Geobulletin alpha

Moving to Hawaii 

It's been a while since I've posted much here, but with pretty good reason. I'll be moving to Oahu, Hawaii in about two weeks. This is first and foremost born out of a desire to move out of San Diego, CA, where - dare I say it - climate change is in full force here. California is experiencing a record-setting heat wave in conjunction with a long running drought. As I am currently writing, the temperature here in East San Diego County has reached an abominable 110 degrees Farenheit, and I'm [...]

The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle 

This is a fantastic article by Kathryn Schulz for New Yorker Magazine on the seismic and tsunami hazards associated with the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the Pacific Northwest. Ms. Schulz paints a very vivid picture of what the devestation will look like based on input from many people who know what they are talking about, geologists, seismologists, FEMA officials, and State and Local disaster planning folks. This article was so effective, that NPR reported a run on survival kit supplies in [...]

Mesozoic Miscellany 59 

Plenty of news about Jurassic Park 4 lately, with the latest latest news being that it might not be happening any time soon. Still, it's inspired a nice flurry of writing among our blogging comrades, and that's a good thing. Matt Martyniuk at DinoGoss wrote about it, with this nice turn of phrase: "it's a bit sad that JP has eaten its own tail and become the self-perpetuating font of inaccurate science the original film was designed to destroy." Andrea Cau doesn't really care either way, and [...]

Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Fossil Factory 

In 1989, Addison-Wesley published The Fossil Factory, a collaboration between famed paleontologist Niles Eldredge and his sons, Gregory and Douglas. Twenty two years later, I'm turning my eye on it for this installment of the Vintage Dinosaur Art series, thanks to the mad uploading skills of Terry Thielen, who lately has been adding greatly to the Vintage Dinosaur Art Flickr pool.While nine-year-old Terry was a bit disappointed in the cartoony dinosaurs contained between the covers, it will be [...]

Salpingostoma Gastropod 

A Salpingostoma buelli? found in Bullitt County, Kentucky.  It might be from the Drake Formation of the Ordovician.  Herb did a nice job bringing these fossils out of the matrix.  Thanks for letting me photograph

The making of Baker’s Quarry 

So here’s how I made that cake I showed you Monday. Step 1: Collect the necessary ingredients: (Nice job with the stitching, Photoshop… jeez!) Step 2: Clear your schedule and start baking. My first layer was to be “the basement complex” and so I wanted something marbled in appearance. Mixing chocolate-powder-stained batter with regular yellow batter was the method, and I threw chocolate chips into the mafic batter and “white

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Pteranodon by Doreen Edwards 

Swooping into the Vintage Dinosaur Art spotlight this week is Pteranodon, another book in the Rourke dinosaur series. It’s a sneaky move, since pterosaurs aren’t dinosaurs at all, but they were their neighbors and an important part of Mesozoic menagerie. So we’ll allow it. Written by Ron Wilson, the title’s illustrations were provided by Doreen Edwards, who drew many of the books in the series.One thing I like about Rourke’s dinosaur library is that it depicts prehistoric animals [...]

DeskCrops, AW #28 Is Up 

Take a look over at Research at a Snail’s Pace. The spooky Halloween edition with ghostly “tricked” entries is very clever. Nice Job,

Enhanced Geothermal Systems – Google Video 

This is not a new video, however it does a nice job of presenting the concept of Enhanced Geothermal Systems for reliable baseload continuous power that can be generated with very few emissions. Perhaps the most important point made in the video is the size of the potential resource (14,000,000 exajoules) compared to current needs

Volcanic features of the Rockies trip 

This weekend, I wanted to share some of the best work from this year’s Rockies field course students. Let’s start with a nice video by Marcelo Arispe: I thought this was a really nice job making a video using still images and a voiceover. The only thing I would change would be in the Gallatin

LiDAR Beginning to Appear in Google Maps Terrain Layer 

One of my favorite features in Google Maps is the terrain layer, which provides a shaded relief (aka hillshade) view of the topography derived from a digital elevation model.  Google has done a nice job generating a visually pleasing terrain layer, and we use it for all of our Google Maps-based interfaces in OpenTopography.  Google appears to use a range of digital elevation model data sources to derive the terrain layer.  Throughout the US, it appears that the terrain layer [...]

LiDAR 101 Video 

I just stumbled upon this LiDAR 101 video, produced by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at University of Georgia, while Googling for something else.  In ~13 minutes, it does a nice job of summarizing LiDAR technology, data products, the costs associated with acquiring data, and various applications.  It is worth a watch if you are looking for a quick crash-course in LiDAR or need a video to show in the classroom: Are there other good introduction to LiDAR videos out [...]

Glenwood Canyon Rockfall on I-70 

The Colorado Department of Transportation has done a nice job of keeping everyone informed on the closure of I-70 due to a rockfall in Glenwood Canyon. Its weeks like this that I think it would be interesting to work for their geoHazards group. As of earlier today they were waiting on the removal of a 20 foot boulder up on the hill that is in danger of possibly falling about 900 feet to

Monday Musings: Iceland, Chilean volcanoes and the SI/USGS Update 

Cleaning up some news ... busy week leading up to a field trip I am helping co-lead to Death Valley next week. Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley, California First off, I want to say how amazed I am at the great discussion that went on all weekend about the signs of potential activity in Iceland. It now appears that the earthquakes at Eyjafjallajökull may be waning, however the levels of seismicity have definitely bounced up and down over the last few days. However, the level and depth of the [...]

Seagulls Spread Plutonium and Radium 

Most DeadlyArticleOk, all you Vermont whiners, calling tritium 'nuclear waste'. Here's some real stuff for you! Something for everybody to think about, when all these nuclear facilities stand naked on beaches for the seagulls to enjoy!Oh, and the Swiss are doing a nice job with opaline clay, but I don't know if it can take the heat. The pictures are

Uranium mining resumes at Denison's Arizona #1 mine 

The Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff) reports that mining resumed in December at Denison Mine's Arizona #1 mine [right, Arizona #1 headframe. Credit, Denison Mines] in northern Arizona after a 20 year hiatus. The mine is about 10 miles from the northern boundary of Grand Canyon National Park and has been attacked by mining opponents. The Sun does a nice job of summarizing the recent history,

"Those hacked e-mails": YouTube video 

I thought this video does a nice job of investigating the hacked e-mails from CRU:Rational, in context, and well-presented. I especially like the video author's advice at the end: if you don't believe his presentation, go check for yourself, with specific advice about what to check if you want to verify or refute his interpretation.

Mystery Volcano Photos #7-8: Arenal and Eyjafjoll 

So, the field still stands unblemished, having identified all 8 MVPs, usually within less than 7 tries. Nice job! Current MVP Standings: volcanista - 1 Elizabeth - 1 Ralph - 1 gijs - 1 Anne - 1 Cam - 1 gg - 1 The Bobs - 1 MVP #7 was Arenal in Costa Rica. It was initially going to be Rincon de la Vieja, but somehow I mixed up the pictures. I think a lot of you know a lot more about Arenal than I do, but it is one of the most active - and easily visited - volcanoes in the Western Hemisphere. [...]

MVP #5: Ardoukôba, Djibouti 

OK, I admit it, this was a tough one. The MVP photo wasn't entirely distinctive, but the basaltic rift volcano of Ardoukôba in this small African nation was the answer. Nice job, Anne, for narrowing down the possible locations and nailing it. MVP Standings (as of 9/25/2009) volcanista - 1 Elizabeth - 1 Ralph - 1 Cam - 1 Anne - 1 Ardoukôba volcano in Djibouti. To give a little info on the volcano, Ardoukôba is a rift volcano that is part of the East African/Red Sea rift system in [...]

Winners 

The Art of Subduction took 3rd place at the annual Geological Society of South Africa Western Cape Branch Quiz night.Nice job