Two things at least a few of you have asked for: new music, and moar flowerz. You shall have both, my darlings.
I’ve been using Pandora quite a bit now I own the Kindle Fire, and discovered quite a lot of new music that gets right down to the root of me. One of my favorites so far is Secret Garden. It’s Irish-Norwegian sheer delight. Piano and violin and, sometimes, voices that sweep a person right out of this ordinary world.
It’s the sort of music that goes well with dramatic but serene landscapes, and flowers in same. So why don’t we combine said melodies with wildflowers from Crater Lake, which is nothing if not a dramatic but often serene landscape.
I have to admit, when my coworker Mitch told me he’d bought a drive-through coffee stand, I thought he was nuts. He’s rather the last person I’d expect to buy a business of any sort. But then he was smart enough to filch a known excellent barista, and the whole enterprise began to look more sane.
He also had the great good sense to buy the one that’s close to the Martha Lake Airport Park glacial erratic. It’s also close to Highway 96, which leads to some gorgeous views of the Cascades over the Snohomish River valley. So I figured, hell with it. I’ll kidnap Cujo and do a wee field trip with coffee. We’ll start at 511 164th Street Southwest, Lynnwood, WA, head to Martha Lake Airport Park in Martha Lake to ogle a very large rock, gape at the Cascades from Glacier Peak High School, and end in Woodinville at Teddy’s Bigger Burgers.
Seattle does this. In the midst of a chilly, drab, damp gray winter, a few days burst out with sun and warmth, as if the Pacific Northwest has gotten as tired of the cold and dark as its inhabitants and decided to skip forward a few months. It will go back to being winter again before long. Gather ye sunshine while ye may, then.
I fled the house after some lounging about in a brilliant sunny bedroom with a cat lolling in sunbeams, and headed off on a ramble up over the drumlin to North Creek. I propose to take you with me. There’s precious little geology to be found along this route, but there are a few points of mild interest, and birders may scream with joy.
One of the things I like about living here is the shy little glimpse of Mt. Rainier. You wouldn’t expect it in Bothell, exactly, but over the shoulder of a drumlin, Mt. Rainier puts in an occasional appearance.
Mt. Rainier from a drumlin
There were rather fewer clouds than it appears in this photo, lurking about on the horizons as if ashamed to be intruding. We’re supposed to have more of the bastards tomorrow, but I put about as much stake in the predictions of the weather reports around here as I do in the prognostications of psychics and most economic forecasters. The weather seems to delight in proving them wrong on the fine details.
You know, I don’t normally like to go anywhere. I like being at home. Snuggling with the cat, reading and writing, maybe watching a movie or some teevee, that’s just my speed. But having been snowed in for days, my usual amusements no longer amuse. It’s the knowledge that I can’t get out. It makes me think of things I’d do if I could get out, and since I can’t do them, I actually want to do them.
I’m convinced this is a universal conspiracy to prevent me from ever obtaining another Agatha Christie novel on something more comfortable than my laptop, which is a desktop replacement and not suitable for curling up in bed with. It’s no use suggesting that things can be downloaded to my smartphone, because I haven’t got one. And I’ve read blogs on smartphones, and shudder at the idea of attempting to read a novel on one. And I’d read on a tablet, but I still haven’t got one of those, either. You see? Evidence of a conspiracy.
Staples was open just long enough for me to drop in and play with the paltry few tablets they had on display. I have no idea how any of their employees made it in. On top of the snow, we had an ice storm. Then more snow. And I really thought, after making my various phone calls to my mother’s mental health care professionals, and leaving messages for others, that I’d not get a chance to play with tablets. But Staples was open for part of the day, so I bundled up and hoofed it down. I made friends with their display copy of the Kindle Fire. It does what I need a tablet to do, and it’s cheap. I told them I’d take one. They said they hadn’t got any in stock.
You see? Evidence of a conspiracy.
I’ve ordered one from Amazon, to be delivered next day air, because I’m getting desperate. I guarantee you that despite the fact that the delivery trucks have chains on their tires and the weather’s supposed to stop being absolutely evil that something will happen. Seatac will close due to flooding as the incoming rainstorm melts all this snow and ice, or the Kindle Fire will self-destruct inside the box, or a tree will fall on our powerlines just as I’m getting ready to charge the damned thing, or the delivery company will call everything off due to drivers having nervous breakdowns en masse after dealing with trees falling all over the roadways, on top of the ice, snow, and insane drivers. I cannot be optimistic at this point, because I still want an Agatha Christie novel on a device that fits comfortably in my hand, and the universe seems determined to ensure I shall not have it.
The weather also froze my rocks to their shelves, nixing my plans to take the hand lens to them today whilst waiting for various and sundry social services people to return my calls. That was the last straw. I took a nap, and then watched Have You Heard About the Morgans? If you haven’t seen it, take my advice and don’t bother, unless you need practice rolling your eyes. It’s one of the most poorly-written movies I’ve ever watched. The writers seem to have sat around a table with pages of the script and asked each other, “What can we do to make this scene more trite and full of cliches? What can we insert here to ensure it’s overdone?” And then they threw in everything they could think of. I don’t deny it has it’s moments, but only those. Afterward, since I was annoyed and still suffering cabin fever, I watched “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.” As far as I’m concerned, Darin Morgan can do no wrong. Any X-Files episode written by him is well worth your time. This is why I love my Amazon Prime membership: I can watch Darin Morgan episodes of The X-Files whenever I wish, for free, and feel better about life.
This doesn’t help me with identifying rocks, but they’re still pretty, and perhaps the geologists in the audience will weigh in. All of the following rocks were picked up around Richmond Beach, on the Sound, and had a considerable way to travel in most cases.
The featured comments are hysterical. But if you need more than this video and the persuasive point that empty beer cans make a great field seismograph, allow me to provide you all the justification you need:
So there you have it. Beer is important, people. Geologists have had it right all along. And if anyone argues that point, and says this television program was too filled with hyperbole and shaky logic and outrageous extrapolation to take seriously, give them another beer. They’ll soon come round.
Another hodge-podge of geologic goodness for your pleasure.
Brian Romans gets to walk by this enormous geologic map of China at work. I’m surrounded by corkboards filled with sad little corporate slogans. I must admit some jealousy.
Geological map of Asia on the wall in Braun Hall
Cartography can be beautiful, especially when it’s that fabulous swirl of color and texture that reveals the geology of a place.
Geology has a wonderful motto, too, courtesy of Volcanoclast:
This summer, I’ll be shouting that every time I bring the hammer down on an outcrop. I suspect it will be fun.
And, for those of us pining for the days when El Hierro was trying to become the new Surtsey, a fabulous video from its glory days via Pablo J. Gonzalez:
Nobody has to ask why geology makes me so damned happy, right?
This is one of the most genius things I’ve ever seen, and I’m very pleased Siim allowed me to repost his gorgeous Christmas card here:
White snow is quartz sand from Florida. Stars are forams (Baculogypsina) from Japan. The snowman is made of forams as well (Sorites from Cyprus). His eyes are amphibole grains (from Spain). There are some sea urchin spines (Baleares Islands) and bryozoans (The Caribbean) as snow-covered bushes. Red lights are almandine garnet crystals (California). The whole scene is about 15 mm in width.
I’m usually pretty bah humbug about Christmas kitsch, but when someone creates a snowman out of sand grains, I squee. This is a geology geek’s holiday delight. I especially love the garnet crystals along the sides – I’m a sucker for all things garnet – but stars made of forams? Those are brilliant.
Sandatlas quickly became one of my favorite blogs. This is just one of the many reasons why. I’ve linked it quite a bit in Los Links, but if you somehow missed it, go remedy that. Consider it my Christmas present. And as a bonus gift, visit Michael Welland’s wonderful Through the Sandglass as well.
Sand seems so small, so inconsequential, but these two blogs reveal the worlds contained in those tiny grains. William Blake was so very right. The next time you’re by the water, pick up a handful of worlds and allow yourselves to dream deep.
Right. It’s the holidays, you’re likely all busy doing holiday stuff, and even if you’re trying to avoid all that, you’ve still got plenty of Los Links you haven’t caught up on. And I’ve got a file full of geologic odds and ends I’ve collected from Twitter and other sources that I’ve meant to do something with. Since it’s all kind of jumbled together and cemented by the common theme of geology, we’ll call it conglomerate, then, shall we?
Via Brian Romans, my favorite metamorphic facies diagram ever. Pay especial attention to the upper left category.
Metamorphic Facies Diagram
For those with a time-lapse addiction, check out Finding Oregon on Bad Astronomy. I swear to you, we will turn Phil Plait into a geologist someday. All right, maybe an astrogeologist, but it’ll still count.
From Lockwood, a fun practical joke. Keep this in mind if you’re subjected to relations you must distract before they launch into yet another long-winded description of some embarrassing personal problem:
If you travel enough, one day you’ll be laid over in some airport city for a day. What if it were here? Sure you could party with local friends, but you could also take those friends with you on a field trip!
He’s soliciting suggestions for layover geology. I have just the thing: Discovery Park. Fantastic examples of coastal landforms and glacial sediments, gorgeous location, and conveniently located on bus lines that will zip you from the airport to the lovely landscape and back again.
On a clear day, you’ll have a view of the Olympic Mountains, Mt. Rainier, and Puget Sound. On a not-so-clear day, you’ve still got the bluffs. There’s a lighthouse and beachcombing opportunities for those in your party who may not be as enthralled by geology as you are. Birders can get their jollies. You might even run in to a baby seal.
Baby seal and lighthouse, Discovery Park
The trails are pretty simple to navigate, and they have a delightful little interpretive center.
It’s absolutely perfect if you find yourself stuck in Seattle for a day, and if you’re overnighting, it’s close enough to downtown for some fun down at Pike’s Place Market and other local city delights. You can have it all.
For a detailed description of the geological goodness, see my old post Do Ya Think I’m Bluffing, Punk? Well, Do Ya? And watch this space – it may take me a while to write ’em up, but I’ve got plenty o’ places one can visit in an afternoon when stuck at SeaTac.
I never understood why getting a lump of coal instead of presents should be considered a threat. I’m a coal miner’s daughter (yes, really. Okay, so he was an engineer at a coal mine, but it counts). The best thing my dad ever gave me, aside from the pony and the playhouse and the Breyer Horse stable that I adored for nearly a decade, was a lump of coal. I’d been after him about it for a long time. “Daddy, please bring me a lump of coal from the mine! Pleasepleaseplease I’ll be good!”
If I’d had a better grasp on reverse psychology, or my dad a somewhat better-developed sense of irony, I might have ended up with one earlier. Regardless, one day, he arrived home with an enormous black chunk of ancient swamp, and I cherished it until we lost it in a move.
I’ll never forget visiting Black Mesa once. I was very young, probably no older than 7 or 8, and we drove through a black canyon gashed by men’s machines in the thick seams of coal that made up the mesa. I don’t know what I’d expected, maybe a tunnel, like I’d seen in various pictures of mining operations. I stared, slack-jawed and thrilled beyond containment, at those shiny black walls towering above me. And then there was the fire, and the truck with a mounted hose spraying an enormous rooster tail of water on it. Fires sometimes started in the seams, my dad told my astonished young self. They’d burn for years. You couldn’t really fight them so much as contain their spread. They sometimes could manage it with water; sometimes, they’d have to bury it.
I’d never considered that there might be any such thing as a fire that burned year after year, that no number of firetrucks and firemen could defeat. And when I got my hands on that hard lump of coal, and realized this tough shiny stuff was what did the burning, I was amazed. It didn’t really sink in then, but it did later. These were rocks. Rocks that burn.
What moron decided this was a disincentive to naughtiness?
But kids seemed to take that threat seriously. They’d rather have the shiny toys than a shiny lump of coal. I don’t think they were future geologists, or there would have been a considerable uptick in the naughty quotient whenever that threat was made.
Angry parent: “If you don’t stop doing X bad thing, all Santa’s giving you is a lump of coal!”
Future geologist: “Awesome! Two, please!”
My original lump has been replaced by a smaller but no less cherished lump purchased from a wonderful little rock shop down in Cottonwood, AZ. And that little delight has been joined by several bits picked up during rambles along Coal Creek (aptly named), which was my first opportunity to pick up coal in the wild. I love this stuff.
Coal in streambank at Coal Creek near Seattle, Washington
And why am I babbling about coal just now? Partly because I’ve been extremely lax in posting on geological topics lately. Mostly because one of my Twitter friends posted a link to this perfect gift for geologists: coal candy! Which you can make, at home, and use your rock hammer to break, and just seems like the perfect thing for geologists to make and/or receive. I saw that, and thought of Coal Creek and Black Mesa and Evelyn’s geophoto meme, and thus inspiration did strike.
But I’ve saved the best for last. It hasn’t much to do with coal, except it’s on Coal Creek, and it’s just the most awesome orange waterfall I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting up-close and personal with:
Orange Waterfall on Coal Creek
That lovely orange hue is probably courtesy of chemotrophic bacteria, according to a commenter on the original adventure report. It certainly adds a little verve to the scene. And what’s even nicer is that you can get to it by following a stream bed filled with chunks of petrified wood and lots and lots of coal.
And if you’re very naughty, I may venture back out there and collect a lump or two just for you.
