Book month continues...

Over the Snowpocalypse, I read Bob Hazen's book Genesis: the Scientific Quest for Life's Origin. Hazen is a celebrated and charismatic scientist whose primary gig is at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, though he is also the Clarence Robinson professor of geology at George Mason University. (He's also the guy who got some time in the spotlight the year before last with his ideas about mineral evolution and one of the team manning the Carnegie's new initiative the Deep Carbon Observatory.)

The book is an insider's account of what insights science has gained into how life began on our planet. Spanning several decades and labs on three continents, the story is ultimately one of chemistry, and of people. The chemistry is the knowledge part of it: how did life's fundamentals (metabolism and genetics) come to be? We know a lot about how to put together polymers from smaller (and presumably abundant) monomers, and we know a lot about the rawest forms of both metabolism and the passing on of genetic information. But there is a gap, progressively narrowing through dogged science, which we don't understand. The book is very much about famililarlizing the lay-reader with the details, and limits, of our understanding.

It is also very much a book about scientists, the people who get science done. This is probably the more interesting part, at least to me. Some of the stories Hazen tells are insightful and endearing, as you get to observe major breakthroughs through the biographies of those who made them happen. There are also bizarre twists, like a debate between Bill Shopf and Martin Brazier in 20002 about the ALH 84001 meteorite, the one purported to hold fossilized Martian microbes. I'll leave the details for the reader to discover, but it sounds like a very uncomfortable scene. Also on the 'people' angle, I found it interesting to hear when Hazen was pursuing an interesting new angle, and was asked politely to stop by a colleague because the colleague had promised someone else the chance to test that particular hypothesis. Navigating the politics of research is something I don't have a lot of experience in, and so I found this intriguing. Similarly, the story of Nick Platts and the PAH World hypothesis was a neat case study in how science can work -- albeit more dramatic and "Eureka!"-ish than the usual lab monotony. Finally, I really enjoyed the flavor provided by Hazen's anecdotes about life around the Carnegie: beers, volleyball, crowded lab space, small stories about the people who I see at GSW.

Hazen's own contributions to the field are mainly centered on the high-pressure, high-temperature lab experiements he does in the "bomb" at the Carnegie, and his expertise on minerals as a geologist. He does element mapping of fossils, and experiments to see if mineral surface chirality can 'select' for 'left-handed' or 'right-handed' amino acids. This is definitely not the centerpiece of the book though: to his credit, Hazen shows himself to be but one scientist in an active, vibrant field. His contributions are presented with equal weight as compared to his peers' and colleagues' contributions. I think it's well balanced that way. He also pulls no punches when it comes to odd, demeaning, or outright political behavior on the part of his peers, and I can imagine that some of them would have issues with the book on that count. It seems to me that he tells it like it is. Reviews on Amazon are mixed, but mostly positive, with the main criticism apparently that this is a personal account of how the science is getting done, and not a textbook. To which I would say: if you expect a personal account, then you won't be disappointed.

Overall, I would give it 4 out of 5 possible stars.

Labels: books, CO2, dc, evolution, geologists, minerals, origins of life

Labels: analogies, books, geologists, geology

This is the final post about my trip to Patagonia. Our final stop was in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. There wasn't much of geological interest that I saw there, but you might like to check out these images of the Recoleta Cemetery, a famous cemetery there. It's full of charming masoleums which are unique in design, and in various states of repair. (Eva Peron is buried here, which is what draws in most visitors.) Here's a view down one of the labyrinthine alleyways:


This masoleum looks like a miniature cathedral:


Several had art noveau details:




This one had an awesome stained glass onion dome bulging out the top:


Two-faced angel statue:


This caught my eye:


The grave belongs to an Argentinian surgeon, Francisco Muniz, who was also into paleontology:


Muniz apparently discovered the first glyptodont (though was not the first to publish it), and corresponded with Charles Darwin. There's a neat little review of his life here, at a website documenting the people interred at Recoleta Cemetery (a great resource if you ever visit it yourself).

Rising from a prominent intersection of pathways in the cemetary was this prominent Araucaria, which I think is a monkeypuzzle tree:


Monkeypuzzles are native to Patagonia, though other members of the genus may be found in New Caledonia, New Guinea, Norfolk Island, and Australia. I love monkeypuzzles: mainly for their awesome name, but also because they look like my idea of what prehistoric plants should look like. Here's one in El Calafate that someone decorated for Christmas:


Closer in, to see some details of its scaly leaves:


Perhaps this is a good image to close out the Patagonia series with, considering it blends the exotic monkeypuzzle with lovely old traditional holiday spirit (at least in my culture). What do I take from this?...

...Amid the prickly hazards of travel, you can find some exceptional gifts.

Labels: argentina, art, fossils, geologists, in-memoriam, patagonia, plants, south america, travel

Happy new years! The grammar police return! A while back (May!), I commented on a few words that had gotten my attention through their misuse. Since then, a few more peaked piqued my interest, and now I return with the third installment of "Words' worth."

Peak / Peek / Pique - "Peak" means summit or maximum value; "Peek" means look at quickly or furtively; "Pique" means provoke or stimulate. You can "take a peek," but you cannot "take a peak" (unless you're involved in Appalachian coal mining). You can have something "pique your interest," but you cannot "peak your interest" in anything.

(Similiarly): Eke / Eek - People can "eke out a living" but they should reserve "eek" for unexpected encounters with mice.

Cite vs. site - a "site" is a place, either in the real world or on the web. You use "cite" when you're attributing work to someone else (or issuing a ticket, if you're a traffic cop).

Extinction vs. extirpation: extinction of a species or variety means there are none left, anywhere. However, the local version of the phenomenon is properly known as extirpation. Thus, if say you killed every single wallaby in Australia, but the wallabies on New Guinea were still numerous, you would have extirpated them from Australia, but you would not have made them extinct. Even professionals use "extinction" where they ought to be saying "extirpation."

Similarly, a lot of people use the word decimate "incorrectly." To decimate a population (say, of Roman soldiers) was to kill one out of every ten. 10% die, in other words, and 90% are left alive. That may be the official definition, but the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of people use the term decimate in exactly the opposite sense: that 90% die, and only 10% survive (or thereabouts). At what point do we switch the definition of a word: when 90% understand the meaning to be one thing, and only 10% stick with the old definition?

Shear vs. Sheer - There are many definitions to both "shear" and "sheer," but the one I see fuddled up most frequently is when people use "shear" to describe cliffs, or use "sheer" to describe geological stresses.

Oh dear: did you hear about the omission of "emission" on a Kansas state test (wherein some test-writer swapped the word omission for emission). Don't worry: the kids caught the error!

Literally - "Literally" means "actual," not an exaggeration, analogy, simile, or hyperbole, but actual truth. Amazing how many people use this incorrectly. Sometimes it seems like literally the entire world!

Metamorphosize - The first time I put up a post like this (see link above), I harped on the word "orientate." I pointed out that the word "orient" (verb) means the same thing, without an extra, unneccesary syllable. In spite of my harangue, orientate remains in the dictionary. Even worse, I find a lot of people want to throw an extra syllable in at the end of "metamorphose" even though "metamorphosize" is not an actual word.

Standing on line versus standing in line. This one seems to be cultural. Some people claim that when you queue up for, say, a movie, you're standing "on line." This grates on my ears, and I would instead say that you're standing "in line." (I reserve "online" for internet presence.) But I don't know that I am justified in feeling this way -- I think it's more likely that I just grew up in an "in" household, versus an "on" household.

As before, I'd like to know which words bug you. Chime in.

Labels: geologists, science and society, teaching, words

Tom Simkin Memorial

18:00-20:00, Thursday 17 December at Moscone Center South, Room Esplanade 302
(Not at the Marriott Marquis as listed in the AGU program)

A reception held for friends and colleagues to celebrate the life and contributions of Tom Simkin (1933-2009). Tom Simkin's distinguished career in volcanology at the Smithsonian spanned more than four decades. He was a pioneer in the investigation of volcanism on a global scale, and was the founder and director of the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program (GVP) until 1995. The twin pillars of the GVP lay in both documenting current volcanic activity and unrest and in developing a database of volcanoes and their eruptions during the past 10,000 years. He also led efforts resulting in three editions of the popular map of the Earth, This Dynamic Planet, in collaboration with colleagues from the USGS and the Naval Research Lab. The latest edition(2006) can also be found online.

Contact Paul Kimberly for questions regarding the reception (kimberlyp@si.edu). Tom's wife, Sharon, will attend the reception and be in San Francisco the week of AGU.

Labels: agu, california, geologists, meetings, smithsonian, volcano

On Saturday's Bedrock Geology of Washington, DC class, my students and I had the good fortune to stumble upon two geologists out doing field work: Tony Fleming, lead author of the geologic map of the Washington West quadrangle, and Steve Self, senior volcanologist with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They were out looking at the Sykesville Formation at Chain Bridge Flats, assessing a potential reinterpretation of the unit.

Fortunately, they were willing to take a little time and discuss their findings with the students. Here's a couple shots of Steve talking to the group:




I joined Steve and Tony in the field yesterday (Monday) too, looking at some outcrops on the other side of the river, and trying to make sense of them. Fun stuff! More on that at a later date...

Labels: dc, field trips, geologists, geology, igneous, metamorphism, nova, piedmont, sediment, volcano

There's a brief blurb (with a few photos) on the first few pages of this week's Intercom about the NAGT meeting last month on the Loudoun campus, and Ken Rasmussen's award.

Labels: geologists, meetings, nova

...Doggone it. There are other rock stars out there.

Labels: geologists, science and society, websites

The Commonwealth of Virginia is searching for a new state geologist.

Hat tip to Lee Allison for this notice!

Labels: geologists, geology, virginia

Paul Hoffman is speaking next Wednesday (April 22) at the Geological Society of Washington; I've just recieved word that his topic has changed from Snowball Earth to "The Pleistocene glacial controversy and the discovery of climate warming and crustal dynamics." I'm curious to see what Hoffman has to say about the 160-year old controversy as to whether there had been recent "Ice Ages," and how that relates to his currently-controversial ideas about the Snowball. Whatever he says, it's likely to be thought provoking.

Labels: geologists, glaciation, gsw, ice, pleistocene, science and society, snowball earth

GeoTripper asks about where should be the top places geologists should visit? Or more specifically: What are the places and events that you think should all geologists should see and experience before they die? What are the places you know and love that best exemplify geological principles and processes?

He's asked this question before, and it set off a satisfying kerfuffle in the geoblogosphere. "Satisfying" because lots of geobloggers chimed and shared their experiences (like me). "Kerfuffle" because it's fun to say... Um, also because the original "Geologist's Life List"was pretty America-focused. A few days later, I posted a series of suggestions for revisions to the list, and now I repost them in honor of the upcoming Accretionary Wedge, with some addenda and modifications:

Specific places

1. Do an Appalachian transect through the following physiographic provinces: Piedmont, Blue Ridge, Valley & Ridge, and Appalachian Plateau
2. Visit the Chalk (England, France, Ireland...)
3. Visit Iceland's Thingvellir Valley to see the mid-Atlantic divergent plate boundary
4. Visit Mt. Fuji, Japan
5. Visit Great Barrier Reef, Australia
6. Visit Ayers Rock (Uluru) Australia
7. Visit the Himalayas (Kashmir?)
8. Visit the Tibetan Plateau
9. Visit the Gobi Desert
10. Visit the Sahara Desert
11. Visit the Sonoran Desert (for the saguaros)
12. Visit the Atacama Desert
13. Visit the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter)
14. Visit Beijing or Shanghai (for the perspective on what really dirty air looks like)
15. Visit the big island of Hawai'i
16. Visit Yellowstone
17. Visit the Galapagos Islands
18. Visit Madagascar (for the lemurs)
19. Visit Patagonia
20. Visit the Andes
21. Visit the Alps
22. Visit the Canadian Rockies
23. Visit Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska (and/or neighboring Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory)
24. Visit Denali, Alaska
25. Visit the Aleutian Islands
26. Visit Mount Everest, the highest point above sea level.
27. Visit Chimborazo, Ecuador (furthest point from the center of the Earth, due to the equatorial bulge)
28. Visit Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain above its base.
29. Visit Antarctica
30. Visit the Siberian Traps
31. Visit the Deccan Traps
32. Visit the Columbia River flood basalt province
33. Visit Sumatra/Krakatau/Java, Indonesia
34. Visit the South Island of New Zealand
35. Visit the Dead Sea
36. Visit the Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
37. Visit the Great Rift Valley of East Africa
38. Visit the Nile River
39. Visit the Mississippi River
40. Visit the Amazon River
41. Visit the Grand Canyon
42. Visit the Owens Valley, California (or anywhere in the Basin & Range, but the Owens Valley is pretty darned special, and geologically diverse)
43. Visit Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada (walk on the "Moho")
44. Visit Siccar Point, Scotland (for the unconformity)
45. Visit Gibraltar, "UK"
46. Visit Vesuvius, Pompei, and the Pompei-to-be, Naples
47. Visit Victoria Falls
48. Visit Racetrack Playa's sailing stones, Death Valley
49. Visit Devils Tower, Wyoming
50. Visit the Moon

Geological features

1. A tectonic triple junction (Mendocino, CA is an example, or northern Burma, or Panama)
2. Tower karst (Guilin, China, or southwestern Thailand are examples)
3. Experience a regional flood
4. Experience a flash flood
5. Experience an earthquake
6. Ediacaran fauna fossils in situ (possibilities include the type locality of the Ediacaran Hills in Australia, or Charnwood Forest in England, the White Sea region in Russia, or maybe the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland)
7. Vertebrate fossils in situ
8. Visiting a laggerstatten site (e.g., Burgess Shale, Chenjiang, Sirius Passet, Solnhofen)
9. An alpine glacier
10. A continental glacier (ice cap or ice sheet)
11. A kimberlite pipe (preferably with diamonds, and good luck with that)
12. A coral atoll (take your pick)
13. A meteor impact crater (not a buried one, either)
14. A big river delta (Mississippi, Ganges, Nile, or any of the dozens of others)
15. Barrier islands (Padre Island, Texas, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina come to mind, but I'm sure there are others on other continents)
16. A craton (Canadian shield, Kaapvaal, North China, etc. etc. etc.)
17. A big estuary (Cook Inlet, Chesapeake Bay, Bay of Fundy: all North American examples. Give me some others)
18. See some karst.
19. Kayak (or other boat) through a fjord.
20. See a dropstone.
21. See an ophiolite.
22. Visit a major stike-slip fault (San Andreas in USA/Mexico, or North Anatolian in Turkey, or Tan Lo (sp?) in China)
23. Visit a nappe or thrust sheet (Glarus Thrust in the Alps, Chief Mountain/Glacier NP in Montana, Blue Ridge in Virginia/North Carolina)
24. Visit a really big cave (Mammoth, Lechugilla, or some other that I don't know about on another continent)
25. (#25-29 on this list is derived from Christie at the Cape's post on this topic...) See a famous "big wave" e.g. Maverics or Dungeons, breaking.
26. Watch a glacier calving into the sea.
27. Listen to singing beaches or dunes.
28. Walk across and observe a metamorphic aureole (like the classic Barrovian sequence in Scotland.
29. See a tidal bore.

Activities and experiences

1. A world-class natural history museum (London Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History all come to mind.)
2. Meeting of a classic scientific society (Royal Society, Explorers Club, Cosmos Club...)
3. Do some original research.
4. Present your research at a meeting of other scientists.
5. Publish your research in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
6. Visit an original copy of "map that changed the world" (William Smith's geologic map of England, Wales, and part of Scotland)
7. Experience a big earthquake (greater than 5.0 sounds like as good a cut-off as any)
8. Experience a volcano erupting something other than gases (lava, pyroclastics)
9. Go ice fishing (or just out onto a frozen lake/pond/sea/ocean and ponder the improbable nature of ice and how it freezes from the top down, preserving the living things underneath, like fish. Without this odd property, it would be tough to maintain freshwater lake life at high-latitudes/elevations through the winter months.)
10. Compare and contrast El Nino and La Nina by personally living through both in the same spot. (e.g., Peru, southwest U.S., Papua New Guinea, Australia)
11. Go on an oceanographic research cruise for more than two weeks at sea.
12. Experience a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone (preferably surviving it)

I welcome your additions and comments! Or just tune in for the Wedge when GeoTripper posts it.

Labels: blogs, field trips, geologists, geology, travel

Sierra magazine has a cool feature this month: photos of people and their appliances, showing how much coal it takes to run those appliances for one month. A very clever visual technique, illustrated by the talented photographer Lauren Burke. Click through to read the accompanying article about mountaintop removal, and how most of us support it daily at home by doing things like blogging. Hat tip to Mike Tidwell, who showed us some of these pictures yesterday during his talk at NOVA.

Also, the New Yorker this month has its ~annual piece from John McPhee. This one is about the author's experience with fact-checking. It's an interesting read if you're a fan of McPhee like I am. Eldridge Moores is mentioned -- although if you watched the video I posted a while back, you've already heard that Aegean /Adriatic plate mix-up story.

Labels: art, coal, geologists, geology, news

John McPhee and Eldridge Moores give a talk at UC Davis...

Labels: books, geologists, plate tectonics

Tuesday was final exam day for me. While the students were bubbling in Scantron forms and writing essays, I did a bit of reading (reviewing a book about oil discoveries in Prudhoe Bay for EARTH) and I did a bit of thinking.

I was thinking about that meme we had going around over the weekend and the earlier part of this week -- the list of "100 things every geologist should try and do in their lifetime." Several folks pointed out the Americocentrism of the list, and it occurred to me to try and make a better list. I pulled out my notebook and started jotting down things I thought were worth seeing, places I thought were worth seeing, or activities I thought were worth experiencing to be a fully well-rounded geologist. Geoblogospherians, please take a look at this list and let me know what to add and what's spurious. Maybe we can submit the results as a newer, more-internationalized master list.

A scan of my jottings appear immediately below, and the formal list below that:

Specific places

1. Visit the Chalk (England, France, Ireland...)
2. Visit Iceland
3. Visit Mt. Fuji, Japan
4. Visit Great Barrier Reef, Australia
5. Visit the Himalayas (Kashmir?)
6. the Tibetan Plateau
7. Visit the Gobi Desert
8. Visit the Sahara Desert
9. Visit the Sonoran Desert (for the saguaros)
10. Visit the Atacama Desert
11. Visit the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter)
12. Visit Beijing or Shanghai (for the perspective on what really dirty air looks like)
13. Visit the big island of Hawai'i
14. Visit Yellowstone
15. Visit the Galapagos Islands
16. Visit Madagascar (for the lemurs)
17. Visit Patagonia
18. Visit the Andes
19. Visit the Alps
20. Visit the Canadian Rockies
21. Visit Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska (and/or neighboring Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory)
22. Visit Denali, Alaska
23. Visit the Aleutian Islands
24. Visit Chimborazo, Ecuador (furthest point from the center of the Earth, due to the equatorial bulge)
25. Visit Antarctica
26. Visit the Siberian Traps
27. Visit the Deccan Traps
28. Visit the Columbia River flood basalt province
29. Visit Sumatra/Krakatau/Java, Indonesia
30. Visit the South Island of New Zealand
31. Visit the Appalachians
32. Visit the Dead Sea
33. Visit the Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
34. Visit the Great Rift Valley of East Africa
35. Visit the Nile River
36. Visit the Mississippi River
37. Visit the Amazon River
38. Visit the Grand Canyon
39. Visit the Owens Valley, California (or anywhere in the Basin & Range, but the Owens Valley is pretty darned special, and geologically diverse)
40. Visit Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada (walk on the "Moho")
41. Visit Siccar Point, Scotland (for the unconformity)
42. Visit Gibraltar, "UK"
43. Visit Vesuvius, Pompei, and the Pompei-to-be, Naples
44. Visit Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia
45. Visit the Moon

Geological features

1. A tectonic triple junction (Mendocino, CA is an example, or northern Burma, or Panama)
2. Tower karst (Guilin, China, or southwestern Thailand are examples)
3. A regional flood
4. A flash flood
5. Ediacaran fauna fossils in situ (possibilities include the type locality of the Ediacaran Hills in Australia, or Charnwood Forest in England, the White Sea region in Russia, or maybe the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland)
6. Vertebrate fossils in situ
7. Visiting a laggerstatten site (Burgess Shale, Chenjiang, Sirius Passet, Solnhofen?)
8. An alpine glacier
9. A continental glacier (ice cap or ice sheet)
10. A kimberlite pipe (preferably with diamonds, and good luck with that)
11. A coral atoll (take your pick)
12. A meteor impact crater (not a buried one, either)
13. A big river delta (Mississippi, Ganges, Nile, or any of the dozens of others)
14. Barrier islands (Padre Island, Texas, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina come to mind, but I'm sure there are others on other continents)
15. A craton (Canadian shield, Kaapvaal, North China, etc. etc. etc.)
16. A big estuary (Cook Inlet, Chesapeake Bay, Bay of Fundy: all North American examples. Give me some others)
17. See some karst.
18. Kayak (or other boat) through a fjord.
19. See a dropstone.
20. See an ophiolite.
21. Visit a major stike-slip fault (San Andreas in USA/Mexico, or North Anatolian in Turkey, or Tan Lo (sp?) in China)
22. Visit a nappe or thrust sheet (Glarus Thrust in the Alps, Chief Mountain/Glacier NP in Montana, Blue Ridge in Virginia/North Carolina)
23. Visit a really big cave (Mammoth, Lechugilla, or some other that I don't know about on another continent)

Activities and experiences

1. A world-class natural history museum (London Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History all come to mind.)
2. Meeting of a classic scientific society (Royal Society, Explorers Club, Cosmos Club...)
3. Do some original research.
4. Present your research at a meeting of other scientists.
5. Publish your research in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
6. Visit an original copy of "map that changed the world" (William Smith's geologic map of England, Wales, and part of Scotland)
7. Experience a big earthquake (greater than 5.0 sounds like as good a cut-off as any)
8. Experience a volcano erupting something other than gases (lava, pyroclastics)
9. Go ice fishing (or just out onto a frozen lake/pond/sea/ocean and ponder the improbable nature of ice and how it freezes from the top down, preserving the living things underneath, like fish. Without this odd property, it would be tough to maintain life in our high-latitude/elevation lakes/etc. through the winter months.)
10. Compare and contrast El Nino and La Nina.
11. Go on an oceanographic research cruise for more than two weeks at sea.
12. Experience a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone (preferably with surviving it as a caveat)

I welcome your additions and comments!

Labels: blogs, geologists, geology, travel

I spent this past Friday (12/12) at a symposium put on by the Virginia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources, in Charlottesville, Virginia. This excellent branch of our state government just had their budget disproportionately slashed, but they aren't letting it bring them down. In fact, they're breaking new ground in their unparalleled service to the geological public. In honor of the groundbreaking Virginia geologist Tom Gathright (who was in attendance), they organized a day of scholarship and conversation about recent advances in the geology of the Blue Ridge and Valley & Ridge physiographic provinces.

Rick Diecchio (of George Mason University) and I drove down together, getting up at the unholy hour of 5am in order to get there on time. Once there, we trundled past their excellent outdoor rock garden (about which I will post tomorrow), and inside to join the gaggle of more than a hundred geologists from the USGS, Virginia universities and community colleges, transportation agencies, environmental agencies, and the DGMR itself.

The morning session consisted of a series of talks about the Blue Ridge. We heard from Bob Millici (USGS), Scott Southworth (USGS), Chuck Bailey (W&M), Mark Carter (DGMR), Bill Henika (Virginia Tech), and Karen Rice (USGS). I won't post any of the juicy data details we heard, for fear of spilling any unpublished beans, but there was some cool stuff we learned about. There was also a poster session in the well-appointed library. Pete Berquist (Thomas Nelson Community College) and I had lunch out in the rock garden, where I chatted with three undergrads from our alma mater.

The afternoon session was given over the the Valley & Ridge province. We heard from Scott Eaton (JMU), Steve Whitmeyer (JMU), Dave Weary (USGS), Randy Orndorff (USGS), Joel Maynard (Virginia Department of Environmental Quality), and Wil Orndorff (Virginia Department of Conservation & Recreation, Division of Natural Heritage).

My favorite part of the day, though was a break-out session to discuss unresolved issues. There were three break-out groups: one for water issues, one for the Valley & Ridge, and one for the Blue Ridge. I went to the Blue Ridge one, and really enjoyed this unique setting. I mean, here I am in a room with a bunch of people who spend the majority of their professional time trying to understand how the Blue Ridge got put together, and we're just brainstorming together, thinking about big unknowns, big gaps in our understanding. The DGMR staff is compiling these results, and once they're distributed out to the participants, I'll post them here on NOVA Geoblog. We've been asked to share the results. Since there were two geobloggers in the room (me and Chuck), we reckoned that's a quick way to disseminate some of our ideas.

I'd like to thank the DGMR for putting on such a great meeting, in particular during such lean and uncertain times. The day was positive, affirming, and valuable on many levels. Readers, remember that you (yes, you) can still write to the governor and other state officials to protest the crippling 75% reduction in the DGMR staff.

Labels: blue ridge, conferences, geologists, meetings, valley and ridge, virginia

It has been said that the best geologist is the one who's seen the most rocks. A while ago, a list was composed of what geologists should try and see in their lifetimes. Geotripper started a meme on that theme, and has been followed thus far by Saxifraga, SciGuy315, Hypocentre, ReBecca, and Kim.

I hereby join the herd... The idea is to bold the ones you have done (and add comments and details in parentheses).

1. See an erupting volcano (Kilauea, the week before last)
2. See a glacier (I've seen many, but my favorites are in Alaska)
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland (Yellowstone, check. Iceland, check.)
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta. (This past summer, in eastern Montana's Hell Creek Formation)
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage (Summer 1995, Brandywine Recreation Area, West Virginia: after a downpour there, the streams that wind through the campground filled up and overflowed. Shockingly quickly.)
6. Explore a limestone cave. (The caves around Franklin, West Virginia, for instance)
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile. (I've looked into the Berkeley Pit in Butte, but I couldn't really say that I've "toured" it...)
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (sort of -- I've seen ophiolitic blocks in the Virginia and Maryland Piedmont, but never a full, unmetamorphosed ophiolite complex. I hope to change that this summer in Nova Scotia & Newfoundland...)
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger
11. A slot canyon. (The Narrows, in Zion National Park, Utah)
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere. (Konnarock formation rythymites, interpreted as possible varves, in southwest Virginia.)
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada (the Sierra Nevada, atop Half Dome or surrounding Lake Tenaya)
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland. (tragically, I have not... I really want to see the Stillwater)
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (the east coast of North America, the west coast of North America)
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. (They're all over my neighborhood of Adams-Morgan in DC, where their pungent "fruits" are known as "barf beads.")
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (I define stromatolite loosely, as sedimentary structures facilitated by biofilms, and I've seen those many places, most recently in Lake Waiau, Hawai'i) (fossils of them? Galore! Virginia, Montana, elsewhere...)
18. A field of glacial erratics (New England)
19. A caldera (Kilauea, Long Valley, Yellowstone)
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high (Elim Dune, Namibia)
21. A fjord (many, but favorites include Northwestern Fjord in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, and the Lynn Canal, between Haines and Skagway, Alaska)
22. A recently formed fault scarp (1959 Hebgen Lake scarp, Montana)
23. A megabreccia (Max Meadows Tectonic Breccia, near Pepper, Virginia)
24. An actively accreting river delta (Mississippi Delta, kayaking with alligators)
25. A natural bridge (I drove over one this fall without seeing it: Natural Bridge, Virginia)
26. A large sinkhole (Not sure how to define "large," but I've been in and out of multiple sinkholes in the Virginia/West Virginia karstic areas)
27. A glacial outwash plain (downstream of Exit Glacier, near Seward, Alaska)
28. A sea stack (Oregon)
29. A house-sized glacial erratic (How about one the size of a city block? Kenai Fjords, Alaska)
30. An underground lake or river (Sinks of Gandy, West Virginia)
31. The continental divide (A gazillion times out west, also the Appalachian's Atlantic/Gulf divide, and the triple divide in Glacier National Park, Montana)
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals (Smithsonian)
33. Petrified trees (Rock Creek Park and Prince William Forest Park host some decent ones; I've also visited Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, and seen the petrified trees in Yellowstone)
34. Lava tubes (in Utah [?] in college, and a few weeks back: Thurston Lava Tube in Hawai'i.)
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back. (Twice now, I've done the hike from South Rim to river and back in a day. Plus this summer I spent more than a week rafting the river.)
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible (On the W&M regional field geology course in 1995 and again in 1996)
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world. (in 1992, SCUBA diving and snorkeling, with my dad and little brother.)
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m) (I've seen it from New Brunswick, but I think my timing was off. I've been very impressed with tidal variations in Turnagain Arm, Alaska.)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale. (W&M regional field geology)
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe. (Got a nice sample of this in my lab as a result. Visited in 2006 on my three-month road trip.)
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. (Stayed at a coffee plantation, Kifufu, outside of Moshi, on the slopes of Kili with a great view of Mt. Meru; 2002.)
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high (This was our first stop on the Australia trip in 1992. Dad and I summited; my brother and I got chased by an emu while hiking around it.)
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing (For the first time in 2006, and again this past summer.)
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below. (Does the opposite viewpoint count? I've looked up at Telescope Peak from Badwater...)
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art.
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders. (W&M regional field geology)
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck (W&M regional field geology)
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist. (...but I have seen feldspar megacrysts that size in California's Cathedral Peak Granodiorite)
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism. (rode my bicycle from San Francisco to Seattle in the summer of 1997, and stopped in at the volcano then)
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows. (some of my first posts on this blog were images from the Giant's Causeway and surrounding areas)
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa. (2002's 6-week trip to East Africa had me in and out of the rift many times.)
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain (As a kid, we would got down to the Outer Banks every summer)
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington (never even heard of these...)
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton observed the classic unconformity 61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah (most recently this past summer)
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon (W&M regional field geology)
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone (a recent photo was posted here)
68. Monument Valley (this summer, for the third time)
69. The San Andreas fault (I've crossed it many times, especially when I lived in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California)
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (2006)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event (Madison River landslide, Montana, last year and this year, and Gros Ventre, Wyoming, this year)
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park (this year)
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches) (two weeks ago)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado (this summer)
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0. (highest I've gone is 3.5, in Alaska)
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ ("Find"? Does Dinosaur Ridge count?)
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil) (My first trilobites were dug out of the Wheeler Shale, Utah on the W&M regional field geology course, and I found lots of dinosaur bone this summer in the Hell Creek Formation, Montana)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand.
92. Witness a meteor storm (right after the first Harry Potter movie opened in 2001)
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope. (Bradford Woods, Indiana, 1996)
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights. (Homer, Alaska)
95. View a great naked-eye comet (Hale-Bopp, Halley)
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope (at the recent VCCS Science Peer Conference, we looked at the Andromeda Galaxy... is that "distant" enough? Guess it's all relative)
98. Experience a hurricane (two: one in the Philippines, one in DC)
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash

That's a total of 67/100 that I have done; 33 I haven't done. I turned 34 years of age on Thursday of this past week; I guess 2/3 of the list is pretty good for 16 years of travelling and checking out geology. What's your score?

Labels: blogs, geologists, geology, travel

Got a note yesterday from the website Regator.com, saying that they like NOVA Geoblog.

I've never heard of Regator before. Anybody else in the geoblogosphere getting such a note? There are several of us featured on their website under "geology": Lounge of the Lab Lemming, Hypo-theses, Harmonic Tremors, Andrew's Geology Blog at About.com, Olelog, Looking for Detachment, All My Faults Are Stress-Related, Magma Cum Laude, Oakland Geology, Arizona Geology, and Highly Allochthonous. (my apologies if I missed anyone)

Labels: blogs, geologists, websites

I was sad to learn today of the passing of my first geology professor, and the man who got me interested in structural geology. Starting in 1963, Bruce Goodwin taught for many years at William and Mary, and in the fall of 1992, his Physical Geology class was literally the first course (8am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) I took in college. Though I started out planning to major in biology, this course triggered an interest in other aspects of the natural sciences, which eventually led me to geology as a full time passion. Dr. Goodwin's style of teaching struck me as highly effective, and I still use some of his analogies (and jokes!) in my teaching today. His upper-level structural geology class capped off my undergraduate experience, and planted an interest that would eventually (many years later, in 2002) lead me to graduate studies in structure at the University of Maryland. Dr. Goodwin retired from teaching the same year that I graduated from the William and Mary geology department, 1996. I'm sad to think of him having passed from our world, and I wish his family the best. Here was a man who made lasting contributions to Virginia geology, and inspired 33 years of William and Mary geology majors.

Dr. Goodwin's obituary in the Daily Press.

Labels: geologists, virginia

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, words

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