Oh, I see what you’re up to, PZ. Your stealth attack, meant to divide my loyalties and my loves, was clever. Cats vs. Rocks! Declare rock the winner, and Dana and her cat-loving rock fiend friends will have no choice but to admit rocks are cooler than cats!
It was a nice try, my friend. Bravo. Well played. However, you were pwned before you posted. Continue reading “Geology is Best With Kittehs!”
I can sum Alwyn Scarth’s La Catastrophe up in one sentence: light on the geology, heavy on the salacious details. Sigh. And I’d so been looking forward to it. I wanted to know more about the 1902 eruptions of Mount Pelée. Those events wiped out a city and introduced the infant science of volcanology to a whole new style of eruption. It could have been an outstanding book on the subject. Continue reading “La Catastrophe Doesn't Impress”
Oh, yes, my darlings. We will haz him. Little by little, we will suck him in, until he becomes the Bad Astrogeologist. Mwah-ha-ha!
So here he is, with a spectacular photo of Mount Shasta taken from the International Space Station, and yes – it’s delish. I present here the labeled version for volcano-from-space viewing pleasure.
Go. Read the post. Savor the line at the end: “I love volcanoes, and I’m fascinated by them.” This, my darlings, is our opening.*
Hence, I act whilst Phil is still in a volcano-dazzled state, and present a photo of Mount St. Helens from the ISS.
And suggestively link to the dramatic story of the events leading up to the big boom that turned her from a Shasta-like cone to what she is today: a shell of her former self.** This is what is known as “setting the hook.” Heh.
As further evidence that our Bad Astronomer could easily become our Bad Astrogeologist, I present to you: bouncing moon rocks. And Mars rocks. And Mars sand.
Yeah. Phil knows geology ain’t limited to Earth science. If it’s rocky, it’s ours – whether it’s an Earth volcano from space, a planet, a moon, a meteor… it’s geology! In space!
Even astronomers can’t help falling in love.
I look forward to more geology-in-space goodness at Phil’s new digs. It’s just too bad I didn’t have the chance to lobby for a name as well as venue change…
*Actually, we’ve had that for a long time – Phil knows geology and astronomy are two great sciences that taste great together. See: meteorites.
**I realized recently that I can sum up the St. Helens eruption very simply and accurately. My best friend mentioned something about how scientific papers should come in understandable language. I told him that’s what I’m here for: to translate scientific prose into everyday words. Such as, “Mountain fall down, go boom.” I always said that as a joke, but it’s actually what happened: sector collapse (volcano fall down) followed by a lateral eruption (go boom). This is why I love geology, people. Okay, one of the million trillion reasons I love geology. Many of even its most complex aspects can be understood without too many mental gymnastics, and explained to a layperson without making them wish to flee. Some of the other sciences have a bit more of a challenge in that department.
Our latest installment of The Cataclysm is up at Rosetta Stones for ye. In it, we see the directed blast make a break for freedom. Rawr.
I read soooo many papers for this, people. There were the four in Professional Paper 1250, and believe me when I say one of them made my brain bleed. Then there were all the papers I chased after trying to understand what we’d understood of directed blasts before. Then I kept finding more delicious papers. In fact, there are a few delicious papers I’m going to have to go begging PDFs of. That’s the problem with a project like this: you follow the information down a rabbit hole because, brain bleed or no, it’s intriguing and you want to know more. Why after why piles up. For every answer, more questions. This is science, people. It never ends, and it never gets boring. Well, never for long, anyway.
But I’m having a break from it for a day or two so I can read La Catastrophe, which just came in today. Yum!
That is the phrase I want all of you “pro-life” people to remember: “She had a heartbeat, too.”
And now she doesn’t, because people like you placed a doomed heartbeat above her own life.
Look at the woman your morals killed.
“She had a heartbeat, too.” Remember that. There is a life carrying that fetus you’re so concerned about. There is a human being you’re condemning to death when you tell her that the failing heartbeat of a person that will never be is more important than her own beating heart.
And if you can look me in the eye and tell me that what happened here was right and just, then I will know religion has stripped all traces of humanity and compassion from you.
Because, you know, I’m infected by parasites. You all get to suffer.
We had a rare interlude of sunshine, which my kitteh enjoyed immensely. She’s elderly, and on these days, I tend to go a bit overboard on the pictures, knowing each and every slight variation in her posture will bring back warm memories one day. Of course, when she goes, there’ll be another kitteh to take gigabyte upon gigabyte worth of photos of. It’s a good thing memory is so small and cheap now. Otherwise, I’d have to rent an extra room to store the cat photos in. Continue reading “Kitteh in Winter Sunbeam”
This is another UFD from Eskered, and I think it is my favorite. I teased it a while back, saying “There’s one, especially, that geologists are going to identify with. It’s definitely our kind o’ bird.” RQ hazarded a guess as to what that might be. It was an excellent guess, but rocks are only one aspect to being a geologist.
The other is, of course, beer. Continue reading “Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Geologist Bird”
Steve Gough left an enlightening comment on “Learning the Language of Rivers II,” which I don’t want folks to miss. It goes some way towards answering some of those questions the river raised: Continue reading “A Riverman Reads the River”
So here’s one from early this spring. I thought it was one of the strangest flowers I’d ever seen, which is why I spent at least fifteen minutes on my knees in the grass with it, trying to get adequate photos of it. Continue reading “Mystery Flora: Decidedly Odd”
Wow-e-wow. When Matt announced geopoetry as #51’s theme, I figured he’d get a few pieces, a little bit of fun stuff and some cute and clever entries. I didn’t expect so many folks in the geoblogosphere to be full-on poets. This is a beautiful collection.
And might I just mention, I love this photo Matt chose to accompany my own entry?
Love love love!
Our own Karen Locke came in for some considerable praise.
Karen Locke has written a wonderful story in poetic form about a trip to Vaughn Gulch. This poem really brings the feeling of the place out and the experience of being on a geology class trip. A truly remarkable piece and I really love the end and how it captures the feeling that there is always more to see.
Exactly so!
Take some time to go savor these paeans to the good science of rock-breaking. And give Matt some love – he put together something special here.
