had come to pass, Virginia would have gotten the Valley & Ridge province, but Maryland would have retained the Blue Ridge, Piedmont and Coastal Plain.

Labels: blogs, blue ridge, coastal plain, history, maps, maryland, piedmont, valley and ridge, virginia, west virginia

Labels: art, blogs, humor, nova

Here's a copy of my presentation last week at the NOVA "Power Up Your Pedagogy" conference, hosted here at the Annandale campus (sponsored by our Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning). Apparently there were some technical snafus for one (both?) of the scheduled playings of the talk, so I wanted to put it online for anyone who missed it. It's 13:40 in length, available as an .avi file. You'll have to download it to your computer, because I can't figure out how to embed it here.

Other talks from the conference are listed (some with video) on the PUP page on the CETL website.

Labels: blogs, conferences, geology, nova, teaching, tech

The perpetually-interesting site Oddee hosted a series of satellite images of the Earth today, including this one from April of last year. Somehow I missed it then...

The image, originally from NASA's Earth Observatory (one of the finest websites I know of for those interested in Earth science), shows a collection of volcanoes in the western Arabian Peninsula. A large version of the image (unlabeled) is here.

The most spectacular thing about this image is the color contrast between the volcanoes on the left versus the volcanoes on the right. This spectacular contrast is indicative of the rock types involved in each volcano. On the left, felsic lava was erupting, which cooled into the extrusive rock rhyolite. On the right, mafic lava was erupting, which cooled into the extrusive rock basalt. Mafic igneous rocks like basalt have a higher proportion of the elements iron, magnesium, and calcium as compared to elements like silicon, potassium, and sodium. Felsic igneous rocks are, in a sense, distillates of mafic source rocks: they are made of minerals that are more easily melted.

Also worth noting is the way the basalt overlaps the rhyolite between Jabal Bayda' and Jabal Abyad tells us that the rhyolite came first, and the basalt came second, an example of relative dating. And these insights can be gleaned from space... or more accurately, from our computer screens, depicting an image from space. That's pretty incredible, when you think about it.

FYI, here's what NASA's William Stefanov wrote as the caption for this exceptional image:

The western half of the Arabian Peninsula contains not only large expanses of sand and gravel, but extensive lava fields known as haraat (harrat for a named field). One such field is the 14,000-square-kilometer Harrat Khaybar, located approximately 137 kilometers to the northeast of the city of Al Madinah (Medina). The volcanic field was formed by eruptions along a 100-kilometer, north-south vent system over the past 5 million years. The most recent recorded eruption took place between 600-700 AD.

Harrat Khaybar contains a wide range of volcanic rock types and spectacular landforms, several of which are represented in this astronaut photograph. Jabal ("mountain" in Arabic) al Qidr is built from several generations of dark, fluid basalt lava flows. Jabal Abyad, in the center of the image, was formed from a more viscous, silica-rich lava classified as a rhyolite. While the 322-meter high Jabal al Qidr exhibits the textbook cone shape of a stratovolcano, Jabal Abyad is a lava dome; a rounded mass of thicker, more solidified lava flows. To the west (image top center) is the impressive Jabal Bayda'. This symmetric structure is a tuff cone, formed by eruption of lava in the presence of water. The combination produces wet, sticky pyroclastic deposits that can build a steep cone structure, particularly if the deposits consolidate quickly.

White deposits visible in the crater of Jabal Bayda' and two other locations to the south are sand and silt that accumulate in shallow, protected depressions. The tuff cones in the Harrat Khaybar suggest that the local climate was much wetter during some periods of volcanic activity. Today, however, the regional climate is hyperarid - little to no yearly precipitation - leading to an almost total lack of vegetation.

Labels: basalt, blogs, igneous, middle east, satellite imagery, volcano, websites

From Greenfyres, via Tamino: "Sherlock Holmes and case of the climate bandwagon." Well worth a read, if you like satire and the writings of Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle.

Labels: blogs, books, climate change, global warming, humor

After yesterday's review of Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau, author Wayne Ranney left a comment here that alerted me to his blog, which the geoblogosphere may be interested in:

Labels: blogs, books

Chris Nedin alerted me (via his excellent Ediacaran blog) about this video (which was in turn posted at Larry Moran's The Sandwalk blog). I found it worth watching, though the language change partway through (from the third-person to the second-person) gives it an accusatory feel. In spite of that, this is probably worth viewing for introductory science students to distinguish what they hear labelled as "science" in general society from what a scientist considers "science." It's 10 minutes long, but in many places cleverly illustrated:

Labels: blogs, evolution, pseudoscience, science and society

In Terra Veritas, Clastic Detritus, NOLOGIC, Looking for Detachment, The Ethical Palaeontologist, Geoberg.de, Highly Allochthonous, ReBecca's Blog and Hypo-theses have all recently shown us their world travels. Having just added a new country to my list, I'll throw my map up here too:

visited 18 countries.
Create your own visited map of The World

And here's my US map (all 50!):

visited 50 states.
Create your own visited map of The United States

Labels: blogs, travel

Folks, I'm not sure why, but I've been having a heckuva time posting updates to this blog over the past week. I've tried like 30 times to get the "Backpacking Pololu" post (below) up, but it only went through just now.

Hopefully this problem will resolve itself, but if several days go by without a post, that's likely why.

Labels: blogs

Howdy, howdy. It's the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year. It is also the one-year "blogiversary" of your humble NOVA Geoblog. Our first day on the job, we put up three separate posts of the "short and sweet" variety. Since that time, we've put up posts at an average rate of 1.24 per day (454 posts over 365 days). ("We've" also started referring to "ourselves" in the third-person plural, a disturbing development indeed.)

Some of these posts I feel pretty proud of, in terms of the detail they express, the big ideas they examine, or the language I used to write them. Others have just been meeting announcements, job opportunities, or brief mentions of newsworthy items hosted at other sources. Here's a list of 15 of my favorites:

• Geology along Windy Run, Virginia I
• Geology along Windy Run, Virginia II
• Ultramafics in the Piedmont
• Migmatitic
• Virtual Billy Goat Trail trip
• Another field trip transcript
• Shenandoah NP: Corbin Cabin area
• Western conglomerates, Culpeper Basin
• Massanutten Synclinorium field trip
• Perspectives on coastal tectonics
• Horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay
• My favorite analogies
• Mineral habit and Japanese watermelon
• Rock varieties of Hawai'i
• Atop Mauna Kea

I think there are some trends here: field trip experiences and analogies are my favorites.

It's been a good year. Since I started this blog, I've travelled to Northern Ireland, Buffalo and Niagara Falls in New York, Montana, Kentucky, Wyoming, the Grand Canyon, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Hawai'i, and as of next week I'm off to Ecuador and (knock on wood) the Galapagos. In that year, I've taught hundreds of students in courses ranging from one-credit field studies to four-credit Honors courses. I also took 14 credits of graduate coursework from Montana State, via the computer and in the field in the northern Rockies. At NOVA, I've gotten involved in some good activities, from greening the College to leading caving trips. I've published some articles and some cartoons, and been contracted to do art ranging from squirrel woodcuts to diagrams of coastal processes in the Gulf states. I got promoted; I got some grants; I expanded and maintained my network of geological contacts throughout the mid-Atlantic region and across cyberspace. I volunteered leading geology walks along the Billy Goat Trail and through Washington, DC, and served in various official roles for the Geological Society of Washington.

...All told, it's been a full year.

The blog has been successful. I've been delighted to get so much positive feedback from readers, and glad that the blog could serve as a case study in articles in Geotimes and EARTH. I'm also grateful for the corrections when I screw something up: I appreciate the critique and feedback. The counter I added in mid-spring (I forget exactly when) has tracked almost 50,000 hits. I put Sitemeter on in mid-August, and it's tallied up ~28,000 visits in those four months, with ~42,000 page views. That is kind of a lot, I think.

I'm very pleased to see that I have not been alone in this endeavor. The geoblogosphere has exploded in diversity and population over this same time, and I'm pleased to have been able to document that with the "Rise of the Geoblogosphere" talk at the Geological Society of Washington (and ensuing post) in September. Thanks very much to everyone who participated in the survey.

My hats off to Maria, Ron, and Andrew for paving the way for the rest of us, and to Chuck, Kim, Brian, and Chris for providing such compelling examples to emulate. I've been delighted to explore the world of blogging in a cadre of 'yearlings' that includes luminaries like Dave, Garry, Bryan, ReBecca, Ralph, Jessica, Silver Fox, Dave, Lee, and Julian, among so many others that I wouldn't be able to list them all. (I leave that to Lutz.) I am delighted to see relative newcomers like Ed, Chris, Chuck, Jesse, Michael, David, and (my former/future student) Jay on the scene; I also hope for the new year to bring the resurrection of some old favorites, like Mel, Chris, Jeannette, and Jim. My sincere apologies if I've left your worthy blog off this incomplete list.

Happy solstice, everyone! Here's to another year of discussion and sharing!

Labels: blogs, nova

A quick shout out to Barbara at Kona, Hawai'i-based Guavabee for her recent accolades for NOVA Geoblog!

Labels: blogs, websites

Tuesday was final exam day for me. While the students were bubbling in Scantron forms and writing essays, I did a bit of reading (reviewing a book about oil discoveries in Prudhoe Bay for EARTH) and I did a bit of thinking.

I was thinking about that meme we had going around over the weekend and the earlier part of this week -- the list of "100 things every geologist should try and do in their lifetime." Several folks pointed out the Americocentrism of the list, and it occurred to me to try and make a better list. I pulled out my notebook and started jotting down things I thought were worth seeing, places I thought were worth seeing, or activities I thought were worth experiencing to be a fully well-rounded geologist. Geoblogospherians, please take a look at this list and let me know what to add and what's spurious. Maybe we can submit the results as a newer, more-internationalized master list.

A scan of my jottings appear immediately below, and the formal list below that:

Specific places

1. Visit the Chalk (England, France, Ireland...)
2. Visit Iceland
3. Visit Mt. Fuji, Japan
4. Visit Great Barrier Reef, Australia
5. Visit the Himalayas (Kashmir?)
6. the Tibetan Plateau
7. Visit the Gobi Desert
8. Visit the Sahara Desert
9. Visit the Sonoran Desert (for the saguaros)
10. Visit the Atacama Desert
11. Visit the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter)
12. Visit Beijing or Shanghai (for the perspective on what really dirty air looks like)
13. Visit the big island of Hawai'i
14. Visit Yellowstone
15. Visit the Galapagos Islands
16. Visit Madagascar (for the lemurs)
17. Visit Patagonia
18. Visit the Andes
19. Visit the Alps
20. Visit the Canadian Rockies
21. Visit Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska (and/or neighboring Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory)
22. Visit Denali, Alaska
23. Visit the Aleutian Islands
24. Visit Chimborazo, Ecuador (furthest point from the center of the Earth, due to the equatorial bulge)
25. Visit Antarctica
26. Visit the Siberian Traps
27. Visit the Deccan Traps
28. Visit the Columbia River flood basalt province
29. Visit Sumatra/Krakatau/Java, Indonesia
30. Visit the South Island of New Zealand
31. Visit the Appalachians
32. Visit the Dead Sea
33. Visit the Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
34. Visit the Great Rift Valley of East Africa
35. Visit the Nile River
36. Visit the Mississippi River
37. Visit the Amazon River
38. Visit the Grand Canyon
39. Visit the Owens Valley, California (or anywhere in the Basin & Range, but the Owens Valley is pretty darned special, and geologically diverse)
40. Visit Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada (walk on the "Moho")
41. Visit Siccar Point, Scotland (for the unconformity)
42. Visit Gibraltar, "UK"
43. Visit Vesuvius, Pompei, and the Pompei-to-be, Naples
44. Visit Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia
45. Visit the Moon

Geological features

1. A tectonic triple junction (Mendocino, CA is an example, or northern Burma, or Panama)
2. Tower karst (Guilin, China, or southwestern Thailand are examples)
3. A regional flood
4. A flash flood
5. Ediacaran fauna fossils in situ (possibilities include the type locality of the Ediacaran Hills in Australia, or Charnwood Forest in England, the White Sea region in Russia, or maybe the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland)
6. Vertebrate fossils in situ
7. Visiting a laggerstatten site (Burgess Shale, Chenjiang, Sirius Passet, Solnhofen?)
8. An alpine glacier
9. A continental glacier (ice cap or ice sheet)
10. A kimberlite pipe (preferably with diamonds, and good luck with that)
11. A coral atoll (take your pick)
12. A meteor impact crater (not a buried one, either)
13. A big river delta (Mississippi, Ganges, Nile, or any of the dozens of others)
14. Barrier islands (Padre Island, Texas, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina come to mind, but I'm sure there are others on other continents)
15. A craton (Canadian shield, Kaapvaal, North China, etc. etc. etc.)
16. A big estuary (Cook Inlet, Chesapeake Bay, Bay of Fundy: all North American examples. Give me some others)
17. See some karst.
18. Kayak (or other boat) through a fjord.
19. See a dropstone.
20. See an ophiolite.
21. Visit a major stike-slip fault (San Andreas in USA/Mexico, or North Anatolian in Turkey, or Tan Lo (sp?) in China)
22. Visit a nappe or thrust sheet (Glarus Thrust in the Alps, Chief Mountain/Glacier NP in Montana, Blue Ridge in Virginia/North Carolina)
23. Visit a really big cave (Mammoth, Lechugilla, or some other that I don't know about on another continent)

Activities and experiences

1. A world-class natural history museum (London Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History all come to mind.)
2. Meeting of a classic scientific society (Royal Society, Explorers Club, Cosmos Club...)
3. Do some original research.
4. Present your research at a meeting of other scientists.
5. Publish your research in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
6. Visit an original copy of "map that changed the world" (William Smith's geologic map of England, Wales, and part of Scotland)
7. Experience a big earthquake (greater than 5.0 sounds like as good a cut-off as any)
8. Experience a volcano erupting something other than gases (lava, pyroclastics)
9. Go ice fishing (or just out onto a frozen lake/pond/sea/ocean and ponder the improbable nature of ice and how it freezes from the top down, preserving the living things underneath, like fish. Without this odd property, it would be tough to maintain life in our high-latitude/elevation lakes/etc. through the winter months.)
10. Compare and contrast El Nino and La Nina.
11. Go on an oceanographic research cruise for more than two weeks at sea.
12. Experience a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone (preferably with surviving it as a caveat)

I welcome your additions and comments!

Labels: blogs, geologists, geology, travel

It has been said that the best geologist is the one who's seen the most rocks. A while ago, a list was composed of what geologists should try and see in their lifetimes. Geotripper started a meme on that theme, and has been followed thus far by Saxifraga, SciGuy315, Hypocentre, ReBecca, and Kim.

I hereby join the herd... The idea is to bold the ones you have done (and add comments and details in parentheses).

1. See an erupting volcano (Kilauea, the week before last)
2. See a glacier (I've seen many, but my favorites are in Alaska)
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland (Yellowstone, check. Iceland, check.)
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta. (This past summer, in eastern Montana's Hell Creek Formation)
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage (Summer 1995, Brandywine Recreation Area, West Virginia: after a downpour there, the streams that wind through the campground filled up and overflowed. Shockingly quickly.)
6. Explore a limestone cave. (The caves around Franklin, West Virginia, for instance)
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile. (I've looked into the Berkeley Pit in Butte, but I couldn't really say that I've "toured" it...)
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (sort of -- I've seen ophiolitic blocks in the Virginia and Maryland Piedmont, but never a full, unmetamorphosed ophiolite complex. I hope to change that this summer in Nova Scotia & Newfoundland...)
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger
11. A slot canyon. (The Narrows, in Zion National Park, Utah)
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere. (Konnarock formation rythymites, interpreted as possible varves, in southwest Virginia.)
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada (the Sierra Nevada, atop Half Dome or surrounding Lake Tenaya)
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland. (tragically, I have not... I really want to see the Stillwater)
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (the east coast of North America, the west coast of North America)
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. (They're all over my neighborhood of Adams-Morgan in DC, where their pungent "fruits" are known as "barf beads.")
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (I define stromatolite loosely, as sedimentary structures facilitated by biofilms, and I've seen those many places, most recently in Lake Waiau, Hawai'i) (fossils of them? Galore! Virginia, Montana, elsewhere...)
18. A field of glacial erratics (New England)
19. A caldera (Kilauea, Long Valley, Yellowstone)
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high (Elim Dune, Namibia)
21. A fjord (many, but favorites include Northwestern Fjord in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, and the Lynn Canal, between Haines and Skagway, Alaska)
22. A recently formed fault scarp (1959 Hebgen Lake scarp, Montana)
23. A megabreccia (Max Meadows Tectonic Breccia, near Pepper, Virginia)
24. An actively accreting river delta (Mississippi Delta, kayaking with alligators)
25. A natural bridge (I drove over one this fall without seeing it: Natural Bridge, Virginia)
26. A large sinkhole (Not sure how to define "large," but I've been in and out of multiple sinkholes in the Virginia/West Virginia karstic areas)
27. A glacial outwash plain (downstream of Exit Glacier, near Seward, Alaska)
28. A sea stack (Oregon)
29. A house-sized glacial erratic (How about one the size of a city block? Kenai Fjords, Alaska)
30. An underground lake or river (Sinks of Gandy, West Virginia)
31. The continental divide (A gazillion times out west, also the Appalachian's Atlantic/Gulf divide, and the triple divide in Glacier National Park, Montana)
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals (Smithsonian)
33. Petrified trees (Rock Creek Park and Prince William Forest Park host some decent ones; I've also visited Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, and seen the petrified trees in Yellowstone)
34. Lava tubes (in Utah [?] in college, and a few weeks back: Thurston Lava Tube in Hawai'i.)
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back. (Twice now, I've done the hike from South Rim to river and back in a day. Plus this summer I spent more than a week rafting the river.)
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible (On the W&M regional field geology course in 1995 and again in 1996)
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world. (in 1992, SCUBA diving and snorkeling, with my dad and little brother.)
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m) (I've seen it from New Brunswick, but I think my timing was off. I've been very impressed with tidal variations in Turnagain Arm, Alaska.)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale. (W&M regional field geology)
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe. (Got a nice sample of this in my lab as a result. Visited in 2006 on my three-month road trip.)
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. (Stayed at a coffee plantation, Kifufu, outside of Moshi, on the slopes of Kili with a great view of Mt. Meru; 2002.)
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high (This was our first stop on the Australia trip in 1992. Dad and I summited; my brother and I got chased by an emu while hiking around it.)
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing (For the first time in 2006, and again this past summer.)
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below. (Does the opposite viewpoint count? I've looked up at Telescope Peak from Badwater...)
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art.
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders. (W&M regional field geology)
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck (W&M regional field geology)
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist. (...but I have seen feldspar megacrysts that size in California's Cathedral Peak Granodiorite)
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism. (rode my bicycle from San Francisco to Seattle in the summer of 1997, and stopped in at the volcano then)
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows. (some of my first posts on this blog were images from the Giant's Causeway and surrounding areas)
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa. (2002's 6-week trip to East Africa had me in and out of the rift many times.)
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain (As a kid, we would got down to the Outer Banks every summer)
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington (never even heard of these...)
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton observed the classic unconformity 61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah (most recently this past summer)
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon (W&M regional field geology)
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone (a recent photo was posted here)
68. Monument Valley (this summer, for the third time)
69. The San Andreas fault (I've crossed it many times, especially when I lived in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California)
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (2006)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event (Madison River landslide, Montana, last year and this year, and Gros Ventre, Wyoming, this year)
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park (this year)
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches) (two weeks ago)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado (this summer)
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0. (highest I've gone is 3.5, in Alaska)
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ ("Find"? Does Dinosaur Ridge count?)
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil) (My first trilobites were dug out of the Wheeler Shale, Utah on the W&M regional field geology course, and I found lots of dinosaur bone this summer in the Hell Creek Formation, Montana)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand.
92. Witness a meteor storm (right after the first Harry Potter movie opened in 2001)
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope. (Bradford Woods, Indiana, 1996)
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights. (Homer, Alaska)
95. View a great naked-eye comet (Hale-Bopp, Halley)
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope (at the recent VCCS Science Peer Conference, we looked at the Andromeda Galaxy... is that "distant" enough? Guess it's all relative)
98. Experience a hurricane (two: one in the Philippines, one in DC)
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash

That's a total of 67/100 that I have done; 33 I haven't done. I turned 34 years of age on Thursday of this past week; I guess 2/3 of the list is pretty good for 16 years of travelling and checking out geology. What's your score?

Labels: blogs, geologists, geology, travel

Got this from Saxifraga at Rising to the Occasion...

The idea is to bold the ones you've done. (I'm also going to add commentary in parentheses.)

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band (I'm assuming karaoke of the Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" counts?)
4. Visited Hawaii (See here for some recent posts on that topic.)
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world (Hell no, we won't go!)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo (Aha: here's where that Talking Heads solo fits in!)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch (Woodcut block printing; Boston, 1996)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (seafood poisoning - the worst!)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (Mongolia: the legendary Choibalsan to Ereentsav run)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked (Many times out west)
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill (in high school: biked down to National Airport to watch the planes land and read Hemingway)
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run (this one involves sports, doesn't it? )
32. Been on a cruise (Alaska Marine Highway System, Haines to Bellingham, summer 2006)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person (brought my Geology Honors students there in March of this year!)
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors (but I am planning to go to Newfoundland this coming summer, to visit my maternal ancestors' descendants)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language (if the Peace Corps helped me, that's okay, right?)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke (okay, here's where that bit goes...)
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (friend of a friend work okay?)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (sheesh -- whoever wrote this list liked Paris and Italy, it looks like)
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business (does freelance writing and scientific illustration count?)
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (gosh, I tried, but they told me I wasn't allowed for some reason...)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter (This summer, exiting the Grand Canyon)
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book (kinda sorta -- two copies left if anyone wants 'em)
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car (Le Prius, almost a year old!)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper (accompanying an article about one of my Billy Goat Trail geology hikes)
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox (and I have the scars to prove it)
89. Saved someone's life
90. Sat on a jury (civil suit: taxi cab driver sued teen driver who ran into his cab)
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one (cats and dogs only at this point, and may it long remain)
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Ridden an elephant (but I have ridden a water buffalo)

Labels: blogs, humor, travel

Leafing through the December issue of EARTH magazine today, I noticed an article which I was interviewed for back in September... another look at the phenomenon of geoblogging (p. 59-61).

To my surprise, the NOVA Geoblog example is the lead for the story, which also interviews Lee, Ron, Kim, and Brian. It mentions some of the results from my survey of the geoblogosphere, including Andrew's analogy of the geoblogosphere's growth being kinda like the Cambrian Explosion, a clever notion which unfortunately the story attributes to me. Sorry Andrew: I did tell them that it was you who said it first!

The story isn't online (yet?) so I can't link to it (yet?), so in the meantime maybe you should re-up your subscription to EARTH.

Labels: blogs, news

Got a note yesterday from the website Regator.com, saying that they like NOVA Geoblog.

I've never heard of Regator before. Anybody else in the geoblogosphere getting such a note? There are several of us featured on their website under "geology": Lounge of the Lab Lemming, Hypo-theses, Harmonic Tremors, Andrew's Geology Blog at About.com, Olelog, Looking for Detachment, All My Faults Are Stress-Related, Magma Cum Laude, Oakland Geology, Arizona Geology, and Highly Allochthonous. (my apologies if I missed anyone)

Labels: blogs, geologists, websites

A special request from my fellow GSW member Nora Noffke (Old Dominion University), about a site in South Africa that Chris Rowan blogged about in May of this year:

The scenic Wit Mfolozi River Gorge in South Africa displays unique and spectacularly preserved sedimentary structures caused by microbial mats that colonized a sandy coastal area that are 3 billion years old. A comparison with modern microbial mats in a similar setting today suggests that the mat-constructing microbiota may have been cyanobacteria, possibly the oldest known in Earth history (GSA Today, October 2008).

In collaboration with the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM), the Geological Society of America (GSA) and as part of the Year of the Planet Earth (IYPE), the Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA) is establishing the "Wit Mfolozi River Area" as a Geoheritage Site. This Geoheritage Site will serve visiting scientists, students and the interested public in leaning more about the Archean world and Earth's earliest life.

With the support of funds raised around the world, GSSA will set up the logistical and administrative infrastructure necessary to preserve and make this site available to all. This includes, for example, the construction of secure access to the site, installment of signs explaining the details of biogenic sedimentary structures at different spots in the outcrop and also measures to protect the site from damaging flooding by the river.

For further information about the site contact Roger Price (Geosite Conservation Committee, GSSA - rprice@geoscience.org.za), Nora Nofke (Old Dominion University and GSA Division of Geobiology and Geomicrobiology - nnofke@odu.edu) or Wesley Hill (GSA - hill@geosociety.org).

For donations to the fund for the site please contact Theresa Scott (SEPM - tscott@sepm.org).

Thank you very much,
Nora Noffke

Labels: action, africa, blogs, field trips, gsw

Chris Nedin has a funny and insightful/educational post up at his Ediacaran blog: entitled "CSI Cambrian," he explores the death of a trilobite through murder-mystery dialogue.

You should check it out, before you do anything else.

Labels: blogs, fossils, humor

Just got an e-mail from the author of this new blog about building stones... He's also the fellow who authored the recent coprolite article in Geotimes/EARTH magazine... Check it out: stories-in-stone.blogspot.com

Labels: blogs, geology

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)
johanneslochmann.blogspot.com - 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, same place, but this time I'll be back where I belong: in the audience.

Friday, October 24: "Geology Along the Billy Goat Trail," I'll lead this hike along the infamous 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.

If you're into geology and you'll be around, I hope you'll join us on one or more of these events.

Labels: blogs, climate change, CO2, dc, geology, global warming, gsw, nova, piedmont

It's been a while since the last Accretionary Wedge, and the fact that I volunteered to host dropped off my radar... but I was reminded yesterday that August is my month!

So, I hereby solicit the geoblogosphere's thoughts on how geology serves as a 'connector' science. I'm interested in a bunch of posts connected by the theme of connection.

This could work a couple of ways: one is that you, by studying geology, feel more connected to the Earth, or to the universe, or to deep time, or some such. By being scientific, the practice of geology can lead you to places, or insights, that give you a very non-scientific sense of belonging, as being a manifestation of geological processes and circumstance. Sometimes this can be pretty profound; I've felt it strongly, and my guess is that I'm not the only one.

You could also interpret 'connection' differently: like how geology connects other disparate branches of inquiry together (we're a pretty multidisciplinary lot, after all). Geologists utilize chemistry, physics, biology, meteorology, and astronomy to get a better handle on our chosen planet of study... how do those connections play out? What are some examples?

A third possible read on 'connection' might be a post on the nature of the geoblogosphere. Though early-adopter Andrew started in 2003 (!!) and Ron started in early 2005 (!), a lot of geobloggers started writing in 2007 or this year. It might be apropos to have some meta-reflection on the nature of the connections we're all forging across cyberspace.

You can come up with any other ideas, too. I just offer these three interpretations as possible approaches to the connection theme. Feel free to think outside the box though -- that keeps it interesting.

Because I'm late in getting this going, the turnaround time will be pretty quick. Let's have them all by midnight next Sunday, August 24. That gives writers a week and half. Once they're in, I'll package them up and post them on Monday the 25th (the day before my first day of classes for the fall semester). Okay? Okay.

Thanks -- looking forward to reading what people have to say!

Labels: blogs, geology

Hi everyone! I'm back in DC after a long drive, about which more details in an upcoming post or three. Just wanted to post an update that the blog is back into semi-daily-posting mode, now that I am ensconced back in my DC digs, and able to access a computer on a daily basis. Stay tuned!

Labels: blogs, travel

Check out these amazing images of the ashy flood deposits from Chaiten volcano that have buried Chaiten town. The Volcanism Blog, by the way, is extremely consistent in quality and focus, and I tip my hat to them for doing such a great job. If you haven't already discovered that site, you should spend some time checking out their other posts too.

Labels: blogs, south america, volcano

Where's the geographical center of the United States of America? This article in today's Times visits it, or something like it, in South Dakota.

Is geoblogging a phenomenon yet? It must be, if Geotimes writes a story about it.

And: Elizabeth Kolbert profiles Buckminster Fuller in the New Yorker.

Labels: blogs, maps

I've got a first draft of a book about "Geology Along the C&O Canal" sitting on my computer, and I decided to feed that text into the "Tag Crowd" generator. Why? Because every other geology blogger on the face of the Earth is doing it today, and I don't want to be left out. Also because it's more fun than grading my 47th Billy Goat Trail geology paper...

Labels: blogs, websites

Check out yesterday's excellent post by Geotripper about the recent arrival at Earth of light from a supernova that happened 7.5 billion years ago.

Labels: blogs, planetary geology

A friend alerted me to this cool blog that showcases weird maps. You gotta check it out. As a geological incentive to visit, here's one of the Mississippi River's shifting meanders through time:

If you don't have time to sift through all of them, a "best of" list of 21 maps is compiled here.

Labels: blogs, maps

Yesterday's post was featured in the geoblogospheroidal carnival "The Accretionary Wedge." Check it out to see what the world's geologists are hmmmming about.

Labels: blogs, geology

Labels: blogs, humor, lola, nova

The Lounge of the Lab Lemming has a great post showing that the Patriots in fact won the Super Bowl, if you believe a series of arguments put forward by global warming skeptics. It's terrific satire. There's even an allusion to the Princess Bride in there.

Labels: blogs, global warming, humor

The Accretionary Wedge is a every-once-in-a-while compendium of geology blog posts on a particular theme. This episode is about geological misconceptions, mostly, but also a bit about pie. Yes, pie. Check it out here.

Labels: blogs, geology

I've recently discovered some new geology blogs, and I thought I'd share them:
One of my favorite posts was Good Schist's "Accretionary Wedge #4" which invites other bloggers to participate on a certain theme. The theme for #4 was "deskcrops" -- the rocks that geologists keep on their desks. Anyone who has visited my office knows it's full of rock samples, so I got a big smile on my face checking out the rocks retained by blogging geological colleagues elsewhere in the world. Check them out for yourself here.

Labels: blogs, geology

The term "blog" is ten years old this month. A good time to finally get on board, I reckon!

Labels: blogs

One of the points of the this new blog enterprise is to introduce my students (& interested others) to a couple of the places I go on the web for geology news. So, to keep you busy over the holiday break, here's a few sites I've been checking out lately:

Solar Power Rocks
Highly Allochthonous
Earth Observatory (NASA) Picture of the Day
USGS stream gauge for the Potomac River at Little Falls
Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide measurements (NOAA)

Here's the main image from that last one. Ponder that for meaning.



















Enjoy!

Labels: blogs, geology

In this blog, I'll be posting information related to current events, observations, travels, classes, and other stuff related to geology & teaching geology.

Labels: blogs, geology