I found this lovely flowering bush near the Dinosaur Footprints on the Connecticut River in Massachusetts, and immediately thought of you. So I left Evelyn marking tracks and snapped a few quick pics.

My basic first thought was, “Thank fuck it’s not a fruit tree!” I love fruit trees, I do, but I’m a little tired of them. Luckily, other things are beginning to bloom.

There’s a full view for ye. These were dainty but tall bushes, and reminded me a bit of honeysuckle, although they smelled nothing like it. I don’t recall any particular scent at all, actually.

There was this picturesque culvert, with these flowering bushes on both sides, and although all of this ran right alongside a fairly busy highway, it felt all peaceful and rural. I saw this and thought Cujo would like it. There were several times when I felt a bit guilty about not dragging him along. Then there were times when I was glad I hadn’t, namely during trips through airport security and stuffed on planes. But right here was one of those places I like to take him, because it has a little of everything.

And there was this little stream dashing down the tilted sedimentary beds. Evelyn and I are still working on determining what they are. The website swears it’s sandstone, but it seemed too fine-grained. I chewed on a bit, but I’m not adept yet at geology-by-taste-test, so I’m not sure what I should be looking for. I’ll report back in a few days with more definitive results and slightly smoother teeth.

I can report it’s slippery when wet. Nearly broke me neck walking round looking for any dinosaur tracks along that streambed. But I’m very good now at regaining my footing in streambeds. Have to be, living in Seattle and doing geology. And it was worth it just for the chance to see these lovely bushes overhanging the water.

So there you are: a mystery flower that isn’t northwest-centric. Enjoy! I’m going to go back to missing Evelyn now. Sigh.

Because I’m too damned tired to write anything of substance, I’m going to chuck a couple of pictures of geology in action at you and run away.

I’ll have a recap of the trip and tons of delightful photos up soon. First, though, a very long flight home and a coma.

This time of year is great for flowers. The fruit trees are still at it, and the rhodies are really starting to pop. There’s this little street behind Staples that I drive quite often, and it’s a corridor of yum from March to June.

Last week, these incredibly pink trees were bursting into bloom.

So of course I hoofed it down there with the camera. I know, I know, we’ve had nothing but fruit trees, but I haven’t found many wildflowers going yet, and besides, these are gorgeous.

Continue reading “Mystery Flora: Pretty in Pink” →

Don’t get a chance to do much of anything geological at work. Call center, cell phones, all a matter of fixing what’s wrong, and we haven’t even got any rocks on our part of the property. We used to have one of those old decorative trash containers that looks like concrete with pebbles embedded in, and I would amuse myself during smoke breaks trying to identify bits of rock, but they replaced those with some sleek metal things that may be more aesthetically pleasing to non-geologists, but is dead boring to rock addicts. So, not much chance at geology.

But we’re launching a newsletter, and this led to a little geology on the job. You see, we’re putting folks’ photos in, and our training department had some very cute and clever ones. Well, the editors (hello!) of the newsletter can’t be one-upped by the trainers, now, can they? So I recruited a coworker and friend who’s becoming a photographer. “We must pwn them,” I told her. And she, being of a competitive and artistic spirit, took up arms – otherwise known as a camera. We discussed matters. We decided I must bring the rock hammer to work. So I had the pleasure of swinging a hammer about at work without causing management to call security.

Continue reading “Geology on the Job” →

When I was a child, my mother read me books and told me stories. Then, out of plots, she told me I was old enough to make up my own stories. So I did. I filled them with unicorns living in crystal-studded caves. Of course unicorns had to live in crystal-studded caves. As I got older, I saw gorgeous caves, glorious caves. We went to Fantastic Caverns in Missouri, and it was indeed fantastic. The piece of aqua-blue cave glass we bought there stood in for the crystals of my imagination for quite a long time.

I’ve seen what calcite can do when water saturated with it drips and drops from ceilings and pools on floors in an underground silent save for the sound of water. I’ve seen a cavern in the desert that put everything else to shame. But magnificent caves with their walls glittering with enormous crystals remained fantasy – until Cueva de los Cristales.

One thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older: anything I can dream, the universe can do better. These are selenite crystals so big they dwarf the people exploring the caverns. There are crystals in there that are 11 meters long. 36 feet. A crystal that large wouldn’t fit in my living room. I’m not even sure it would fit in my apartment.

This is an extreme place. The scientists exploring it are dealing with temperatures hotter than Death Valley in summer and humidity like a rainforest in the wet season. No dry heat here. If you want to do geology in this place, you suit up in specially-designed suits, and even then, you don’t last long.

So this is what happens when a fault cracks the Earth open above a magma chamber, and gypsum-rich water gets to steam gently for 500,000 years.

Fantasy led me to science to begin with. Given the chance to go on a geological pilgrimage, this is where I would go: to a place where reality trumps fantasy, and geology shows that the human imagination, while a wonderful thing, can never quite measure up to the size of even one pale blue dot.

Image credit: OggiScienza and La Venta under a Creative Commons license. See La Venta’s exploration of Cueva de los Cristales here.