science

Science and Media, or Why Laypeople Get the Wrong Impression

Dana Hunter3 Comments

I’ve wanted to be many things in my life – astronomer, vet, private detective, rock star, figure skater.  There was once a brief flirtation with the idea of a journalism degree before I got distracted by other shiny things.  I didn’t go for the degree because I decided to focus my energies on my book instead (please don’t ask me how that’s going), but I learned a few things along the way.  Things like verify your sources, get your facts straight, don’t believe the first thing you hear.

Since I didn’t actually attend classes, I can’t tell you what’s being taught these days.  But it apparently has no relation to the books on journalism I read, because it’s become evident that the bulk of modern “journalism” consists of rumormongering, inane babble, stenography, and getting everything possible wrong.  Where’s H.L. Mencken when you need him?

Of course, things have never been all that spiffy when it comes to reporters attempting to report on science.  Certainly, there are science journalists who get it right – Carl Zimmer, anyone?  But here’s what I remember from the science pages of any number of newspapers and magazines:

ZOMG scientists have discovered chocolate causes cancer!  No, wait, it cures cancer!  No, wait, it just makes you fat!  No, wait, it-

I actually gave up on science for a while because it seemed like scientists couldn’t make up their minds.  All of those breathless reports, the controversies and the contradictory studies, the certainty about one thing followed by the certainty about exactly the opposite, drove me crazy.  I was like, totally, y’know, get back to me when you actually know something, m’kay?

Well, as it turns out, that ignorance arose only partly because I was an idiot with a piss-poor high school science education.  A lot of it had to do with the way science gets reported.  Journalists, it turns out, know jack fucking shit about how science works.  If they did know, the public would have a good grounding in what preliminary results are, would understand the difference between press releases and peer reviewed papers, and know precisely why a promising line of research doesn’t always lead to the conclusion we thought it would.  We’d understand that evidence isn’t always black-or-white, cut-and-dried, nor easy to interpret.  We’d appreciate the difference between settled science and cutting-edge frontier stuff. 

It’s gotten so bad that Tom Swanson at Swans on Tea came up with a disclaimer for scientists to read, slowly and with careful pronunciation and emphasis, to any journalist they’re unfortunate enough to speak with:

Please understand that the following result is preliminary and should not be taken as the final word. For anyone unfamiliar with the field, an effort must be made on the reader’s part to see where this fits in with the prevailing models of the day. There is a chance that it could be wrong or have only limited applicability to broader problems being investigated by other research teams. Further investigation may confirm our findings, or show that our results were anomalous or contained errors.

Alas, I’m not sure that would help, considering that even slow and careful explanation with plenty of emphasis seems to get lost somewhere in the labyrinth of the journalistic brain:

A few years back, there was a guy working for a small paper in Newport who had, in several stories, really misunderstood coast range geology. I offered to take him on a day trip up Marys Peak, where you can see the best possible transect of the rock sequence, from sea-floor basalts through a couple of sedimentary units, and a gabbroic sill. He got the geo more or less right, but described me as a professor in geology, even though he knew perfectly well I worked for science education, and I had taken pains to explain the difference between a professor and an instructor.

Sigh.

Poor Lockwood.  I’m not sure how he resisted the temptation to apply a rock hammer to said reporter’s head in an attempt to beat some sense into him.

Now, mind you, I do understand simple human error (I’d better, considering I changed Silver Fox’s gender on her yesterday – mea culpa, Silver!).  Reporters dealing with an unfamiliar subject, under deadline pressure, can fuck up.  But is it too much to ask for a few minutes’ proof-reading?  Especially when this is their career rather than a hobby?  And can the reporters whose regular beat is science, even if they’re just doing it for the local rag, please oh please learn at least a little about how science actually works?

The public depends on them getting it right.  I’m not sure reporters realize just how much damage they do by fucking up very nearly everything in science reporting, but it’s high time they did.  I just wish the judicious application of a rock hammer to precise parts of the brainpan could get it through their skulls.

Science and Media, or Why Laypeople Get the Wrong Impression
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Ye Olde Housekeeping Post with Links to More Interesting Fare

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Egads, tonight has gotten away from me.  I meant to do all sorts of fun and exciting things, and here I’ve only done some desultory reading on the intertoobz, written a piece that will go up on a very grim anniversary (don’t worry, you won’t have long to stew over the mystery before it appears), and am in the midst of a Rocko’s Modern Life marathon.

Inspiration, alas, rather failed me after all that.  

Now it’s time to eat and get some work done, which means kicking a brain that has no intention of Serious Thought into gear.  It wants to be fed more Rocko and put to bed.  I intend to finish some geology research for upcoming posts whether I have to take my brain to the woodshed for a beating or whether kind persuasion will work.

For those pining for a bit o’ science, here be some links:

Brian Switek can assure you that Triceratops isn’t going anywhere, and give you a prehistoric anatomy lesson to boot.

Silver Fox has reported on her* Oregon Trip Day 3, and this is the place to go if you’re looking for ale and ashfalls, this is the place.

Erik Klemetti reports on a dome collapse in Indonesia.  If you immediately realized I wasn’t talking about architecture, you might just be a geologist.

Orac unleashes some patented Respectful Insolence on those who think basic science is an obstacle to potential med students.  At least now I have another question in the “determining my doctor’s potential competence” checklist.

And this isn’t science, but our own John Pieret is going through Judge Walker’s Prop8 opinion, with hysterical results. Catch the first two installments here and here.  Have bandages ready, as your sides will likely split.

With that, my darlings, I bid you adieu until tomorrow night.

*Sorry!  

Ye Olde Housekeeping Post with Links to More Interesting Fare

Whiskey on the Rocks

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Thank you, Chris Rowan, for abandoning us all for Scotland and then coming back to rub it in.  This improved my mood instantly:



Yeah, that would 6-8 hundred million year-old diamictite he’s standing next to.  Is it a sign that you’re seriously addicted to geology when you look at something like this and literally start to drool?

Then the bastard had to tell us how he went off and had some famous Scottish whiskey.  I may have to someday follow in his footsteps.  Who’s with me?

Whiskey on the Rocks

Life on the Rocks

Dana Hunter4 Comments

This whole post started because Lockwood asked me a question on Facebook:

Where was your profile photo taken? Those are some rocks I would classify as Om Nom Nom.

That was pretty much my response when I first saw ’em.  That’s the South Bluff at Discovery Park.

 Moi at Discovery Park.  All photos taken by my intrepid companion, unless otherwise noted.

I still remember standing before it the first time.  It looks like nothing but compacted sand from a distance, but up close, you find it’s actually sandstone.  I stood there tracing its bedding planes with my hands.  It surprised me with its cool, slightly damp, almost smooth but a touch gritty feel.  I’m used to rocks in the sun being hot.  The waves that carved our stones stopped breaking millions of years ago, in most cases.  Here, water’s still busy sculpting.  Dear old South Bluff is probably just a brief blip on the radar, a mayfly in geological terms.  The waves will wear it away in time.  Most people think of stone as somehow permanent, just like I used to.  But the vast majority of it is ephemeral, destined to be worn away to sand and soil again, perhaps buried and melted.  Some of it will end up stuffed into a subduction zone, some will end up metamorphosed and barely recognizable.  But that first moment, coming upon this, is for me eternal.

Folks sometimes ask how I ended up in Seattle.  It’s because of geology.  I came up here on a research mission for my magnum opus in 2000, and when I first saw the snow-capped Olympics embracing our plane as it landed, I knew I was home.  Only took seven years before I came home for good.

Seattle denizens look at me like I’m insane when I tell them I left sunny Arizona for the near-perpetual rain of the Northwest.  They’ll probably never understand the pull of this place, unless they’re Lord of the Rings fans, and remember what Bilbo said:

I want to see mountains again, mountains, Gandalf!  And then settle down somewhere quiet where I can finish my book.

That’s why I’m here.  But the yearning for mountains began long, long ago in a state very far away. 


I grew up with the San Francisco Peaks and Mount Elden framed in my back window.  This isn’t exactly the view – none of those long-ago photos are digitized yet – but this will give you an idea:

San Francisco Peaks and Mount Elden, snagged from Coastline Journal

That glacier-carved stratovolcano dominated my childhood.  So much so that when my grandmother stood with me admiring the view on one of her visits from Indiana, I turned to her and asked, “Grandma, how can you live in a place without mountains?”  She laughed, and she and my mother tried to explain that people who’d lived in flat country all their lives got used to it, but I didn’t understand.  No more than I understood why people called the Ozarks mountains.  We crossed them once, driving to Indiana, and I remember seeing a sign saying something like, “Ozark Mountains, elevation 600 ft.”  I burst out laughing.  Where I come from, anything under 2000 feet is a hill.  Well, parts of them qualify, but not the bits we were crossing.

My childhood was rocky, and I mean that in the best possible way.  Everywhere I went, there were rocks: old rocks, young rocks, dark rocks, light rocks.  In my literal back yard, you could find limestone from ancient seas, basalt from young volcanoes, and pumice blown out by the Peaks, among a great many other varieties.  The rock collection we plucked from our yard and the national forest backing it won me first prize at the Coconino County Fair one year.  To be brutally honest, the competition must not have been fierce, and no one was more shocked than I was to see that blue ribbon pinned to the collection, but it was nice.

Within easy driving distance of my house, sometime within walking distance, geologic wonders abounded.  We used to catch tadpoles in Wildcat Canyon, a large gully cut in Kaibab limestone, just a short hike through the pinon forest.  None of us kids realized we were chasing amphibians while 250 million year-old seabeds loomed over us.

Just a short drive away, we could see something that was obviously awesome: an actual impact crater, 50,000 years old but looking as if it got gouged out just last year:

Moi at Meteor Crater

Someday, really truly, I’m going to do a post all about it.  I have the research done and everything. 

This is where I found my first-ever fossil all by my lonesome:

Mah first fossil: A Wormcast!

Look, it was impressive to me, all right?  But if you want really impressive, here’s just one piece of the meteor that struck the high desert plain and left this gargantuan hole:

Moi with meteor

That is one enormous chunk of iron-nickel, that is.  And it’s only one of many enormous chunks scattered about – there’s another equally as large at Lowell Observatory, and doubtless plenty of others in various places.  I’m not sure where they all ended up.  It’s appropriate they’re scattered now, as they were strewn all over the place when it struck.

You can’t help but be impressed with astronomy after viewing this.  Appreciation for its geological significance came a great many years after I first visited.  For a while, though, I was under the spell of our neighbor, an astronomer at Lowell, and I was all about being an astronomer.  Wasn’t long, though, before the rocks started drawing me back.

It is very, very hard not to be impressed by the majesty of geology when you have this practically in your back yard:

Moi with the Grand Canyon

Now, mind you, we ferried various out-of-town relatives to the Canyon that it got to be a chore.  “Aw, do we have to go see that great big hole in the ground again?”  But that was before I started getting interested in its geology.  Look down into the Canyon, and you’re peering into nearly 2 billion years of history.

Moi giving my intrepid companion a heart attack by appearing to sit at the edge of a two-billion year drop.

And of course, it’s a great place to get your rocks on, especially if you like limestone:

Moi with limestone

But appreciation for deep time had to wait many years.  First, I’d live a life dominated by sandstone.  We moved to Sedona when I was 12, and for the next two years, you’d usually find me scrambling about on the red rocks, climbing Sugarloaf, staining my white socks red in the deep red sandy soils.  In the summer, we’d head for Oak Creek Canyon for the blackberry picking; in winter, for the icefalls.  It was fantastically beautiful, a red-splashed green oasis in dry country:

Moi with Misha at Slide Rock State Park

I had no idea of the eons of desert and sea that went in to the making of those rock formations, of course.  All I knew was that it was pretty, but I missed my mountains.  I pined for them.  And then came the happy day that my parents announced we were moving – to Page.

More desert.  No mountain.  Argh.  I spent my high school years scrambling over ancient lithified sand dunes, running along slick rock ledges a few inches wide with a sheer drop of hundreds of feet one misstep away.  But that old sandstone never let me down.  We called it slick rock because of what happened when it rained.  In the dry season (which was most of the time), the sandstone gripped my soles tight, and never let me fall.

Wind and water carved ancient dunes into fantastical shapes.  I washed windows for Michael Fatali’s gallery, and got to spend a lot of time studying the slot canyons carved from flash floods that he captured in their astounding natural light:
Eternal Voyager, Michael Fatali

He risked his life for those images.  Flash floods didn’t often announce themselves on the plateau, and you didn’t have much chance of escaping when one thundered down those sheer-sided slots.  People died.  An entire group of French tourists were drowned one year.  That pretty much cured me of any desire to go playing around in the slot canyons myself, but I did end up taking a gentleman from New Zealand around to see the sights after having been volunteered for tour guide duty by our local coffee-shop owner.  It might seem crazy to head for the middle of nowhere with a perfect stranger, but he wanted to see the Horseshoe, and I figured it was a long enough dive into the Colorado River if I needed to take care of any unwanted advances.  The desert was friend, enemy, and convenient weapon.  Fortunately for all, he turned out to be a perfect angel, and we spent a delightful day trekking all over the canyon country. 

I hated Page, but I still deeply love its surroundings.  The silence there is indescribable.  It’s as if all those millions of years bear down, hushing noisy civilization and allowing you to sink deep into deep time.

Speaking of sinking deep, one of the prime destinations for Arizona folk was Montezuma’s Well, an enormous sinkhole close to Cottonwood. 

 Moi at Montezuma’s Well.  This is the typical view my poor intrepid companion gets.  And yes, that is a Peacemakers tattoo.

I’d visited it as a kid, but didn’t really get to know it until I took a physical geography class from the incomparable Jim Bennett.  For our field trip, he hauled us all out there, and showed me a spot I’d never before seen, where the waters of the well escape in a narrow creek.  It’s quite possibly the most serene place in all of Arizona that’s accessible by car.  Water in the desert is a precious and awe-inspiring thing.

For my physical geology picture project, I dragged my poor friend Janhavi all over the Flagstaff area.  And you might not think sinkholes when you think Flagstaff, but it happens just to the north, where the old sea left lots of limestone, and great caves got carved into it later.  There’s a great place at Wupatki that might one day end up being a sinkhole, but right now, the underground caverns have few outlets, and the blowhole at Wupatki is just an outstanding demonstration of air pressure.  I re-created the demo photo with my intrepid companion when we were there:

 Moi having my hair done by the blowhole.

Those were the years.  I’d moved to Prescott to attend college.  I could admire the Mingus Mountains (yes, technically, it’s Mingus Mountain, but the locals call the whole range by that name). There was an ancient shield volcano and an even more eroded volcanic neck (where quite a bit of necking got done), and then the Granite Dells, where we spent more than one afternoon happily scrambling about the granite boulders.

Moi and Granite Dells

No better place to get intimate with how granite weathers, really. 

But in the end, I had to go back home, back to my old stratovolcano and the young cindercones that surround it like courtiers.

Moi reliving my childhood at Red Mountain.

Most of the cones are healthy and intact, but Red Mountain got half of itself rafted away on a lava flow, leaving a spectacular view into its interior.

I spent many happy years with my mountains, often taking the long drive up the San Francisco Peaks to the ski resort, wandering around Sunset Crater National Monument, exploring the places I’d grown up.  But Flagstaff is poverty with a view, and the wonderful company I worked for was headed on a downhill slide, and it was time to leave.  I’d already settled on Seattle, but couldn’t afford it alone.  I ended up in Phoenix instead, surrounded by concrete, the rocks too damned hot in the summer to go play in, the mountains too low and the Valley too wide.  Miserable years, until the very end, when all my friends moved down just as I was preparing to leave.  So it goes.  But by then, I had a friend who wanted Seattle as much as I did, and nothing was going to hold me back from those mountains.

There was only one drawback: active volcanoes.  I grew up with volcanoes, but they were all dormant, y’see.  I have a wee bit o’ a volcano phobia.  I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to get up close and personal with an actual live, actively-erupting volcano, but we made the trek to Mount St. Helens, and I discovered that awe is a fine antidote to fear.  I stood on the banks of the Toutle River, which had channeled a devastating lahar on May 18th, 1980.

Moi at the Toutle River, courtesy of me former roomie

I ran my hands through its gritty sand, volcanic ash mixed with eroded rock, and marveled at its texture.  The volcanic soils in Flagstaff are elderly – the youngest is over 900 years old.  This was younger than I was.  And then we drove on up to the mountain itself, and I stood staring down into its steaming throat, without fear:

Moi and the volcano, likewise

A poem by Walter Savage Landor rather captures the moment:

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of all his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

You still couldn’t pay me enough to camp there, though.

Once I’d set foot on the flanks of one active volcano, I couldn’t resist doing another:

Moi and Mount Rainier, ye final photo taken by ye former roommate

Hiked a snowfield in late August and saw my first glacier that year, which, I can tell you, is a pretty damned astounding sight for someone who grew up in Arizona, even northern Arizona.

The geology bug bit me in dead earnest not much later.  It had taken a few serious nibbles in Arizona, but Washington State has really turned me into an avid geology buff.  I think it’s because it’s so young and raw here.  Oh, granted, Arizona looks more raw, but its geology is all pretty much in the past.  Until you know more about how those landforms formed, you don’t feel its immensity, its immediacy.  It’s all just lovely scenery.  Out here, though, you can’t help but to notice geology’s astounding power.  And it’s not just the volcanoes, but floods so powerful they stripped the land to bare bedrock.

Moi at Dry Falls, trying to get my crappy old PhotoSmart camera to take it all in whilst ye intrepid companion laughs his arse off .

The fact that I now have to go searching for rocks rather than just looking down and seeing hey, there they are probably has a bit to do with it, too.  One ends up taking even the most spectacular scenery for granted when its too familiar.  I had to leave home before I could love it again.  I had to discover yesterday’s dramatic geology before I could fall into deep time.  Now, when I go back to Arizona, I can appreciate those two billion years of history.  I wriggle my shoes deep into dry dirt, lay my hands on my old friends sandstone and limestone, and feel myself sinking into a past whose history is written in chapters of strata.

I’ve lived my life on the rocks, and I haven’t regretted it a bit.

Life on the Rocks

Fangirl Gets Noticed by the Rock Stars, Freaks the Hell Out

Dana Hunter4 Comments

And when I say rock stars, I mean geobloggers.  Y’know, the real rock stars.

My darlings.  Please put down the handy throwable objects.  I promise that’s the last silly pun in this post.  Now stop aiming at my head.  Thank you.

Now, allow to ‘splain, or at least sum up.  Earlier today, several geobloggers I admire (and some I’d never heard of) were discussing Scientopia’s sad lack of geology on Twitter, and I threw in my two cents as a reader by telling them to storm the gates.  I happen to believe every good general science blogging network should have a hefty helping of geobloggers, and it’s about damned time geology got some respect.  Leaving geology out of a science collective is Just Not Right.  It gives the impression geology isn’t a hard science, or isn’t science worthy of equal standing with other branches of science, and it makes it damned hard for readers like me to track down good geoblogging.  Travesties all.

Of course, I expected no response to said tweet.  I’m just an interested amateur egging on the professionals.  Do not consider myself a scienceblogger nor geoblogger.  Take no notice of me, folks, except as a fan cheering you on.  I went grocery shopping.  I lounged on the porch and debated knocking on the neighbors’ door to ask them to please shut the window because their activities were a distraction.  Came back in, checked my email, and just about fell out of my chair, because Twitter was informing me that Actual Professional Geologists such as Ron Schott and Silver Fox were now following me.  Not only that, I had a comment from Real Live Geoblogger Lockwood welcoming me to the Geoblogosphere and saying he’d gotten here by way of Ron Schott’s shared items feed.

It was about this time my mind said, “ZOMG WTF oshitoshitoshit.”

I figured I’d given some poor souls the wrong impression.  I’m a potty-mouthed political blogger who sometimes pontificates poorly on science, but spends quite a bit of time ranting about religion, wanking about writing, and generally going off on whatever else catches my atten – ooo, shiny.  Where was I?  Oh, yes – there was a wild moment of terror in which I wondered if my next step would have to be applying to U-Dub for an actual degree.  Then I realized that Ron would’ve had to comb through all that other stuff to find the actual geology, that my welcome message gives some hints, and that my science posts are usually pretty well-hedged about with the “I’m no professional” and “I have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about” disclaimers, so I could probably stop the I’m-not-worthy routine.  Still, I feel a bit like I would if Neil Gaiman suddenly dropped by ye olde blog and then told his friends and fans that I’m an SF writer worthy of their attention.  I’d wonder if the poor bugger had gone completely mad.

And then I’d wonder what I’d have to do to really earn that esteem.

But, just in case some new folks swing by the cantina with certain expectations that I am, at this time, unable to meet, let’s be clear: I’m a rank amateur whose amateurish attempts at blogging about geology, biology and whatever other bits of science caught my attention that day are buried amid the detritus of politics, atheism, catblogging, squees about music, and, in the right season, fiction writing. 

I’ve taken one (1) class in actual geology, a class in physical geography, and zero (0) in any other science.  All I know, I’ve learned from blogs and books.  And what I know ain’t much.

Why, then, do I bother to blog about science at all?  Follow me after the jump, and I’ll try to explain myself.

Still with me?  Unbelievable. 

Right, then.  Well, I started blogging science because of PZ Myers.  Attended two of his talks a few years ago, y’see, and came away all fired up.  You can read the whole story here.  The upshot of it is, he made me realize that all of us who love science, from the scientists to the science writers to the fanboys and girls, must advocate for it.

Many of my readers already love science.  Some don’t.  I write about science for all of them.  And I hope for two things: that this laywoman’s passion for science will reinforce scientists’ passion to communicate the beauty and the wonder of it, and that these posts will inspire those who never considered science as anything more than a desperately boring requirement for graduation to fall in love, just as I have. 

I write about science because I’m appalled by my own ignorance.  That may seem like a bizarre reason to blog about science – why not simply keep reading, or take a class, and shut up about the shit I don’t know?  I don’t think I really knew the answer to that until I read this at George’s blog:

The generation effect, as studied by cognitive psychologists, shows that knowledge is better retained if it is “generated” by the learner than simply read. “Generation” can be as simple as learning a spelling by “filling in the gaps” or as complex as writing a book about your studies
Alex Kessinger: Notetaking as a way to stay smart

I hadn’t thought of it this way but it could seriously be the main reason I blog.  Yes, I have various passions that I like to share, but my brain is chaotic and unreliable.  Blogging helps me get my thoughts straight.  Once I’ve put it into words, (and when I am lucky, people have commented on it), I have a much better chance of holding on to it and integrating it into my understanding of the world. 

Lightbulbs weren’t even in it – halogens flashed on.  Yes.  Yes.  When I do those write-ups of my geologic journeys, I’m forced to go back and integrate what I’ve read into a coherent whole.  Reading is passive.  Writing is active – I know this because of the buckets of sweat that pour out of me when I’m trying to get the details right.  I’m astonished by how little I’ve actually retained from my reading.  Writing those posts confronts me with the enormous gaps in my knowledge and forces me to fill a few of them in.  Bonus, there’s always a chance that my wiser readers will kick me arse over mistakes and pour a little more knowledge in.

And finally, I blog about science because I can’t not do it.  I go running all over the Pacific Northwest chasing down interesting geology, sometimes encounter fascinating biology, run in to a hell of a lot of beauty, and I’m supposed to keep it to myself?  Some people whip out pictures of their grandkids and wax poetic for ages.  Well, I’m like that about the incredible science I’ve seen.  Remarkably, some of my readers actually like it when I do that to them.  So I keep doing it, for them, and for me.

Sometimes, I consider doing nothing but science on this blog, but I can’t.  I’ve got a magpie mind and a mouth prone to running.  I enjoy taking the Smack-o-Matic to idiotic politicians on a semi-regular basis.  There are times when I can’t help babble about writing, especially during the winter writing season.  Dangle a fundamentalist in front of me, and the temptation to ridicule them becomes overwhelming.  My cat is my kid, so of course I sometimes have to show her off, murderous wee beastie that she is.  And then there are the sublime moments, where something captivates me so thoroughly that I have to point it out to others.  That might be a song, or a piece of art, or just a perfect moment.  There are readers to brag about (because you know all you all are precious to me), and various and sundry to celebrate.  I could no more confine myself to one topic than my cat could confine herself to being a perfect angel all of the time.  For those of you wondering what the metaphor means, put it like this: it would be like a tiger deciding to become a vegetarian.

So that’s it, my long-winded explanation of What This Blog’s About and Why.  Probably silly to have babbled on like this, when I could have just pointed to Lockwood instead and said, “Likewise!”

Geology is important. And it’s woefully undervalued and ignored in our society. When I created this blog, it was mostly for my own entertainment; an online archive, scrapbook, what have you, of things that captured my attention for a while. As it turns out, about 3 in 20 of those things are geology related. That’s certainly a higher ratio than it would be for a typical person. I think I came to geology for the beauty and stayed for the awesome- and I mean awesome in the old, now somewhat archaic, sense of conferring a sense of awe. Of being somewhat paralyzed by the spectacle, by the connections, by the implications of something I’ve learned or seen. Even a little fearful, perhaps. As regular readers know, I’m quite fearful for the fate of our species in light of what we know of the past, and what our collective decision making is like in the present. The earth, and some fraction of its biota, will abide. Humanity, if it cannot learn from its environment, will not.

Having some sort of geoliteracy is critical to understanding our environment. That has become a part of why I do geology posts: I have a great diversity of readers, some geoliterate, some not. I enjoying sharing my excitement with the beauty and power of our planet, and I feel an obligation to help people understand some of the forces that shape it.

Amen, brother.  A-fucking-men.

In that post, he called himself “a peripheral member of this ecosystem.”  I don’t even know if I’m that, really, but I certainly won’t argue if I become so.  There are far worse things than being Pluto in relation to the Really Real Planets of the solar system.  At least we all get to orbit the same sun, even if some of us are distant and awfully erratic.

Finally, and most importantly: Thank you.  Thank you for pulling me into your orbit, and most of all, thank you for blogging the good science.  You give ordinary folk like me knowledge, hope and wonder, and those are never small things.

Fangirl Gets Noticed by the Rock Stars, Freaks the Hell Out

Wither Geology?

Dana Hunter2 Comments

I hadn’t perused Scientopia’s categories until a brushfire broke out on Twitter regarding the absence of geoblogging there.  So I looked.  Sure enough, no geology.



That’s just not right.

Look, I know biology and chemistry and physics are all shiny and exciting, but so is geology, damn it!  One of the things that always annoyed me about ScienceBlogs was the dearth of geoblogging.  That irritation looks set to carry over to Scientopia.

So I have just one message for them:



Want moar geology!

Networks and collectives that cover a wide range of science gives layfolk like me the chance to stumble across blogs we never otherwise would have known existed.  Do you think I would have ever found Highly Allochthonous had it not been for their stint on ScienceBlogs?  Highly doubtful!  Especially considering I didn’t visit them for a bit even there because I had no idea what “allochthonous” meant.  But the beauty of a collective is that intriguing posts get splashed on the front page, and lightbulbs light up for ignorant idiots like me.  For those of us wanting to find geobloggers but having no idea where to look for trustworthy ones, it gives us a key to the kingdom.  For those of us who (gasp!) didn’t actually like geology, it gives us a chance to fall in love with a totally awesome branch of science.

So, Scientopia: go forth and dig up some geologists!

*Update: Scientopia’s already been taken to the woodshed, and it appears they’re having trouble finding geobloggers.  So, if you’re a geologist: volunteer, damn it!

Wither Geology?

A New Science Blog Collective is Born

Dana Hunter

And it has forced me to spend an hour updating my blogroll.  But I’m not unhappy, no!  Because now there’s a brand-new, shiny source for science blogging: Scientopia.  A lot of your favorite ScienceBlogs expats have found new homes there, among them Whitecoat Underground.

Bora’s given them a proper introduction, so I’ll just confine my remarks to: WOOT!

A New Science Blog Collective is Born

Oregon Geology Parte the Second: Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Dana Hunter5 Comments

At last, the long-awaited continuation of our series on Oregon geology!  If you were breathless with anticipation, you can breathe now.

In Parte the First, we made it to Astoria, and caught a fleeting glimpse of Tillamook Head.  We learned that the Columbia River Basalt flows are responsible for a lot of the outstanding features of the area, but didn’t get to see much of them because of all the damned trees in the way.  Well, trees have a hard time growing on cliffs whilst pounded by salt water, so the bastards are in retreat, and we finally get to see ourselves some rocks.  We also get more than a distant, misty glimpse of Tillamook Head, and learn why it is called “massive.”  Follow me after the jump for a look at why earth, air, fire and water were the original elements.

We’ve made it to Ecola State Park, my darlings.  You may be thinking, “What a silly name!  Sounds like ebola without the b.”  But you won’t be thinking it for long, because you’ll be distracted by nature’s artistic genius:



It might also help to realize that Ecola is derived from ekoli, a Chinook word meaning “whale.” 

Take a moment to enlarge that photo and absorb it a bit.  Here’s the words of one of my characters to help along your appreciation:

“Do you realize, Alex, that however many millions of years ago, all of this was a burning mass of superheated rock?  None of this existed until good Mother Earth vented her rage and spilled this land from her belly.  Outstanding.  It almost lies beyond comprehension.”

Key word: almost.  We can comprehend it, although it took centuries of effort by geologists to piece together its story.  That effort began with Nicolas Steno, who emphasized the importance of strata, and continued with Dr. James Hutton, who got us thinking in terms of millions upon millions of years rather than a paltry handful of thousands.  Charles Lyell carried the revolution forward by applying the processes of today to the past, which helped us understand how geological features are formed.  Studies of wave erosion, along with studies of faults and such, revealed how nature carves such beautiful scenery out of dark black basalt. Advances in chemistry and the study of the Columbia River Basalts showed us that a lot of the land here came from back east, rather than forming right along the coast as some thought.  And then came the plate tectonics boys and girls to finish this chapter of the story.  There are still things we don’t understand about how this land formed, but we’ve got the big picture fairly well figured out.

When you look at that picture, you’re looking at a lot more than just pretty land, sea and mountains.  You’re looking at an epic tale.

Let’s get storytelling.  And we’ll start as all good stories do, in media res, with something sure to catch the reader’s attention: Tillamook Head.



That would not have been a good place to be 15.6 million years ago, when the basalts erupting from fissures in eastern Oregon flooded the landscape all the way to the sea.  Granted, you would have had nice, comfy mudstone under your feet – our old friend the Grande Ronde Basalt flow intruded that mudstone along bedding planes, forming a sill, rather than just pouring out on top of the land just there.  But it probably would’ve been uncomfortably warm.  That sill is 250 feet thick.  Imagine having 250 feet of molten rock flowing under a thin skin of mudstone.  Brings a whole new meaning to the word hotfoot, doesn’t it just?

Here’s a wonderful example of a thinner sill to give you an idea of what the Grande Ronde was up to amidst the mudstones:

Don’t turn your nose up at it.  That’s a perfectly good mineral sandwich, that is, even though the filling’s not 250 feet thick.

The Grande Ronde flow headed west along the continental shelf, following bedding planes until it was more than 600 feet under the sea.  And it wasn’t just calmly flowing through the middle of its mudstone sandwich.  In fact, had you been there, you might have seen quite the sight about a mile offshore as a portion of the Grande Ronde found a weak spot and headed for the surface, erupting up through the sedimentary stone and making its own private island, which we now know as Tillamook Rock:



Some rock, right?  I mean, it’s big enough to fit a lighthouse on.  And at one time, it probably looked a lot like this:



Yes, folks, millions of years ago, someone could’ve made a profit by running lava tours along the Oregon coast.  Seaside mansions, however, might not have been an option.

All that basalt is Tillamook Head’s raison d’etre, but if the sill had intruded just a bit higher or lower, it wouldn’t exist.  It’s on account of the mudstone, you see.  Mudstone is easier for the ocean to erode than basalt, and that nice, thick sill right at sea level keeps the head from getting cut away by waves.  Had it been located any differently, water would have done its work, eroded the mudstones away, and the basalt sill would’ve gone plop into the sea.  Little bits of interest would have still been there, though, because some of those Eocene seafloor basalts we discussed in the last episode ended up jammed onto the Head.  Not that I managed to find them this trip.  But it’s nice to know it’s not all just mudstone and modern basalt up there – if you search, you’ll find bits of submarine volcanoes and seamounts.

Someday, though, despite its basalt bulwark, Tillamook Head will succumb to the persistence of water, and shall end up looking much like this:



Those little sea stacks mark the previous position of the headland.  A few thousand years ago, the heads were much bigger.  All that’s left of all that land now is a few stubborn chunks of basalt.  This next image will help us see what’s going on:



Oh, the waves are nice and polite now, but consider a few things: all that pretty, soft sand between the rocks is carried in by the waves, which wields it like sandpaper.  When they get a little more vigorous, they toss in some gravel.  And when they get really worked up during storms, they toss boulders around with abandon – the lighthouse can attest to that, as it’s been assaulted by bouncing boulders more than a few times in its history.  The basalt can stand up to the abuse better than the mudstone – you see how the mudstone to the left is all soft and crumbly, while the basalt looks rather more stolid.  But pound on it long enough with all that grit, and it too wears away.  Basalt becomes sand, silt and gravel, mixed with mudstone remnants, and will someday be reborn as mud and sandstones laid down in layers on the continental shelf.  Due to the vagaries of plate tectonics, it could eventually find itself hoisted up to form new sea cliffs.  If it’s really fortunate (and we’re not), it might even find itself intruded by new flood basalts, offering it protection from the erosive action of the sea, and thus a reprise as a magnificent headland.  Immortality of a sort.  If rocks had religion, they’d probably be Buddhist or Hindu, knowing they have an endless round of reincarnations awaiting them.

We’ll get back to destruction in a moment, but first let’s talk about creation.  More than one Columbia River Basalt group found its way to the sea here at Ecola.  Along with our old friend the Grande Ronde, the younger Frenchman Springs member decided to go for a swim.  It piled on top of the Grande Ronde basalts and dived right on in:



And that was it.  Those two are the only members of the Columbia River Basalt group who made it to the coast – the rest were landlubbers.

The Oregon coastline is famous for its sea stacks.  We have some fine examples here, just off shore:



What most folks ogling them don’t realize is that those pretty, solitary stacks are remnants of Grande Ronde dikes.  There’s even dikes that still look like dikes:

And they look solid as, well, rock, but they won’t be there forever.  The dikes and sills are destined to get chopped into ever-smaller pieces, and this is where our four elements combine to make some rather awesome geology.

Fire, y’see, became earth.  The molten rock cooled and solidified, creating new land, and immediately started getting itself bashed by water.  Water seems all calm and serene until you soak a sink full of encrusted dishes and realize the stuff just took a few hours to soften up a crust it would’ve taken a chisel to get rid of earlier.  Get water moving, and its erosive power increases: any kid who’s carved canyons into the poor defenseless front yard with a garden hose can tell you that.  Add sand to the mix, and it gets downright abrasive.  But then, you might ask, why isn’t the coastline sanded smooth?  Why isolated sea stacks?  Why big chunks ripped out?

This is where air comes in.  Yes, air.  Denizens of dry country, as I used to be, don’t realize that water pushes a lot of air around, but it does.  And the results can be rather spectacular:



Those miniature sea caves there are full of air.  When the breakers pound into them, air’s compressed and driven into fractures in the rock.  Eventually, between the beating those rocks take from air and water, big chunks of rock get loosened and knocked out.  Given enough time and wave action, and highly-fractured rock gets carved right out, leaving the less-fractured stuff standing (for the moment).  Hence, sea caves and arches.  Gravity provides an assist in pulling undermined things down.  And we end up with boulder-strewn beaches which themselves are ground down to help provide all that lovely sand we love to build castles in.

Headlands take a hell of a thrashing.  They’re out there in front, with nothing to shield them from the onslaught of the surf.  Here’s the concept in miniature:



See how the waves are all curving around to converge on the projecting tip of rock?  They get squashed as they converge, and all their energy gets squashed with them.  That allows them to concentrate their force in a much smaller area – it’s not all spread out.  Thus, the headland bears the brunt, and the waves work on making all the crooked bits straight and smooth.  The echinoderms and other assorted sea creatures that call that tide pool home will have to look for other accommodations.  And so, if you built your house on a headland, will you.

It’s not just waves that have sculpted Ecola, though – gravity’s got its heavy hand in, and even though the trees try to cover for it, they give it away:



Note the crazy angles of the tree trunks in the background.  The area’s riddled with shallow faults, which have triggered landslides.  The land’s so steep here that it doesn’t take much encouragement for those soft mudstones to go slip-sliding away.  One of the books I consulted, In Search of Ancient Oregon, has a photo of one of the fences tilting from the slump of the land.  That fence has since been rebuilt, because it was standing straight and proud when I arrived.  Won’t be long, though, before it’s tilting like several drunken sailors again.

That mudstone weathers away to nice, rounded tops overlying the stiff basalts:



In places, it looks as if it got baked by the intruding basalts.  I believe the following is an example, although I could be spectacularly wrong, o’ course:



Baked or not, it’s still very crumbly:



It shall be gone long before the thick gray basalts, leaving beautifully bleak seastacks where this colorful cliff used to be.

Sharp eyes will have caught a glimpse of the pillow basalts in the sea caves, but for those who wanted more clarity shall have it:



Fractured and pillowed basalts tell us there was a big hoo-ha here long ago, when lava flowing over (and through) land hit the water and cooled rapidly.  The neatest thing about this, to me, is the fact that even if the sea had retreated long before we got here, we’d still know there was an ocean present when these rocks were laid down.  The story is contained within the mudstones and the pillow basalts.  The earth testifies about its accomplices of air, fire and water, even when we’re not witnesses to the commission of the – well, one could hardly call astounding geological processes a crime.  So think of it like this: we’ve come late to an amazing display.  We’re only seeing it torn down, but the land’s more than happy to tell us about what it was like when it was built and in its heyday, long ago when good mother Earth split open and spilled forth sheets of fire to meet air and water, and give us a gorgeous place to stand while we contemplate her power.

And in our next installment, we’ll get to stand right inside that power.  But for now, I leave you with a wonderful waterfall – because it’s not just the sea working to carve this land:


Ye olde indispensable volumes of reference as the author was trying to make sense of it all:

Fires, Faults and Floods – one of the best roadside guides to the Columbia River Basin evah.

In Search of Ancient Oregon – simply the most beautiful book written about Oregon’s natural history.

Northwest Exposures – tying the whole shebang together in one easy-to-follow narrative.

Cataclysms on the Columbia – the book that truly helped me comprehend the incomprehensible.

The Restless Northwest – short, sweet, and yet comprehensive guide to Northwest geological shenanigans.

Roadside Geology of Oregon and Roadside Geology of Washington – indispensable references and inspirations.

Glacial Lake Missoula and its Humongous Floods – not only an informative guide to the discovery and history of the Floods, but an apt title, too!
Oregon Geology Parte the Second: Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Bad Astronomy the Series!

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Woot!  Yippee!  Phil’s finally gonna have a show!

Finally, at last, after many months, I can now officially reveal the project that has kept me so busy over all this time. I think you’re gonna like this… so why not just jump right in to the teaser trailer posted online by a small TV network you may have heard of called THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL!
[evil laugh]

[snip]

I’ve been working with the Discovery Channel on hosting a new TV science show called “Phil Plait’s Bad Universe”. It’s a three-part program where I dissect issues in astronomy and science, putting claims to the test. 

I first heard the news on Twitter, and I very nearly leapt from my desk, ripped my headset from my head, and danced through the cubicles for joy.  However, it’s a tough economy, and such behavior might be frowned on by Management.  So I had to settle for a retweet instead.

I’ve been hoping Phil would end up on my teevee since the idea for the Skeptologists was first floated (and I still hope that show gets produced).  This is a joyous day indeed!

Alas, the video is broked, but when it’s up and running again, I shall post it.  And thee shall have the happy knowledge that actual real science will be aired on the Discovery Channel very soon.  And because it’s Phil, we know it shall be entertaining as hell.  Huzzah!  It’ll be the baddest universe ever.

Bad Astronomy the Series!