Fieldwork stories from Alaska
Sunday July 31, 2005
As long as I'm writing about the pursuit of geology in the field, let me present a photo-tour of my week in the Alaskan woods, with some typical happenings including ... Read More
Geology, the fitness science
Friday July 29, 2005
Science is a labor of the mind and will, but some of its specialties call upon the muscles as well. Perhaps the foremost of those is geology. I believe geologists ... Read More
Paleo lake shore
Thursday July 28, 2005
The Basin and Range is full of evidence of wetter times. Many valleys that are dusty flats today have rings around them where ancient shorelines once lay. I've put an ... Read More
Bruce Bolt, 1930-2005
Wednesday July 27, 2005
Bruce A. Bolt, a giant figure at the intersection of seismology and earthquake engineering, died last week from pancreatic cancer. The San Francisco Chronicle's David Perlman wrote a notice in ... Read More
5.6 quake in western Montana
Tuesday July 26, 2005
A moderate earthquake of magnitude 5.6 struck westernmost Montana late last night local time, causing light damage and widespread shaking. It appears to have been an event caused by normal ... Read More
Spacey sounds from Saturn
Monday July 25, 2005
The Cassini spacecraft, besides exploring the rings and moons of Saturn, has been listening to the planet's low-frequency radio emissions. Now you can hear these for yourself, the top item ... Read More
Braided stream
Monday July 25, 2005
New in the Landforms Picture Gallery is a photo portraying anastomosis.
Global warming in a nutshell
Sunday July 24, 2005
Global warming is a geologic fact, but for a long time its connection to human activities was open to honest dispute. That time has passed, and it's time that I ... Read More
6.1 quake near Tokyo
Saturday July 23, 2005
A strong earthquake struck 72 kilometers deep beneath the Tokyo region Saturday afternoon local time. In Japan, an event this size is almost routine. A scattering of injuries and minor ... Read More
James Hutton, medicine's gift to geology
Friday July 22, 2005
Stanley Aronson of Brown University's medical faculty has penned a nice article about James Hutton, the father of geology. The hook is that Hutton, like many early scientists, was a ... Read More
"Extreme Earth science" photo contest
Thursday July 21, 2005
This year's Earth Science Week (October 9-15) will include some contests: an art contest for grades K-5, an essay contest for grades 5-8, and for the general public, a photography ... Read More
Norite and other lunar -ites
Wednesday July 20, 2005
The first Moon landing was on this date in 1969. That was before I went to geology school. But even after I'd earned a geology degree I hadn't learned about ... Read More
Historic geologic map of N.H.
Tuesday July 19, 2005
Though I'm a Californian, I'm always happy to see items about New Hampshire, where I went to college. The University of New Hampshire library has put online the first statewide ... Read More
Seven new geologic World Heritage Sites
Sunday July 17, 2005
UNESCO has approved seven more wonders of the geologic world to enter the World Heritage Site system. With this cohort, six nations are represented for the first time: Egypt (Wadi ... Read More
The day that changed everything
Saturday July 16, 2005
It was 60 years ago today that the Manhattan Project detonated the first atomic bomb, deep in the New Mexico desert. One result of that event was the formation of ... Read More
The image that changed everything
Friday July 15, 2005
On 14 July 1965, the Mariner 4 spacecraft began snapping and transmitting closeup pictures from Mars as it zoomed near the planet. Shortly after midnight on the 15th--forty years ago ... Read More
A new case for Atlantis
Thursday July 14, 2005
Research just presented in Greece at the Atlantis 2005 conference and published in the August Geology points to a sunken island off the Strait of Gibraltar as the site of ... Read More
Geo-cams
Tuesday July 12, 2005
The big list of geo-cams is updated: broken links are fixed and some new cams are added from around the world. Somewhere the sun is shining, and you can always ... Read More
Evolution in a nutshell
Monday July 11, 2005
It's time to remind ourselves why evolution needs to be taught in schools. First, biologists have found that life on Earth today acts exactly as if evolution were true. Second, ... Read More
Wild and bemusing Earth theories
Saturday July 9, 2005
Scientists are creative people, bursting with theories, but a very small number of them are seized as if by viruses with all-encompassing theories that they just can't shake. Here's a ... Read More
Eclogite
Friday July 8, 2005
And here's the rock that the pyrope came from: eclogite. I am thrilled to have this in hand. What the photo doesn't show is the intense finely glittering surface it ... Read More
Pyrope
Wednesday July 6, 2005
I went on a collecting trip today, and for the first fruit see the new pyrope page in the Mineral Gallery. It occurs in a rare rock type: eclogite.
Microbes photosynthesize earthlight
Tuesday July 5, 2005
The 20 June issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (affectionately known as PNAS) reports a remarkable discovery: a species of deep-sea photosynthetic bacteria has been found ... Read More
Benitoite mine for sale
Monday July 4, 2005
As of July 1, the famous Benitoite Gem mine is for sale, according to the what's new page there. The rare blue state gemstone of California is an addiction to ... Read More
Gaylord Nelson dies at 89
Sunday July 3, 2005
As a U.S. Senator, Gaylord Nelson helped enact the 1964 Wilderness Act and the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, but he's better known for being the spark behind the ... Read More
Ethiopian Sea opening
Saturday July 2, 2005
The intriguing Afar region, on the Ethiopian seacoast across from Yemen, is getting a new portrait made with a seismic array (like the USArray experiment). This from a backgrounder ... Read More
Fulgurite
Friday July 1, 2005
What happens when lightning strikes the ground? You would think all that energy would do something, and you'd be right. When lightning strikes sand or loose sediment, it vaporizes a ... Read More