Geobulletin alpha

Eopachydiscus sp. ammonite from the Duck Creek formation of Texas 

I found another type of ammonite, in the north Texas creek bed I was exploring, called Eopachydiscus sp.   I found a large number of them, in fact, but as many were sizable and heavy I only packed out one. I saw some that were well over 18" in diameter, approaching 24"! The specimen I chose to keep is about 8-9" in diameter, 3" thick and had some of it's sutures showing as well as oyster spats glommed onto it. What I don't know is if the oysters colonized the actual shell surface or if the [...]

Plotting the destruction of Canada's cartels 

Canada loves its cartels and monopolies.  In fact, the government once openly formed the Uranium Cartel, until that was perceived as bad political optics.  After that, they went underground.  The driver is nationalism, and in Quebec it is micro-nationalism.  We have a sparse and spread population, so if want national champions to keep out the grubby outsiders, we form cartels. The system

Where Fact and Fiction Meet: LA’s Museum of Jurassic Technology and the Cabinet of Curiosities 

I have two lives. At the Houston Museum of Natural Science, I’m a science blogger, but in my art life, I’m an aspiring novelist. Occasionally, I have the privilege of embarking on a literary pilgrimage to a city I’ve never … Continue reading

MCABEE: SOLVING MYSTERIES IN THE EOCENE 

Plant fossils from the Okanagan highlands, an area centred in the Interior of British Columbia, provide important clues to an ancient climate.While the area is referred to as the Okanagan, the term is used in a slightly misleading fashion to describe an arc of Eocene lakebed sites that extend from Smithers in the north, down to the fossil site of Republic Washington.The grouping includes the fossil sites of Driftwood Canyon, Quilchena, Allenby, Tranquille, McAbee, Princeton and Republic.These [...]

You Can Fool Some of The People All of The Time 

Greg Fishel is a fellow meteorologist who works on air in Raleigh, NC, and like me he is not afraid to tell the truth about climate science, in spite of the fact that some his viewers think it’s all a hoax. Like all of us, he often gets messages via email/social media purporting to show that he and every major science organization on Earth is wrong, and he had one

The challenges of blogging at sea! 

When I lived in Israel at the age of 15, it was before the internet, before cell phones, and in fact there were only two public phone booths available for use by the entire kibbutz of 800 people.  Written all over the walls of both booths, in nearly every language imaginable, was the word "patience".  I feel like scrawling that word all over my office walls right now! read

Eatonia sp. brachiopod from the Bois d'Arc formation of Oklahoma 

I believe that this next Brachiopod is an Eatonia sp. While Eatonia medialis is listed by Amsden* as being known from the Haragan and Bois d'Arc formations of Oklahoma, the specimen below does not appear to conform to specimens I have found in the Kalkberg formation of New York or Licking Creek formation of Virginia (both formations are correlative to the aforementioned Oklahoma formations).The shell is rounded to sub-pentagonal in shape with coarse plications. The pedicle valve has a sulcus [...]

Birding in Seattle – Stone, Metal, and Terra Cotta 

Seattle is well known for its abundant bald eagle population, with nearly two dozen nests in and around the city. The nests are generally in large green spaces, such as parks and greenbelts, but you can also find many eagles in downtown Seattle. In fact, there are more eagles downtown than any place else. And … Continue reading Birding in Seattle – Stone, Metal, and Terra

would you buy this house? 

I've worked on some seriously contaminated sites, and I have close and personal experience with the fact that you can find contamination anywhere. Rural? Suburban? Expensive neighborhood? Doesn't matter. Especially in the northeast US, which has been industrialized for hundreds of years, you can't rely on looks to determine if the subsurface is clean. There are too many old industrial areas

Hippos in Britain - 130,000 years ago 

It’s official: 2015 was the warmest year on record. But those global temperature records only date back to 1850 and become increasingly uncertain the further back you go. Beyond then, we’re reliant on signs left behind in tree rings, ice cores or rocks. So when was the Earth last warmer than the present?The Medieval Warm Period is often cited as the answer. This spell, beginning in roughly 950AD and lasting for three centuries, saw major changes to population centres across the globe. This [...]

ResearchGate? 

I've been getting the odd invitation to join ResearchGate ever since my journal article* was published. My paper is not going to set the world on fire, but more than 5 years after publication, I'm still getting a few pageviews a month and the odd citation. As I mentioned here, the paper hasn't had much of an impact on my post-graduate career, other than the fact that it looks nice on a

El Nino shows up in satellites 

I regularly post this.  It's the plot of the microwave readings from satellites.  The basic idea is that the Earth is a radiating black body, like a stove element.  The poor old planet has to get rid of a lot of heat, solar and geothermal.  The fact that it has done so successfully for a billion years to maintain life, is somewhat heroic. I used to think that this was the only

A Crushing Bite Gives Sea Otters Their Cute Mugs 

All otters are adorable. That’s as much of a fact as the existence of gravity. But among the 13 or so living otter species, none generate as many “Aww”s as Enhydra lutris, the sea otter. These fuzzballs are so cute, in fact, that we often overlook their bad behavior. But what is it that sets

Bible Reading, 2016 

I haven’t been blogging much in 2015. That may change in early 2016 once I am done writing Earth Science: God’s World, Our Home, a Christian middle school Earth Science textbook from Novare Science and Math. I do, however, still make time for daily reading in the Bible. In fact, there was not a single day

Antarctic Adventure Begins - Aboard The World! 

Many of you know that I have signed on to participate in two expeditions to the Antarctic this Austral summer. I'm typing this at the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, prepared to make an overnight flight to Buenos Aires and then Ushuaia Argentina.It has been 13 years since I last visited the Antarctic. Back then, I was still shooting with film so this will be my first visit there with digital camera equipment. To say I am excited about this adventure is an understatement. But, like [...]

The Coming Winter Part Two: The Elephant in the Room 

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM Ask me what the Northern Hemisphere winter will be like, and I can easily tell you. As a matter of fact, It’s a slam dunk!  It will be WAY above normal. I’ll say the same for the whole planet for December through January. As a matter of fact, rising greenhouse gases in our atmosphere make it quite likely that the U.S. will see an above average

Uranium – A little element with a lot of power 

Minerals Make Life – an initiative created by the National Mining Association – has recently developed an infographic summarizing the many benefits of uranium. Uranium is found in many areas of the United States. In fact, uranium is more common than tin, about 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than gold. Normally … Continue

My DEFENCE! Follow live tweets with #129I @ 2:30pm ET 

My PhD defence is this week (Wednesday) at 2:30pm ET. I am feeling pretty good about the whole thing but at the same time nervous. I just don’t know exactly what to expect. I have a sort of idea of what the questions might cover and where my assumptions or conclusions might be challenged. However, the uncertainty of all this is what is making me nervous. I have gotten lots of good advice from people such as “you are the real expert on the material” and “be confident and [...]

Which was the biggest dinosaur? (Answer: it’s complicated) 

I just gave an answer to this question on Quora, and it occurred to me that I ought to also give it a permanent home here. So here it is. This is a great example of a question that you’d think would have a simple, clear answer, but doesn’t. In fact, as a palaeontologist specialising in

A spider in your fruit? Unlikely, and less likely to hurt you. 

This year we’ve seen a rash of negative publicity about “deadly” spiders hitchhiking in fruit from Central and South America, causing arachnophobes everywhere to, well, be super paranoid! In fact, spiders have not fared well in the media at all this … Continue reading