Category: links

Okay, they’re not actually related. Just a couple of nifty links for today – I got something of a late start this morning because the cat that I’m cat-sitting had a pee accident. The result was a lot of frantic squirting of Nature’s Miracle and me getting out of the house close to an hour late.

I do have another backyard geology post to write up, possibly two since I’ve now been to both Sugar Loaf Mountain (the Colorado iteration of it at least) and several outcrops of the Iron Dike. I’m hoping to get that done tomorrow. Also, this weekend is the first of our two long field trips for my class this semester. We’ll be down in New Mexico to look at the volcanic fields that sit on the eastern side of the Rio Grande Rift. (Yes indeed, the United States actually IS slowly pulling apart at Texas, and it has nothing to do with politics.) I’m making it my business to take my camera with plenty of batteries, so barring a complete senior moment, there will be pictures!

Cool link #1: Giant rat found in ‘lost volcano’
A BBC camera crew finds a new species of rat in a crater left by an extinct volcano in Papua New Guinea. I hope that I get to see the BBC special at some point, since the area looks very interesting. The crater itself is about 4 kilometers wide and 1 kilometer deep. This sounds pretty big at first blush, but it’s really not. The crater was formed by the Mount Bosavi cone collapsing at some point in its history, so the crater is much bigger than it would have been during the volcano’s active life. To also give you some perspective, a really big volcanic crater – a caldera – would be something like the Yellowstone Caldera, which is 72 kilometers across at its widest.

Cool Link #2: Florida Sinkhole Database
We don’t get much in the way of sinkholes in Colorado, since we don’t have the immense quantities of near surface limestone that Florida and a lot of areas in the southeastern United States have. I find Karst topography, which is what you get when limestone erodes below the surface and eventually causes collapses, very interesting because it’s something that I just don’t get to see very often.

Water triggers earthquakes – An interesting look at the influence of water on fault deformation and volcano formation at a plate boundary. This of course immediately put me in mind of other situations in which fluids influence fault activity in my own backyard, Such as in Trinidad, Colorado recently, as well as the famous Rocky Mountain Arsenal disposal well-induced earthquakes.

Scientists to study rebirth of an island after volcanic eruption – Looking at how an ecosystem recovers after having been catastrophically wiped out by a volcanic eruption.

Mayoral Candidate Anna Falling Wants Creationism Exhibit – Because Oklahoma can’t let its neighbor Texas have all the wacky fun.

Project pushes innovation to save coast – Since the Mississippi has been channelized, there’s been a major problem with sediment build up in the channels and a connected major problem with sediment starvation for the coast. If only freeing the river were an option, but since it’s not, they’re looking at their options.

Planet Smash-Up Sends Vaporized Rock, Hot Lava Flying – Sounds like a Bruckheimer film, doesn’t it?

Mars Orbiter Shows Angled View of Martian Crater – Very, very cool picture.

The Creation “Museum” – PZ Myers takes a fantastic journey into the darkest recesses of utter nonsense. It was actually a zerg on the so-called museum by the Secular Student Alliance. Links to many more (very amusing) accounts here.

Research Reveals Guatemala’s Geologic History – Analysis of metamorphic rocks is showing a very complex geological history for Guatemala, particularly the interaction between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates.

More earthquake faults discovered at the Salton Sea – Shaping our understanding of how the San Andreas fault is moving.

Ancient Lava Flow Photographed from Space – Make sure to look at the linked pictures in the article. It’s a little lava flow from the cinder cone. You can actually find things like that all over. There’s an old lava flow and cinder cone actually visible in Colorado from I-70 as you’re passing the Dotsero exit.

County to restore floodplains – We’re seeing a lot of restoration for flood plains and dam removal projects now that the impacts of these things are being more fully understood.

Will Krakatoa rock the world again? – A collection of absolutely stunning pictures of the new Krakatoa. The volcano previously erupted (more like catastrophically exploded) in 1883 and killed over 36,000 people. It also affected the world’s climate for years after. If the volcano is becoming extremely active again, life could get very interesting for us all.

Are Feminists Man Haters? Deminists’ and Nonfeminists’ Attitudes Toward Men – Sounds like a very interesting study. And the money quote from one of the researchers, Melinda Kanner: “Our work finds that, indeed, non-feminists believe in traditional gender roles such as men being breadwinners and women being caregivers. At the same time, these non-feminists actually appear to resent the confines of the traditional roles they advocate, which presents a paradox for women and men in traditional heterosexual relationships.” Makes sense to me. Also, if you think about anti-feminists, there’s also a lot more buy-in to the “common wisdom” that men only want sex, that they’re basically violent, that they can’t control themselves, yadda yadda. Sounds like a negative attitude to me.

Historians Question Federal Charter – I just found this interesting. Swiss historians are skeptical about some traditional tales about the founding of Switzerland. Part of this is that radiometric data has shown that some of the founding documents aren’t as old as they should be, though that could be a case of the originals having been copied if they were deteriorating.

California Board of Geology to be Terminated – Bad news for geology in California.

Two Hualien farmers tap mud volcano for free gas – human ingenuity at its finest.

“I Touched A Crop-Circle-Making UFO,” Says Investigator – Just for skeptical fun. The io9 article links through to the original report. Money quote:

He said, “You can have 100 people in a park and this technology can control photons to such a point that only one person out of the hundred might see a craft right above their heads. That also could explain the cases of people driving cars on a busy freeway and are confused after stopping to stare at a UFO in the sky that all the other cars keep rushing by.”

Oh special pleading, how I love you. Apparently only some people can see the photos. But I suppose cameras can, and thus we get the film?

For scientists, moon rocks tell story of a young Earth
And not a young earth in the way you might think – Earth when it was young, billions of years ago. This is some pretty interesting stuff on how the Moon might have formed, and certainly does explain the compositional similarities between the Earth and the Moon.

New life-related geology beckons Opportunity rover
Basically, Opportunity found some clays, which are very indicative of the presence of water. On Earth, the major source of clay is feldspar being chemically weathered via water, so this is some pretty cool stuff. I think calling it “life-related geology” is going a bit far – all it really tells us is that there was probably abundant water. If we want “life-related geology,” I’m holding out for stromatolites.

Losing my religion for equality
Former President Jimmy Carter is made of awesome. If you didn’t already know that.

Backyard Science Experiment Reveals Grand Canyon NOT Carved by Floodwater
Just in case we needed more evidence. Very cool video.

Recent volcano eruption in Ethiopia causes surface displacement
In all honesty, until I read this article, I had no idea that Ethiopia was so incredibly geologically active. I’m not sure if that’s a result of me not doing enough reading, or that it simply hasn’t been widely reported.

10 Worst Evolutionary Designs
Shouldn’t that be, “10 Worst ‘Intelligent’ Designs”?

Hey Jupiter, Earth Gets Hit Too – Evidence For North American Cosmic Impact 13,000 Years Ago
Very interesting, since this impact might be connected to the disappearance of the Clovis people in North America, apparently. Though what I thought was the most interesting here was that the evidence came from the presence of microscopic diamonds, rather than disturbed strata or other gross evidence. Though I do wonder what else impact-related might be in that area, structurally.

Happy birthday, Apollo 11!
(From yesterday.) Oh no! You’re over the hill now! We’d better wear black armbands for the birthday party. We can celebrate by watching these newly restored videos of the moon walk while we eat red velvet cake. Woo!
Also: We Choose the Moon – relive the launch in real time!

Dinosaur burrow in Asutralia.
Sounds like a very cool discovery, and may help with understanding some paleo-climate change. Hopefully we’ll see more about these!

Why Titan is so exciting.
And it is – very exciting. Planetary geology is very cutting edge as far as science goes, and I’m very excited to see how much we can learn about other planets (and moons) just by analyzing photographs of them. Geomorphology for the win!

Map of Taraniki reveals volcanic history.
I want one of these. Seriously.

Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission holds hearing on gas drilling at nuke test site.
You know, this just seems like a very bad idea, on pretty much every front possible. I’m incredibly puzzled as to why people want to drill for gas there so desperately, considering that natural gas prices are even more in the shitter than oil prices. There are plenty of other natural gas fields if we absolutely feel we must drill. How about we leave the radioactive stuff alone until we’re running out.

When Yellowstone Explodes
Article from National Geographic about the Yellowstone caldera. I’m… not terribly thrilled about the title, but the article itself is pretty cool. And you can’t argue with the excitement factor when it comes to Things That Could Explode And Kill Us All. That said, I am getting kind of tired of people grabbing my sleeve and, a frantic light in their eyes, exclaiming that did I know there’s a supervolcano in Yellowstone that’s going to explode tomorrow and cause us all to choke and die in a cloud of hot ash. While technically it could explode tomorrow, I’m of the school of thought that by soon, we mean geologically soon. Which means not soon at all. Won’t my face be read when the pyroclastic cloud rolls over Denver and we all asphyxiate under several feet of ash?

Mayon in the Philippines is threatening to erupt again.
We may be getting some impressive pictures out of this soon. Mayon is incredibly active as volcanoes go (48 eruptions in recorded history – nothing to sneeze at) and there are signs that there’s a lot of lava activity going on there.

New seismic shooting method for complex structure.
If you’re not feeling hyper nerdy, I’d recommend skipping this one. It’s about a new method for shooting 3-D seismic to examine sub-surface structure, which I just thought was very interesting.

Ridiculous Life Lessons From New Girl Games
The shit video game makers try to sell to girls makes me CRY. And also forces me to admit that, for all I bitch about the chainmail bikinis and bouncy boobs, at least in WoW girls get to stab things, set them on fire, and hit them with clubs.