Yesterday I was working on some reading for my MSU MSSE class, when Lola called me over. It was a reading day for her too, and she had just opened the most recent National Geographic. "Check this out," she meowed. The magazine had put a one-page story about "designer" mice (genetically modified for research) right across from a cat litter ad, and both the cat and the mouse were looking inward (towards the magazine's fold or "gutter"). This made it appear like they were looking at one another. The advertised cat apparently had other things on its mind than hunting mice, but I thought the overall layout was too funny to be a coincidence. Lola, on the other hand, was disgusted, feeling that the whole composition was disgraceful to catkind.

It reminded me of a time last month when Lola was reading the previous issue of National Geographic. This time, she was intensely reading, sounding out the big words, concentrating hard. I looked over her shoulder and saw this:

As part of that issue's focus on animal intelligence, it was a small photo of a baboon teaching a cat to sit upright. The photographed cat didn't want to sit upright, but Lola thought it was a great idea. For the next several days, she sat upright constantly, reading the New Yorker and Wine Spectator, puffing her meerschaum pipe and looking contemplative. But then she lost interest in sitting upright when she read about fossil ammonites. Admiring their graceful sprials, she promptly curled up into a ball. Immediately, she began purring. "It's much more comforable," she told me. "Ammonites must be smarter than baboons."

I pointed out her lack of exoskeleton. "Ammonites have shells, Lola," I said, admittedly a bit condescendingly. An hour later, I found she had taken over my office wastebasket:

Labels: humor, lola

I was somewhat astonished to see this image on the cover of this week's issue of Science:

At first glance, you might think this was the cover of the New Yorker or something -- a bold, clever piece of art, with a distinct (and satisfying) lack of screaming headlines. It draws you in, this art -- you wonder who made it, why they made it, what's art and what's photograph, and most importantly, why is this image on the cover of Science?

It turns out that there is an article in this issue about how societies deal with antisocial behavior. According to some, the work of the artist known as "Banksy" counts as antisocial behavior. Here's the caption Science provides for the cover: "An example of' 'art' by self-styled guerrilla artist Banksy, as seen in East London in November 2007. Human behavior that would be characterized as antisocial punishment can also be called art; prosocial institutions, most notably the campaign Keep Britain Tidy, refer to Banksy's work as vandalism."

I don't know much about psychology, and I'm not going to attempt to review the article, but seeing this particular artist on the cover of Science gives me an excuse to introduce others to his (admittedly controversial) work.

I've been a fan of Banksy's work for a couple of years now -- he does a couple of things worth noting: First, his bread and butter is outdoor "graffiti" of elaborate black and white designs, usually done with stencils, sometimes highlighted with deliberate focused use of color, and often exploring the "police state" aspects of the modern world, as in this example:

Labels: art, humor, science and society

Labels: art, geology, humor

Yesterday I found my cat Lola pondering a fish fossil from the Eocene Green River Formation. Because she's more of an Appalchian cat, I explained to her that this fish was preserved in flat-lying lacustrine deposits in southwestern Wyoming. The formation is notable for bearing impressions/carbon-films of many species, essentially an entire fossil lake ecosystem. She seemed interested, so I referred her to a travel article I wrote on the topic once for Geotimes. She padded off to read it.

Later, Lola conveyed to me that during a cat nap, she dreamt of her own fossilization in the Green River Formation style:

I replied, as I'm sure you would, that I'm not into the idea of pet cryo-preservation or taxidermy, and that I hoped she'd remain unfossilized for the foreseable future. That made her purr. I also reminded her that most cats don't like water, and hence are unlikely to fossilize in their usual habitat.

Ahh, Photoshop: even better than Facebook for wasting away the hours...

Labels: art, fossils, humor, lola

Labels: art, dc, ethanol, global warming, humor, politics

Labels: canada, fossils, humor, tv

So here it is: the answer to the riddle of the cake. This image shows the t-shirt cake labelled with a few key geologic units to help make my explanation a bit more coherent.


The main problem here is that central package of strata that are tilted at an angle: the sandstone, limestone, and marl (plus the little brown layer in there that was too thin to label). If they're tilted at an angle, why aren't the layers underneath? The principles of superposition, lateral continuity, and original horizontality suggest that if these layers are tilted up at a crazy angle, then so should the underlying layers (i.e., basalt, siltstone, and shale #1). Instead, this drawing depicts what amounts to an upside-down angular unconformity bounding the tilted layers below, in addition to the regular, perfectly-acceptable angular unconformity bounding the tilted layers above. This is what I referred to earlier as a geologic "impossibility."

But Ron Schott, wily geologist that he is, pointed out another possibility: that this isn't necessarily an impossible situation, just an improbable one. As I suspect is usual, Ron is right. One way that you could get the t-shirt cake situation is with that "lower upside-down unconformity" surface being a low-angle thrust fault, like the Lewis Thrust beneath Glacier National Park in Montana. That way, a package of rocks including tilted layers gets slid laterally (sideways) along such a fault, bringing them to rest on top of some other flat-lying sedimentary layers. The upper unconformity could form either before or after faulting in this scenario.

Another improbable situation: the marl, limestone, and sandstone are the oldest layers, and they were tilted at angle, eroded, and younger layers were deposited on top: shale #1, siltstone, basalt. Then everything got folded in a really big overturned fold (like a nappe), putting them upside-down in this location. Then erosion attacked that, from the top down, and etched away the older rocks, leaving the younger sedimentary strata upside-down. Then deposition resumed with the shale #2, producing the upper angular unconformity. In this scenario, both angular unconformities are real, but superposition is pretty much thrown out the window.

OK -- new contest: can you come up with any other geologically coherent possibilities to produce a central series of tilted strata bounded above and below by horizontal strata in the manner shown? Same prize.

Many thanks to students Will and Hannah, who asked me questions about this one all day today.

Labels: geology, humor

Contest du jour: Tell me why this t-shirt design (recently re-issued at Threadless.com) is wrong. There's a major error in that sketch somewhere that makes it a geological impossibility.



Hint: it has nothing to do with the fork and plate. That's just a joke, not a misconception. First one to answer correctly wins a GEOLOGY ROCKS bumper sticker!

Labels: geology, humor

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

When she sees a geologic map of the eastern U.S., my cat Lola attempts to impress me by lining herself up with the trend of Appalachian structure. While noble in intent, she's not especially accurate. In the photo below, you can tell that she's off by about 20 degrees. Based on this, I conclude that cats have no natural instinct for structural geology. She can't use a Brunton compass, either.

Labels: geology, humor, lola, maryland

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Labels: earthquakes, humor, tv

From the Onion.

Labels: humor

This is what the eastern U.S. looked like as of yesterday. No snow in the DC area, but it sure is cold out there. Reminds me of my favorite Robert Mankoff cartoon (below).The satellite image is courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory.

Labels: cold, global warming, humor, satellite imagery

From The Onion: Bush Acknowledges Existence of Carbon Dioxide

Labels: global warming, humor