Geobulletin alpha

Geology of the National Parks in Pictures - Assateague Island National Seashore 

 My next post about the Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures is a park we visited back in the summer of 2002.  You can find more Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures as well as my Geological State Symbols Across America series at my website Dinojim.com.----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Assateague Island National Seashore Back in 2002, my then girlfriend and I traveled to Assateague Island and hiked down the shoreline to [...]

Geology of the National Parks in Pictures - Antietam National Battlefield 

My next post about the Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures is a park we visited back in 2002 on a Spring Break trip.  You can find more Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures as well as my Geological State Symbols Across America series at my website Dinojim.com.----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Antietam National Battlefield Back in 2002, my girlfriend (at the time) and I were working our way through various parks along [...]

Up to 8 Inches of Rain Fall on the Eastern Shore of Maryland 

I live here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and we had a severe flood event last night. Nearly 6 inches of rain fell at my house. This comes after my post yesterday about the difficulty in forecasting extreme events like floods. Look below and read what I posted to my local viewers about the event. This area is flat, so we did not have any loss of life, but

Friday fold: Catalina Island #2 

Happy Friday! Here’s another fold from Catalina Island, California – an antiform in metasediments, courtesy of Sarah Penniston-Dorland of the University of

A Storm That Will Be Remembered for Generations 

Some are calling it Snowzilla, and having experienced it, the name fits! From DC to Baltimore, and up to New York have over 2 feet. Here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, it varies but a foot is common in Central and Northern Delaware and near Denton in Maryland. On the coast, major coastal flooding has caused significant damage. I shot the image above (from the WBOC Ocean City Maryland

Imaggeo on Mondays: night cap over Mt. Fuji 

The first Imaggeo on Monday’s post of 2016 is quite spectacular! It features a lenticular cloud capping the heights of Mount Fuji, in Japan. Erricos Pavlis writes this post and describes how the unusual cloud formation comes about and why Mt. Fuji is such a prime place to catch a glimpse of this meteorological phenomena. Mount Fuji at more than 3700 m is one of the highest volcanoes in the world and the highest mountain in Japan,located some one hundred or so kilometers southwest of [...]

Considering the Spechty Kopf diamictite 

I have known for a long time about a diamictite in the latest Devonian part of the Appalachian stratigraphic sequence, since it is exposed in the lowermost part of the section (western end of the outcrop) at Sideling Hill, Maryland. When I led field trips there, I talked students through the multiple possible origins for diamictites (sedimentary rocks that are poorly sorted, with significantly “outsized” clasts “floating” in a finer-grained

Bedding/cleavage GigaPans at Harpers Ferry, WV 

I’ve been thinking lately about Harpers Ferry, the spot where West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland meet, at the confluence of the Potomac River and the Shenandoah River. I’ve noted small outcrops of its overturned beddding here previously, and also described a book I read about the man who made the place infamous: John Brown. I went out there again last week with my NOVA colleague Beth Doyle, and we explored

Understanding Global Warming- Consensus Via Committees 

This is an important summary by Spencer Weart, historian emeritus at the American Institute of Physics, Maryland, on the growth of our understand of the risks posed by global warming. He does not point to any particular scientist or specific scientific papers that provided "breakthroughs" in our understanding of climate change and global warming. Instead, he says that the real actors

New Horizon Probe Has Anomaly- Switches to back-up Computer 

  Here is an Update from NASA late on Saturday night…. New Horizons Team Responds to Spacecraft Anomaly The New Horizons spacecraft experienced an anomaly the afternoon of July 4 that led to a loss of communication with Earth. Communication has since been reestablished and the spacecraft is healthy. The mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft —

This Looks like A Hoax, but It’s Not. It’s a Crown Flash 

This must be the season for them because I saw one myself last weekend (here in Maryland) for a few seconds. I was unsure of what it was, but assumed that cirrus clouds were reflecting the sunlight in a strange way, much like a sundog. The one I saw did not move as much as this one though, and it is rather amazing. Language warning on the video, but I’d

June 8, 2015 

Geologist Preparation and Importance of Geology CompetenciesAmerican Geoscience Institute The Ebb and Flow of Greenland’s GlaciersAmerican Geophysical Union Fair Compensation for Landslide-Damaged Homes in Maryland ?The Washington Post Massive Sinkhole Swallows Police SUV in ColoradoNBC News OPEC Refuses to Cut Oil ProductionCNN Money Iraq’s Biggest Dam on Unsure FootingEarth Magazine Hundreds of Prehistoric Gambling Artifacts

Amazing Greenland 

I’ve been lucky enough to visit Greenland twice, and it is truly a place of amazing beauty. A friend who lives just a couple of blocks away from me here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland just got back from the 2015 operation Ice Bridge mission where the video below is from. Ice Bridge is filling in data on the changes in the ice sheets to cover the loss of

States Show Their True Colors on Fracking – One Enacts a Ban, While Two Others Prohibit All Local Bans 

Three states have recently taken a stand for or against controversial bans on hydraulic fracturing. Oklahoma, Texas, and Maryland have all passed laws within the past month relating to hydraulic fracturing bans. Oklahoma Last Friday, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed Senate Bill 809, which prohibits local governments from choosing whether to have oil and gas … Continue

Computer models simulate asteroid impacts 

An asteroid impact 100 miles (170 kilometers) off the coast of Maryland would send waves up to 50 feet (15 meters) high onto the shore an hour later and massive flooding would occur three hours after impact, according to a new computer simulation of hypothetical asteroid impacts. The model is the first of its kind and federal agencies have used it to assess potential hazards arising from such impacts in an effort to increase U.S. emergency preparedness, planning and management, the scientists [...]

Cool Science Pics 

Thought I’d share some cool pics taken from Space today. The first one below is from the past week, and is a great view from the ISS courtesy of Astronaut Barry Wilmore. Notice the city lights shining through the clouds. I forecasted a sunny Sunday in Maryland and Delaware today. Missed it by THAT much! Severe storms hit Oklahoma Sunday evening ahead of a powerful tropospheric low pressure system. The

Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Large Miocene barnacles with bioimmurations from Maryland 

These two beautiful barnacles are from the Calvert Formation (Middle Miocene) exposed near Parker Creek in Maryland. They are likely of the genus Chesaconcavus. Barnacles are most unlikely crustacean arthropods, cousins of shrimp, crabs and lobsters. Most, like these above, cement themselves head-downwards on a hard substrate like a rock or shell (or boat hull),

Root wedging: a recent example 

What is Kenny pointing at here? Why, it’s a boulder. Where did it come from? Look uphill: This is as perfect an example of root wedging as I’ve seen! Spotted it last Friday along the C&O Canal

Friday fold: Quartz vein in Catoctin Formation, Point of Rocks, Maryland 

I took this image in 2005, when I was working up a geologic history of the C&O Canal National Historical Park. It’s a vein of quartz, gracefully folded within the Catoctin Formation. The exposure is along the railroad tracks at Point of Rocks, Maryland, easternmost extent of the Blue Ridge province on the north shore of the Potomac River. The Culpeper Basin begins about 100 meters to the east of

Cucullaea gigantea pelecypod from the Aquia Formation 

I recently traded with a fellow in my local club for these two Cucullaea gigantea from Henson Creek, Maryland. They come from the Aquia Formation (Paleocene age). It earns its name as these casts are really huge! I've read about the site where these can be found but just have not been able to get down there to collect some myself.Specimen #1Specimen