Geobulletin alpha

What can I do to keep my yard’s rainwater out of streams? 

One of soil’s many important functions is to act like a sponge. As nature’s blanket, soil soaks up water that falls as rain or melts from snow and ice. Soil

How does water move through soil? 

In the basic water cycle, water falls on the land in some type of precipitation (rain or snow). It either is soaked into the ground or runs off into a

Snow and Fire In The Plains 

Denver is getting buried by what may turn out to be a historic spring blizzard. Twenty inches, and it’s still falling. The airport has shut down, and travel is nearly impossible on area roads. The winds are gusting to 55 mph in Denver and the snow is pouring down, while the visibility is not much better than 300 meters. It’s a real high Plains blizzard, and it is bringing Denver

Back at Palmer Station 

We traveled to Cape Evensen, which is an extra site that we added to our trip. Because we were so far ahead of schedule, we got permission to go even farther south to sample in a small gap in our overall gradient. Cape Evensen is at 66°S, so just below the Antarctic Circle.The weather was nice enough while we were there. Since it had snowed the day before, though, we found that it was difficult to find any sampling sites. We saw moss in several locations, but not in large enough patches to [...]

Ship life 

We got snowed-out at our next field site, so we can’t do the field work today that we had planned. It snowed most of last night around the Berthelot Islands, so any potential ground we wanted to sample is covered by about 4 inches of snow. We walked around a bit to see if we could find anything, but all we could identify through the snow was moss. We’re heading further south to our final site, with the hopes that when we pass back by Berthelot on our way north, the snow will have melted or [...]

Mammals March Madness – Friends of the Watershed Hydrology Lab pool 

Come one, come all to the internet phenom, the most nerdy fun alternative march madness event ever: Mammals March Madness 2016! http://mammalssuck.blogspot.com/2016/02/mammal-march-madness-2016.html?m=1 Will the snow leopard be upset by the Siberian chipmunk in the first round?* Unlikely. But what happens when the #8 seed Schoolcraft College Ocelots face the #9

Manic Alert - Shutting Down 

I've gotten way too manic, and I have to go out and shovel snow.  The blog and my g+ will shut down until the next big earthquake.  Have

Oklahoma Earthquakes - The Movie 

I am about to go out into the snow with the dog.  This is the burden of our geographical location. Forget all that!  Now we plan "Oklahoma The Movie".  We assume that OK will be hit by a full New Madrid sequence, three M7+'s.  Somebody will make a movie.  Now, the format. Perhaps something like 'The Martian', with somebody stuck in Tulsa needing rescue.  Or "Titanic" with hubris sinking

2016 Brings A Changing Weather Pattern, but El Nino and The Hot Oceans Still Rule. 

The weather pattern is finally changing. We’ve seen 5-6 weeks of extreme warmth in the Eastern U.S., floods and tornadoes in the south, and in the West, cold and snow. The new year will be different, but it will still be a rather mild and wet El Nino pattern, just not as warm as it has been in Eastern North America. The polar jet will dip down closer to New

Dreams of Summer and Southwest Travels: Hole in the Wall, Mojave National Preserve 

Christmas is over and suddenly the snow and blizzards aren't so fun any more. I find myself dreaming of warmer places and times, including a great journey we took last summer across the southwest with my students. Since my current travels are over until February, I'm going to travel through the archives to check out some marvelous geology along our southwestern tier of states: Arizona,

Chemical changes in groundwater precede earthquakes in Iceland, study finds 

Northern Iceland is a geothermally active land where heat from deep below the crust melts snow and wreaths the land in steam. Now, new research shows that the tumultuous groundwater beneath northern Iceland’s mist may hold the key to predicting future earthquakes in the region. In a new study presented at the 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, researchers found that concentrations of dissolved minerals in groundwater sharply increased before two major earthquakes in northern [...]

Update from the Lake: First Snow! 

It was a cold and misty morning, with lots of smoke from wood fires drifting by (cue that wonderful scent that reminds me of fall and winter, but makes my sinuses clog up a bit), when MOH finally got me to drag myself away from the heat of our front-room oil stove. "Take some pictures," he cried, "It's the first snow of the year! And it will melt soon!" So out I went. Well, it hasn't

Steamboats and Dinosaurs 

Steamboat Springs, in Colorado is probably where people go skiing. There wasn't much snow about when we were there, so instead I enjoyed the hot springs at dawn. They were actually quite cool compared to Japanese hot springs, but they did include a nice swimming pool, which is not something I've ever encountered at an onsen. Other differences - the bathers were less naked but more more mixed

How low will they go? The response of headwater streams in the Oregon Cascades to the 2015 drought 

From a distance, Anne has been watching an incredibly unusual summer play out in the Pacific Northwest, following a winter with far less snow (but more rain) than usual. Folks on the ground in Oregon have been collecting data on the response of the Oregon Cascades streams to “no snow,

Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Our Tour of the Greatest National Park I Never Once Set Foot In. 

The western slope of the Cascades Range is green. Very green. There are trees, shrubs, mosses, grasses, just about every kind photosynthesizing plant there is. This is due of course to the mountains themselves. They provide a barrier to incoming Pacific storms, causing the moist masses of air to rise and condense, with copious amounts of rain and snow falling to the ground. We were still in

Tiny architects 

  Heaved upwards from your deep and watery grave, From the quiet murk onto a chaotic, brine-encrusted ship deck, You’re ever so carefully washed free from the mud, From all the rinsings of continents that settled out of the sea with you Like snow, softly entombing your remains. Now through my looking glass, you lie... read

Nature, An ADHD Natural Treatment 

My mother’s warning;You are going to rot your head out.. still rings through my head whenever I spend a lot of time in front of the tv. I were raised in a time when mothers shooed their children out – rain, snow or shine – to acquire a breath of outside. Our telly tuned straight […] The post Nature, An ADHD Natural Treatment appeared first on Liberty, Equality, and

How Strange Has the Weather Been? This was the Death Valley Region only a week ago 

Zabriskie Point in late May. It's usually over 100 degrees and sunny this time of year. The weather was a bit...off last week as we hit the road to the southwest. We meant to drive over Tioga Pass, and made it to Crane Flat, only to find the pass was closed by snow. We headed back down to the Central Valley and crossed the mountains at Tehachapi. From there we arrived in Death Valley for

A Fleeting Spring in a Horrible Drought: A Day in Yosemite Valley 

There are so many moments when I want to deny the reality of the California drought. It has been relentless, the winter air warm and dry, the soil crunching under my feet at a time when it should be muddy and covered with vegetation. Even though my backyard rain gauge says we've had a normal year for precipitation, the reality is that it almost all fell in December, and almost none fell as

Spring Marches North: The View from Space 

This is from the NASA Aqua satellite. You can see the green of spring moving into Virginia, while snow remains in the Adirondacks. High resolution, color imagery from polar orbiting satellites allows folks like me to better tell the story of our planet to our TV audience and to our online viewers as well.