I reckon I'm due for a rant. Here's a list of words that bug me:

Dolomite in place of dolostone: dolomite is a mineral. A huge pervasive second use of the word, however, is to mean a rock made mainly of the mineral dolomite, for which the proper name is dolostone. This is so, so, so common it's hardly noticed. And it's so incorrect. Rocks and minerals are not the same thing.

Orogen in place of mountain belt: the word orogen is technically correct, and quite accurate, but in spoken speech, it sounds too much like "origin," and its use can sow confusion. The only real difference I am able to hear when people say "orogen" is that they tend to pronounce all three syllables, while "origin" is generally pronounced with just two: ore-gin. But maybe that's just the Virginians I hang around with. Mountain belt has the same meaning, but I guess it has problems of its own, since mountain belts may not be topographically mountainous any more. Hmmm. ...Toughie.

Extra-syllable words: Should we say benthonic when benthic means the same thing but with one fewer syllable? What about people orientating themselves instead of orienting themselves? What advantage do these extra syllables provide? Are they vestigial structures in our language?

An educational peeve is that students regularly refer to teachers giving grades. I don't know about the other professors, teachers, and instructors out there, but this one really rankles me. My students earn their grades. What I do is keep track of what they have earned, and eventually assign the proper grade to them. I am merely a secretary, an accountant. I tally it up, but the points they accrue (or don't) depends on them. No gifts required!

A huge bummer is the continued use of theory in non-scientific circles to mean hypothesis. In general use, "theory" has a tenuous, shaky implication, while in science it means "as solid and dependable as an explanation gets." David Quammen explored this well in his discussion of evolution in National Geographic a couple years ago. For the record: a hypothesis is a possible explanation of a phenomenon, calling to be tested. A theory is a well-corroborated hypothesis (i.e. it has passed a great many tests) that coherently unites a number of disparate phenomena under one central explanatory umbrella. Big difference there; huge. Makes communication about important concepts difficult.

Lastly, my all-time least favorite word: Believe.

Everywhere I look, I see statements like "Scientists believe that the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago," and it drives me up the wall. Scientists infer that the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, based on their reliance on data and logic. We have physical evidence (lead isotope ratios from three different radiogenic systems, measured in Earth rocks and in meteorites) that all suggest the solar system's solid-state clock started counting 4.5 billion years ago. Because we've never observed anything other than the steady, statistical decline of radioactive parent isotopes to produce daughter isotopes, we assume that the past worked in the same way as today (actualism/"uniformitarianism") and that these empirical measurements have meaning. We logically deduce that the Earth is the implied age, but we don't "believe" it.

Similarly, I get apoplectic when students ask me "Do you believe in global warming?" No, I don't believe it; I'm convinced of it on the basis of (a) physical evidence (data) and (b) logical inference from that data. To spell it out:

1. CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.
2. Infrared radiation is reflected upwards from the surface of the Earth.
3. CO2 is produced by the burning of coal, oil, natural gas, wood, ethanol, and biodiesel.
4. We burn a lot of these carbon-rich fuels by oxidizing them.
5. CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are measurably increasing.
6. Oxygen concentrations in the atmosphere are measurably decreasing.
7. Globally, average temperatures are observed to be increasing.
8. Therefore, based on #1-7, the increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is causing the increase in temperature.

There's nothing there to believe in. It just is. Fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, and a logical inference that stems from those facts.

Ditto for the theory of evolution by natural selection. It's not something I believe in; it's something I'm convinced of because it's logically coherent and supported by reams of data gathered over 150 years of hypothesis-testing.

If there is one thing that scientists believe in, it's that the universe makes sense. Our starting assumption is that the physical world operates according to unchanging laws which may be deduced if we're clever enough. On the other hand, if the universe is mercurial in its physical laws, then science doesn't have a chance of figuring things out because the laws that apply on Tuesday will be different from the laws that apply on Wednesday. It should go without saying that, as far as we can tell, this is not the case. The universe does behave in a consistent and predictable manner, insofar as we can tell. Ergo, science is an appropriate way to go about elucidating its structure and properties. No belief necessary.

Which words bug you? Chime in.

Labels: geologists, science and society, teaching

This one's a good one to assign to Historical Geology students who don't have time to read The Map That Changed The World. It's part of the series "On the Shoulders of Giants" by NASA's Earth Observatory: William Smith.

I love the way these pages are laid out: a single column of text with illustrations of different sizes and dimensions interspersed with the content. It's like a Dorling Kindersley book. NASA must have some good web designers on the payroll.

Labels: books, fossils, geologists, history, stratigraphy

Labels: dinosaurs, fossils, geologists

A few more photos from the Buffalo trip last week... All of these were taken by Victoria, my Honors student.

Here's some malachite in the sandstone of the Whirlpool Formation: the field trip leader suggested this was due to brine flow through these rocks during the Alleghanian ("Alleghenian") Orogeny:

Herringbone structure ("reverse cross bedding") in the Gasport Formation, overlying the DeCew Formation, which appears flat-lying and calm in this photo, but just below this shows disrupted bedding suggestive of seismic activity:

I showcase a sample too big to lug back to the van (ripple marks):

Watch where you stand! In the Niagara Gorge, we see some evidence that the Gorge is widening through mass wasting processes. Here's a small gap / scarp opening up as a block of rock to the right slumps down into the Gorge:

Lastly, on the trip home, we had an obligatory getting-stuck-in-the-mud moment:

Eventually, we got unstuck and headed back down the road!

Labels: geologists, mass wasting, meetings, nova, primary structures, sediment, teaching, travel

Three days ago, NPR aired a segment about how geology students can make lots of money.

Here's the description: All Things Considered, March 21, 2008. With the price of oil, gold and other metals at near record levels, these are heady times at the Colorado School of Mines. Employers are falling all over themselves to hire new graduates. Who'd have thought that being a geologist would make you so popular - and bring you $80,000 a year to start?

Labels: geologists, oil

DC Metro area residents, you're hereby invited to join me (NOVA) or Phil Justus (NRC) or Michelle Arsenault (NSF) on a geology hike along the Billy Goat Trail, a popular and rugged hiking trail upstream from DC on the Potomac River, downstream from Great Falls. Michelle and Phil and I take turns leading this excellent hike. You'll learn about the Iapetus Ocean, Appalachian mountain-building, and the incision history of the Potomac River. You'll see potholes, amphibolites, metagraywacke, migmatite, and the mysteriously-straight Mather Gorge. The Park Service has just posted the spring schedule online here. Reserve your space today!

Labels: appalachians, dc, geologists, piedmont

Tuff Cookie is posting danger signs that geologists ignore, so I'll pitch in one of my own from last summer in Montana. This is in Glacier National Park, on the trail up to Grinnell Glacier. The trail was closed due to snowfields which crossed the trail in some spots. It was a little dicey crossing them, but there was no non-litigious reason to close the trail:

Labels: geologists, geology, montana