For a few months now, prompted by a comment on one of my blog posts from fellow geoblogger Bryan, I've been listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast. It's pretty darned good. Last week, the team interviewed Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for SETI, who made an offhand statement that there was "plenty of bauxite" on the Moon. Considering that the moon's anorthosite has plenty of aluminosilicate minerals, but none of the tropical rains required to produce a secondary concentration of gibbsite, bohemite, and diaspore, a.k.a. bauxite, I wrote in to compliment the show in general but correct this one small tidbit. This week on the show, they acknowledge my correction, though (of course) they mis-pronounce my name. It starts at 25:35 into the podcast. Ah well -- my own little cross to bear. Glad to help advance human understanding of geological processes!

Labels: astronomy, minerals, moon, ore, podcasts and vodcasts, science and society

Wow! Watch this video (2 minutes in length) of a plane flying through the shadow of a solar eclipse last Friday, over the Canadian Arctic. The video came from this website, which offers this description: "Raw video:August 01/08:The total eclipse of the Sun, seen over the Canadian Arctic, August 1, 2008. Photographed from altitude of 27,000 feet from a location 140 km east of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut."

Thanks to Nicole for the link!

Labels: astronomy, moon

Here's a shot from last week of the almost-full moon hanging over DC's National Cathedral. The view is to the west, which I guess means that I must have taken this picture in the morning, since the moon's face is being illuminated by the Sun. The Sun, of course, rises in the east. And if I can't specifically remember, that probably means I hadn't had my coffee yet, so that definitely makes it a morning shot.

Labels: dc, moon