Geology Snubbed by Nobels and Ig Nobels

Later this month the 2008 Nobel Prize winners will be announced, and thanks to Alfred Nobel the honorees will include physicists, medical researchers and chemists but not geoscientists. I've gotten over that, really I have, because there are other prestigious prizes for them. But the wound is fresh when it comes to the annual Ig Nobel prizes, awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research or AIG. This year's winners have just been announced, and they include such worthies as the researchers who determined that slime molds can solve puzzles, but surely geologists have produced absurd and obvious research during the past year. I . . . just can't think of any.

One place that geologists would fit in beautifully is the AIG's Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists; indeed, last week's MacArthur genius, David Montgomery, should be in it. They include beards, too, making large numbers of historic and current geologists eligible.