Blog Profile / Andrew's Geology Blog
| URL : | http://geology.about.com/b/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Geology | |
| Posts on Regator: | 1050 | |
| Posts / Week: | 4.5 | |
| Archived Since: | November 24, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
A Bright Moon Impact
On 17 March 2013, NASA cameras captured the brightest impact on the Moon seen in eight years of monitoring. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but at the brightness of a fourth-magnitude star it could have been seen by anyone with binoculars and possibly with the naked eye. Show More Summary
Camels Often Sit Down Painfully . . .
When I went to geology school, I was already so advanced that I never used mnemonics—those anagram sentences that help students keep track of the names of the geologic time periods. A reader in the Forum has been using the good old sentence...Show More Summary
Geologists' New Pastime: Google Earth Engine
The people at Google Earth have unveiled a new feature of Earth Engine: time-lapse views of anywhere on Earth using satellite imagery back to 1984. My colleagues on Twitter have been exclaiming all morning: @rschott: "The Evolving Earth:...Show More Summary
Granitic Seafloor Reported Off Brazil
It's exciting in a geeky way to learn that the deep-sea plateau called the Rio Grande Rise appears to contain granitic rocks. Dredging two years ago brought up samples, and this week the "video evidence" from a submersible dive to the Rise was cited as further proof. Show More Summary
Famous (Former) Geologists: Andrei Tarkovsky
My last few weekends have been an introduction to the remarkable work of the Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-86). He was a cinematic genius with rare gifts of vision, intellect and perseverance, but my ears especially lit upShow More Summary
The Glacier Picture Gallery
It's a hot day where I am. What could be better for that than a photo glossary devoted to glaciers and related features. Now you can bond with a bergschrund, get familiar with a fjord, recognize a roche moutonnée or spot a serac.
Iceberg — courtesy natalielucier via Creative Commons
A Winning Geo-Poem on Faulting
The Zócalo Public Square website does all sorts of cultural things, among which is an annual contest for the poem that "best explores people's connection to place." Today they published the winning poem "Fault," by Southern Californian Jia-Riu Chong Cook, which takes as a theme the San Andreas fault. Show More Summary
First There Is a Hill, Then There Is a Mountain
What makes a hill a mountain? In my definition in the gallery of erosional landforms, I cite a criterion of 300 meters, a thousand feet. In Britain, the Ordnance Survey defines a mountain at twice that height. Hillclimbing is such aShow More Summary
11 Types of Holes in Rocks
Sometimes the most interesting thing to see in a rock is the parts that aren't rock: the voids in it. Geologists have hundreds of names for rocks and their textures and constituents; here are 11 names for the holes from druses to vugs. Show More Summary
Geology in 5 Senses
One thing I like about geology is that it involves all the senses; I've put together a list telling how each one contributes to science. Is there a sixth sense that geologists use? I know that doing geology involves special mental work...Show More Summary
A Week at Sea off Alaska
Back when I was in the U.S. Geological Survey, I had the good fortune to take part in the occasional research cruise aboard the USGS fleet. (Old-timers may now give a rueful laugh, as the agency's long budget starvation put an end to...Show More Summary
The Tin Men of Cornwall
The mining people of Cornwall have worked their granites since before Roman times. This long history has marked the Cornish character and infused the Cornish culture with traits that they carried to mining districts all over the world. Show More Summary
This Week's Geo-Quiz: Plate Tectonics
Over two hundred years ago, we began to glimpse the outlines of the great engine that sculpts and maintains the Earth as we know and love it. It took a century and a half to come up with a paradigm—a body of theory and worldview—that we could sink our teeth into: plate tectonics. Show More Summary
The Textures of Igneous Rocks
If you've learned to tell igneous rocks from sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, you're ready for the next step, which is to learn the eight basic textural terms that geologists use when describing igneous rocks. Texture is the close-up...Show More Summary
Metamorphic Fabrics
With many rocks, we identify them through their minerals. But with metamorphic rocks, often the fabric is the most basic feature. Like this rock, which is defined as gneiss from... Read Full Post
Accretionary Wedge #56: The Geologist as Photographer
John Keats famously wrote, about an antique artwork, that "beauty is truth, truth beauty," and readers ever since have pondered exactly how that makes sense. When geologists photograph their objects of interest, I think I can say fairly, they fall on the side of truth. Show More Summary
Argentinian Adzeheads
At least, that's what they look like to me. A reader submitted this photo to the "My Igneous Rock" page thinking that they were crystals. Yes, they're faceted, but these objects have every appearance of being stone tools. Have a look at the full-size shot.... Read Full Post
Good Old Pough
Frederick Pough, author of the classic A Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals, died on this date in 2006, aged 99. The little rock book he first published in 1953 has been a mainstay for generations of rockhounds and geologists. In my review,...Show More Summary
Get Ready for Geologists Day!
One thing you can say about the Soviet Union is that they celebrated scientists. It was a matter of national prestige for the USSR to have scientists of all kinds—agronomists in the farmers' fields, physicists in large labs and academies, cosmonauts in space, and geologists in the vast landscape of the world's largest nation. Show More Summary
The Sutter Buttes
If you're planning to vacation in California, I hope you'll consider some geological destinations between the beaches, wineries, amusement parks, campgrounds, redwoods, desert landscapes and Hollywood. The northern Great Valley is often...Show More Summary