Geobulletin alpha

The Hawai'i That Was: The Beginning of All Things, (Ba)salt of the Earth 

There are lots of places that are associated with a particular kind of rock. There's the granite of the Sierra Nevada, or the sandstone of Zion National Park. Geologists think Franciscan graywacke sandstone when someone mentions the California Coast Ranges. But nearly every mainland location is really made of a variety of different rocks. That's not the case with the Hawaiian Islands. There

The Approach to Titus Canyon: Amargosa Narrows, Bullfrog Pit, and the Original Bullfrog Mine 

We're officially on the Titus Canyon leg of our larger Death Valley trip—a round trip odyssey that will take us to and near a number of places. This section of our journey began with the last post, which was centered around Beatty. I’ll be complementing my February photographs with photos from a similar journey MOH and I took back in the late spring of 2009. So, let's get on with it! We'll

Where No Maps Have Gone Before! 

There's something wonderfully thrilling about geologic maps of places we've never mapped that way before! Scientists recently mapped a brand-new island and produced a beautifully-detailed map of... -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

There's No Place Like This: Celebrating 100 Years of America's Best Idea 

"There's no place like this". It's something that you hear once in awhile in a crowd of people seeing Yosemite Falls for the first time. You'll hear it from people seeing a geyser explode from the ground in Yellowstone, or gaping at the vast expanse of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. There are other places where you won't hear those words, because you won't be standing in a crowd of people.

Missed Connections 

Flash fiction for fickle folk. Out of my left eye I see you waiting at the station. You’re on time, but the train is late. You’re pacing, oh, like you always do, and the seconds can’t tick by fast enough. There are places you need to be. Out of my right eye I see him

A Sight That Overwhelms: Dante's View and a Sense of Scale 

It's one of the most astounding viewpoints in all of North America. The Black Mountains form the eastern edge of Death Valley, and they are one of the most rugged mountain fronts in existence. In places the mountains are so steep that one cannot see the slopes at the base from the summit. Looking up from the lowest point in North America, Badwater, one can barely contemplate walking or

Seals galore 

Our research is about soil and the microscopic organisms living in it, but we also get to see a lot of bigger animals that live in Antarctica. We’ve seen whales, dolphins, seals, and lots of different birds. We’ve seen a few different species of seal, but mostly elephant seals and fur seals. Anyone who followed my blog last year knows all about elephant seals, because there are a LOT of them at Rothera Station. This is the first year I’ve worked around a lot of fur seals. Fur seals are [...]

These Lands Belong to All of Us - Domestic Terrorism and National Wildlife Refuges 

Beauty and ugliness... A Meadowlark is singing in the breeze...it's early February in California which actually means that spring is practically here. In other places, biplanes are spraying pesticides and fungicides, beekeepers are setting out hives in the almond groves, and fields are being plowed and readied for planting. About 95% of the floor of the California's Great Valley is

Get ready... Get set... 

It’s almost time to start our next field season! Our field season begins when we fly south on February 18. That’s just a couple of weeks away!This year, we will complete our “latitudinal gradient” along the Antarctic Peninsula. For this project, we are exploring the diversity of soil biological communities along the entire Antarctic Peninsula. We will discover what species live in all of the places we visit. We will also compare who lives at each site with the plants and soil chemistry [...]

Dreams of Summer: This is Where and When...Wait, They Made a National Park Out of This? 

Why, yes. Yes they did. About two posts ago, I pointed out that there are some places where the geology is kind of...monotonous. One of those places is the vast sage plain east of Grand Canyon and Flagstaff, around the towns of Holbrook and Winslow (yes, that Winslow). The land is flat, windy and barren, hardly looking like a place of geological inspiration. And yet it is. In the last

Dreams of Summer: The Bad Star Strikes! What happened at Canyon Diablo 50,000 Years Ago 

It might be heresy for me to say it, but there are some places where the geology appears to be kind of...monotonous. Flatlands covered by soils are sometimes not all that interesting. I can even be accused of thinking this way about my very own home valley, the Great Valley of California. I've spent a long time teaching my students that our valley isn't actually boring at all. It's just

Dreams of Summer and Southwest Travels: Grand Stories Exposed in a Canyon 

No one place on Earth can ever tell the whole story of the Earth. But there are lots of places that tell part of the story. That's the fact that makes geology one of the most fascinating sciences there is. It's an incredible detective story that must be pieced together from disparate bits and fragments that must be correlated and organized into a coherent narrative. Some places tell more of

Why did the Road Cross the San Andreas Fault? 13 Years of Geologic Change (an Update) 

2002 I've been leading geology field studies trips to lots of places in the American West for 27 years and started to take digital pictures in 2001. I sometimes struggle to find new things to photograph when I visit a place for the 27th time, but in some cases it is not a problem. There are geologic changes that happen on a yearly basis, and with thirteen years of photos, the changes

Geology calendar highlights ‘must-see’ Utah places 

Another highlight on the 2016 Calendar of Utah Geology—get yours in time before they’re all gone! Get them in store at the Utah Natural Resources Map & Bookstore, or online HERE. deseretnews.com Some of Utah’s most spectacular displays of geography are once again being showcased in the annual calendar compiled by staff members of the

Seven new GigaPans from Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut 

One of the cool things about my plan for the GEODE grant from NSF is to put GigaPan imaging systems in the hands of people who will take them to cool places. I purchased five loaner GigaPan rigs, and they have gone out in the field with various people, but I think that the images I will show you today are the coolest we’ve yet produced. All seven of them

Field trip to Anglesey, May 2016 - Lecture December 3rd 2015 

Bath Geological SocietyField trip to Anglesey, Cemaes Bay in north Anglesey 27th to 30th May 2016Dave Green, Geostudies The course will start at 7.30 pm on 27th and is based at the Harbour Hotel in Cemaes Bay. The course ends at lunch time on 30th May near the Menai Straits bridge, but details will be given of other sites to visit for those who wish to stay on.The cost for tuition is £40 of which only £20 is refundable.Transport is by private car to the location. Sharing is advisable during [...]

Summer Ramblings: The Second Largest Natural Bridge in the United States 

It doesn't look so big...yet As we drift into the last day of Summer (and it's certainly holding on around here, 100 degrees a day ago), I started looking over some of my adventures. There was our Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground in the Pacific Northwest, of course, but I also spent around four weeks exploring the Southwest, and saw incredible things and places. One of those places was

[jules' pics] NY pics #2 

Walking is a bit frustrating in NY. On the streets there's a crossing every few feet. It is quite right than no pedestrians obey the signals as, if they did, making progress would be impossible. In some places there is the option of a park to walk through, but the routes are quite twisty so I'm not sure much time is saved. Then there's the roads alongside the park which should be fast, as

Cleaning, Sorting, Consolidating recent finds. 

Hey All, I just got back from a vacation to Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado and am working on cleaning and identifying my finds. Sorry for the lack of updates but I will be back in a week or two with new content. In the meantime, enjoy some scenery from the places I visited.Ammonite in North Texas Bois d'Arc formation in OklahomaGreen River formation in Kemmerer, WYNeozoic Rhyolite flows with Geodes from Dugway, UTWeeks formation, limestone near Delta, UTMarjum formation near Delta, [...]

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A blastoid from the Lower Carboniferous of Illinois 

It is sometimes hard to believe that exquisite fossils such as the above are sometimes very common. The above is a theca of the blastoid Pentremites godoni (DeFrance, 1819) found in the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) of Illinois. (Thanks to expert Colin Sumrall for the identification.) In some places these fossils can be picked up by