Paleo and Geo must reads

My friend Jim is trying to come up with a seminar type class for sometime in the future and he was wondering - if you had to pick a set of books or journal articles that you felt all paleontologists should read, what would you include? Feel free to read his post here to leave any comments and suggestions you might have.


© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Glenwood Canyon Rockfall on I-70

The Colorado Department of Transportation has done a nice job of keeping everyone informed on the closure of I-70 due to a rockfall in Glenwood Canyon. Its weeks like this that I think it would be interesting to work for their geoHazards group. As of earlier today they were waiting on the removal of a 20 foot boulder up on the hill that is in danger of possibly falling about 900 feet to the interstate below, further damaging the road. The CDOT had a helicopter on scene this morning to drop off drilling equipment and a generator for the planned drilling/blasting operations. I appreciate the fact that they have been posting pictures of the whole process on tweet photo, which I find rather interesting.


Sadly today, another rockfall on the road drivers have been diverted to, killed a woman near Steamboat Springs [link]. Rockfalls had not occurred in the area since 1998. In the Glenwood Canyon area the last significant rockfall was in 2004.

For now you can watch the clean up work live streaming on the CDOT website by clicking on the Glenwood Springs link here.

pictures © CDOT, text by ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Rock star of the week: Vanessa Bateman

*(Please read my previous post if you have not yet)*

As I am sure many of you have, I have watched the video of the rockslide on U.S. Highway 64 in Tennessee over and over. It is just awesome to watch. I was super excited when I found this link that has a video (different from the one below) telling more details on the slide and how a geologist saved the day!! How awesome is that! A Geologist!! Rock on! And I was even more excited to find out it was not just a geologist, but a chick geologist - Vanessa Bateman! Ms. (Dr.?) Bateman is the Manager of the Geotechnical Section for the Tennessee Department of Transportation's (TDOT) Nashville Office (link, pictured right). She noticed that the slope (reported in the news video to be granite) along the Ocoee Gorge was going to break away (and not surprising, did you see that outcrop!), and was able to warn others to vacate the area. Less than an hours earlier reporters and construction workers with heavy equipment were in the spot where the second slide would occur. It must have been so cool to see (and probably somewhat freaky and scary!). I should add that I am really glad no one was hurt!

So, way to go Vanessa!! Awesome to save lives while also playing with rocks (and showing that there are some awesome chick geologist out there doing cool things)!

Another video link.

And another link.

And one more of the destruction.

And over and over and over here on CNN

And it reminds me of this (sort of, in coolness factor):

Japan(?)

What is your favorite mass wasting event? Someone needs to start a blog of things like this.

(PS - I hate for this post to bump the post below, so please read it if you have not yet!)

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster; picture from the Highway Geology Symposium

Two Assistant Professor Geology jobs

Two new geology jobs from my alma mater:

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor - sedimentology/stratigraphy

The Department of Geosciences, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville invites applications for a 9-month appointment as a tenure-track assistant professor with an anticipated start date of August, 2010. We are seeking an outstanding individual with expertise in broad areas of sedimentology/stratigraphy and basin analysis. The specific research focus has some flexibility, depending upon strengths of the applicant. Applicants must demonstrate ability and commitment to develop an independent, externally funded research program as well as the potential for collaboration and synergism with ongoing research in the Department of Geosciences. The successful applicant will be an integrated scholar capable of meeting departmental goals in independent research, advising graduate-research, and teaching--and will have a strong commitment to teaching at all levels, including possible participation in our required summer field course in Montana.


Assistant Professor - structural geology and tectonics

The Department of Geosciences, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville invites applications for a 9-month appointment as a tenure-track assistant professor with an anticipated start date of August 2010. We are seeking an outstanding individual with expertise in broad areas of structural geology and tectonics.

RIP Matt Edmonds

My friend Matt Edmonds (Reggie to his friends) died yesterday, when the bike he was riding was struck by a drunk driver near Sand Springs, Oklahoma. He, and a friend (Christa Voss) were killed in the accident, and another friend (John Moore) was also inured was treated and later released from the hospital.

I met Matt at the University of Arkansas while he worked on his masters degree in geology and I was an undergrad. He was a devoted cyclist and participated in may competitions over the years. Matt was a great geologist who always had a smile on his face and a friendly word to all. Matt is survived by his parents, sibling and dog, Stella. He will be missed!

Here is a link to a great article about Matt.

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Museum Blogs

I have noticed a few museums have started to blog. Some of these have been around for a while now, some are new. Several are pretty inactive. I am sure there are more out there that I do not know about, but for now I have pulled out the blogs from my Paleontology and Geology Blog Lists (found on the sidebar to the right) and made a new Museum Blog section. These are mostly blogs that deal with paleontology and geology subjects. If you know of any others I can add please let me know!

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Rattlesnake Monocline

Rattlesnake Monocline is located in Horsethief Canyon along the Colorado River in western Colorado, near Loma. This monocline is easily accessible via two methods: road and river! I have been by it many times via raft (and hopefully many more this summer by our new canoe!). It was only a few weeks ago that we finally figured out how to see it from dry land, and with quite a great view! The picture below is from the land view (see directions below to the site), looking to the southwest. As you can see, an nice fault cuts the area, with the up-thrown block to the west. This pushed up the Wingate Sandstone, Kayenta Formation, and Entrada Sandstone in this area. Unfortunatly I have not been able to find much published on the geology of this area.

I just thought this was a really near (local for me) feature that should be shared!

Here is a map to see the monocline via road. Take I-70 to exit 2 (the last exit in western Colorado!) and take the dirt road that does back towards the east, paralleling the interstate. When you come to a branch, take the western one and it will take you to the river over look. There is an awesome picnic bench here (very random place for a picnic bench!). Area in the circle is view in picture above.



The second method is via the beautiful Colorado River! If you put in at the Loma Boat launch area, the Monocline is only ~9 miles down river, just past the Crow Bottom. Mile 141.5 has the best river view. Area in the circle is view in picture above. Here is a nice link about the float.





View Larger Map

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Geologic Art?

Greg has asked me to pass this along. It sounds pretty cool! Let me know if any of you are thinking of submitting something. I would love to see what kinds of entry's they get. It can't get much better than geology + art!

Press Release: Two Wall Gallery, Vashon, WA
For further information, contact Greg Wessel at 206-250-2222 or email to SleepingDogCafe@aol.com

Announcement and Call for Artistic Geologists

Two Wall Gallery on Vashon Island, Washington, announces a call for artists for an upcoming exhibit entitled Geo sapiens, The Fusion of Geology and Art, to be shown during November, 2009.

The theme is centered on incorporating geologic principles or features in art, building upon the observation that earth scientists think in ways that are different from the general public but fundamental to our understanding of the universe. Works that incorporate geology to make statements regarding an issue of relevance to society are appropriate, as are works that simply celebrate geologic thought.

Works in all media are invited. Entry is open to degreed earth scientists and students studying earth science topics. You do not have to be a practicing or employed geologist to apply. All earth science professionals (geophysicists, geochemists, petrologists, paleontologists, etc) are included in our invitation.

Up to three works may be submitted as slides or on a CD. For a complete prospectus and submission directions, contact Greg Wessel at SleepingDogCafe@aol.com. Submissions will be accepted until August 1, 2009.

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

The first Triceratops bonebed ...

Congrats to Josh Mathews on his first publication! And in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology of all places! Josh has worked with the Burpee Museum of Natural History for quite some time and is finishing up his Masters degree at Northern Illinois University. I have known Josh for a number of years. We both worked on very similar Master's projects, so we have been in contact quite a bit over the years helping each other out. I know I was thrilled when I found out about this site - finally, a Triceratops bonebed! It has been interesting to see the project flesh out and to finally have the paper in print!

Josh and the Burpee crew found 130 bones and bone fragments belonging to Triceratops in the Hell Creek Formation during exploration between 2005 - 2007. The remains, found in a massive mudstone, indicated a minimum number of three juvenile individuals, based on the presence of three left nasals. The site was dominated by cranial and appendicular elements, with analysis showing that the remains were sorted by currents, washing away smaller elements. This site is the first published occurrence of a Triceratops bonebed.



Mathews, J. C., Brusatte, S. L., Williams, S. A. and Henderson, M. D. 2009. The first Triceratops bonebed and its implications for gregarious behavior. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29(1):286-290

"Ceratopsid dinosaurs are some of the most common fossils in Upper Cretaceous terrestrial strata of western North America. They are often found in bonebeds, which are accumulations of vertebrate fossils from more than one individual that are concentrated along a bedding plane or throughout a single bed (Eberth and Getty, 2005). For example, 20 bonebeds have been reported from Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada, which contain Centrosaurus and Styracosaurus (Visser,1986; Ryan et al., 2001; Eberth and Getty, 2005). Additional bonebeds from localities across western North America have yielded remains of Agujaceratops (Lehman, 1982, 1989, Lucas et al., 2006), Anchiceratops (Dodson, 1996, Ryan et al., 2001), Einiosaurus (Rogers, 1990, Sampson, 1995), Pachyrhinosaurus (Langston, 1975; Tanke, 1988; Ryan et al., 2001), Styracosaurus (Dodson et al., 2004), Torosaurus (Hunt, 2005), and Zuniceratops (Wolfe and Kirkland, 1998). Some of these bonebeds contain the remains of hundreds to possibly thousands of individuals and represent catastrophic mass death assemblages that strongly indicate herding behavior (Eberth, 1996). Others contain significantly fewer individuals, with some preserving fewer than five.

Although Triceratops is the most common dinosaur in the terminal Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation (White et al., 1998), known from over 50 singleton specimens collected since the late nineteenth century, no bonebeds or associations of multiple individuals have previously been reported. A new locality in the latest Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation of southeastern Montana, discovered in the summer of 2005 by a field crew from the Burpee Museum of Natural History (BMR) in Rockford, Illinois, contains the remains of three juvenile-sized Triceratops. This is the first occurrence of multiple individuals of Triceratops in the same quarry and raises potentially interesting questions regarding Triceratops paleobiology."

Homer the Triceratops at the Burpee Museum. See more pictures here.

Mathews, J. C., Brusatte, S. L., Williams, S. A., & Henderson, M. D. (2009). The first Triceratops bonebed and its implications for gregarious behavior Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 29 (1), 286-290

Rocky Mountains and the Colorado Plateau: Canyons, Resources, and Hazards

The American Institute of Professional Geologists is hosting "Rocky Mountains and the Colorado Plateau: Canyons, Resources, and Hazards" October 3-7 this year in Grand Junction, Colorado. The meeting is co-hosted by the Grand Junction Geological Society and Mesa State College and includes a variety of field trips. The meeting invites posters and talks on all aspects of geology and paleontology of the region and registration is open to all (it is not strictly an AIPG member meeting). Please consider submitting an abstract and feel free to forward this to others who may be interested. Abstracts are due May 1.

A few new blogs

I thought I would post a few links to blogs that have recently appeared on my radar -

This has already been mentioned on Chinleana, but I thought I would plug it here as well: The Theatrical Tanystropheus

I forget how I found out about this blog, but it is really great! Chris is the new vertebrate paleontology collections manager at Yale, and his post center on museum issues: Prerogative of Harlots

Fun paleo postings from Ville Sinkkonen, an amateur paleoartist and paleo enthusiast who is currently a geology/biology student at the University of Helsinki, Finland: Dots in Deep Time

Kyle is a self-proclaimed "wise-ass PhD geologist." I like him already. Check out his blog(s) where post on "...useful tips for integrating digital tools and techniques into your geologic workflow in the field and in the office..." Great blog title as well: Geologic Froth/Geologic Frothings

Cruise on over and see what is "shaking" at the blog organized by the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismograph Network: Shaking Earth

All are awesome blogs and worth checking out! Also see my blog lists on the right for updates and many other wonderful blogs I enjoy reading (and I hope you might as well)!

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Geology is learned through the soles of your shoes, not the seat of your pants!

RIP

2001 - 2008

These boots came into my life from a shoe rack at the Anchorage REI in May of 2001. I had traveled to Alaska to start a geology internship for Alaska State Parks at Independence Mine State Historic Park and found myself quite unprepared in the shoe department. The hiking boots I had bought in high school were not going to hack it there. So we made the trip into Anchorage where I bought the most expensive pair of shoes I have ever bought in my entire life. Still. They were a great pair of boots and my feet stayed dry all summer (through the snow, muck, and soggy ground - and it rained, quite a bit). I never even got a single blister from them. Not one!

These boots and I have seen alot together. They were on my feet that summer in Alaska when I was stung just above the left boot tongue by two ground hornets. I wore them on innumerable geology field trips as I finished up my undergrad degree and later on as I worked on my MS. I wore them on my first hike to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. They were with me all through field camp, for miles and miles. They helped keep my feet safe from all the wonderful sharp plants while hiking in Big Bend to and from my master’s thesis field site (and many others field sites). They were with me every day as I hiked through Glacier National Park during my first post-graduation job. I wore them in the Badlands of Utah and Nebraska while fossil prospecting with friends. I even took these wonderful boots to Japan with me and wore them as I hiked up Mt. Fuji. They were with me as I summited my first 14er in Colorado, hiked down into the Grand Canyon, and as I made it up to the Walcott Quarry/Burgess Shale. We have hunted for fossils together thousands of times and surveyed countless outcrops. They kept my feet dry and warm, bite and blister free. I do not think I will ever be able to replace them. Letting them go is one of the hardest things I will ever have to do. But they will always live on, in my memory. When I think back on all of the great times we spent together, I am reminded of a quote my former professor Walter Manger would say:

"Geology is learned through the soles of your shoes, not the seat of your pants!"

These shoes saw their last days working on an outcrop in central Utah. I knew their soles were getting thin, but I did not realize their time was so near. I tried to help them with some ducktape, but not even that could hold them together. And in the end, time won. I know in their company I have learned a great many things! And I am glad they could be my partner through this wonderful learning experience and I appreciate all they have done for me. I WILL MISS YOU BOOTS!

I Blinded Me With Science! And other great shirts for Christmas

Peggy at "Women in Science" pointed me in the direction of some great Science gifts for Christmas from YellowIbis.com. Below are a few of my favorite. Check out her post for other gift ideas and YellowIbis for awesome apparel.

I blinded me with science

Wrong, but funny.

100 Things You've Done Meme: A Geologist's Version

MJC Rocks over at Geotripper has created a wonderful new meme based on the 100 Things You've Done meme that has been going around. Read about how he came up with/adapted this list here. This one is just to great not to do!

Bold the ones you have done and tell us some great stories!

1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier (in Glacier NP, Banff NP, and Alaska, and from a plane while flying over Canada)
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta. (in Big Bend NP)
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage (this past spring when the Mississippi broke the levees the week I moved)
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
8. Explore a subsurface mine. (worked at one in Alaska - Independence Mine State Historic Park)
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere.
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada. (in Oklahoma [Arbuckles] and Missouri [Ozark Dome])
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (check out The Dynamic Earth - The Story of Plate Tectonics - an excellent website).
16. A ginkgo tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. (Love love love Ginkgo trees! I use to walk by one every day one my way to and from school)
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones) - (obviously from my prior post you know I have seen thousands of these suckers in Glacier NP, but have also seen then in the Green River Fm.)
18. A field of glacial erratics (in Alaska, Wyoming)
19. A caldera (in Alaska/Wyoming/Arizona...)
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high
21. A fjord (in Alaska, Kenai Fjords NP)
22. A recently formed fault scarp
23. A megabreccia (Alaska)
24. An actively accreting river delta (from a plane, does that count?)
25. A natural bridge (Utah)
26. A large sinkhole (Arkansas, Texas, Missouri)
27. A glacial outwash plain (Alaska, Glacier NP)
28. A sea stack
29. A house-sized glacial erratic (Alaska, from my window every morning..I never noticed how big it really was till I was almost up to it! HUGE! Scales are a little off up there at times)
30. An underground lake or river (Arkansas)
31. The continental divide (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado)
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals (we have quite a nice collection at Augustana)
33. Petrified trees (PEFO)
34. Lava tubes (Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho, where I was stung by a wasp!)
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back. (ok, I have not been all the way down and all the way back, but I have been down someways and we plan on doing the whole thing this next spring, does that still count?)
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe.
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism. (from a plane, twice!)
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley (just this past 4th of July!)
69. The San Andreas fault (I had Thanksgiving dinner practically on it last year! Yikes!!)
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress) (even the summit!)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park (beautiful!)
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado (just down the road!)
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ (more than I can count)
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil) (check, check, and check)
85. Find gold, however small the flake (Alaska, working in a gold mine....)
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm (I lived in Lubbock, Texas. I am lucky I still have skin!)
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse (once, when I was still in High School)
91. Witness a tornado firsthand. (Important rules of this game). (I grew up in tornado alley, I have seen more than my fair share)
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower (in Alaska, it was AWESOME!!)
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights. (during #92, which made it that much more AWESOME!! Until the moon came up and ruined it all with all that light)
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century (Hale-bopp in Yellowstone/Glacier)
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash


Not bad - I am 50/50 - half way there I guess! And John has done 54 of them. Now I just need to find some $$ so I can see something off this continent!

Park Break!

Welcome to my 250th posting!! Woohoo!! Thanks to everyone for reading! :)

This week I have been posting a few job/internship notices I have seen around. I had never hear of this program before, so I thought I would pass it on since it sounds pretty cool!

The program description on their website says "Park Break is an all-expenses-paid park-based field seminar for graduate students who are thinking about a career in park management or park-related research and education. Park Break puts you in a national park unit for up to a week's worth of field and classroom activities in close collaboration with park scientists and scholars, managers and administrators, and partner organizations." Sounds pretty awesome, eh!! I wish I had known about this program when I was a grad student!

This year they are going to be working in Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve, Mount Rainier National Park, and Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area! The website goes on to say: "The primary goal of Park Break is to encourage promising graduate students to experience the challenges of managing a national park unit. Through instruction from and dialogue with park resource managers, researchers, administrators, interpreters, and other professionals, Park Break participants will begin to understand the complexity of park research and management. This unique program is not offered anywhere else, as it focuses on scientific and intellectual inquiry at the graduate level specifically related to national parks. Although Park Break is open to graduate students of all backgrounds, an additional goal of the program is to provide minority students with experience in national parks in order to facilitate future careers in the field of parks and protected areas research and management.



Each Park Break is designed around a specific topic. Not only will you explore that topic in depth, you'll see how it relates to the whole range of challenging issues facing park managers today. More than that, you'll be involved with agency personnel who are actively recruiting the best young people in the park professions.



Participants in Park Break are chosen through a competitive application process. We are now accepting applications for Park Break 2009. The deadline is December 31, 2008.



Park Break is organized by the George Wright Society, the USA's leading professional association for researchers, resource managers, administrators, educators, and other professionals who work in or on behalf of parks, protected areas, and cultural sites. GWS puts on Park Break in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, Geological Society of America, Student Conservation Association, Texas A&M University, and Colorado State University."

This really sounds like a cool program, so if you are able, check it out! Then get back to me and let me know what it was like - I will be super jealous :)

5 Minerals

Another geology meme - already! Callan over at Nova Geoblog offers the next challenge:

"Which five minerals do you think are the most important ones to know, and why? In other words, if you had to introduce a non-geologist to just five of the earth's multitudinous building blocks, which ones would you choose to share, and offer a justification for each."

I am thinking along the same lines as some of the others who have responded, so some of these may not be very original...and I am also thinking along the lines of introducing minerals to a non-geologist and what they could take away from learning these 5. I feel like my "whys?" are a bit lame, I apologize ahead of time:

1. Quartz: It's every where! People even worship it (not sure why). Its very common, so easy to show in different mineral states and rocks; and who can forget SiO2. The different colors make it easy for a non-geologist to enjoy and remember also.
   
2. Calcite: Easy - caves, fossilization and invertebrates. Heck, trilobites used calcite for their eye lenses! Its fun!
   
3. Feldspar: The most common mineral in the earths crust, easily recognizable, & found in igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Of course plagioclase feldspars are also one of my favorites so I might be a little partial here.
   
4. Magnetite: People are always amazed by this one - the magnetic properties surprise people and they will play with it forever. Its a iron ore, and can be found in banded iron formations, and something fun - "Crystals of magnetite have been found in some bacteria (e.g., Magnetospirillum magnetotacticum) and in the brains of bees, of termites, of some birds (e.g., the pigeon), and of humans. These crystals are thought to be involved in magnetoreception, the ability to sense the polarity or the inclination of the Earth's magnetic field, and to be involved in navigation. Also, chitons have teeth made of magnetite on their radula making them unique among animals. This means they have an exceptionally abrasive tongue with which to scrape food from rocks." [link] Now, wasn't that fun?
   
5. Clays: They make foods I like hold together better so I can eat them (chocolate, ice cream...), they are used in makeup, paint, toothpaste, ceramics..... How cool is that. They are stable, platy, like to stay suspended and stick to my cars paint. Clay rocks.
   

Mineral Meme

All the other cool kids are doing this (Brian at Clastic Detritus, Kim at All my faults are stress-related, MJC Rocks at GeoTripper, the Lost Geologist, Chris at Highly Allochthonous, Dave at Geology News, Callan at NOVA Geoblog, Silver Fox at Looking for Detachment, and Chuck at Lounge of the Lab Lemming who started it all), so I thought I would join in (be sure to check out the above blogs - all are very interesting!):

Instructions from Chuck: Use bold to indicate minerals you’ve seen in the wild. Italics is for those seen in laboratories, museums, stores, or other non field locations.


Andalusite
Apatite
Barite
Beryl
Biotite
Chromite
Chrysotile
Cordierite
Corundum
Diamond
Dolomite
Florencite
Galena
Garnet
Graphite
Gypsum
Halite
Hematite
Hornblende
Illite
Illmenite
Kaolinite
Kyanite
Lepidolite
Limonite
Magnetite
Molybdenite
Monazite
Nepheline
Olivine
Omphacite
Opal
Perovskite
Plagioclase
Pyrite
Quartz
Rutile
Sanidine
Sillimanite
Silver (native)
Sphalerite
Staurolite
Sulphur (native)
Talc
Tourmaline
Tremolite
Turquoise
Vermiculite
Willemite
Zeolite
Zircon

Geoblogosphere survey!

Passing the word on to all you GeoBloggers: Callan Bentley over at NOVA Geoblog is giving a talk in a couple of weeks (at the Geological Society of Washington) entitled "Rise of the Geoblogosphere." He is looking for information regarding "... who is blogging, where they're blogging from, when they're blogging, why they're blogging, what they're blogging about, and what they think about this whole blogging deal." If you would like to participate in his survey you can visit his post here with a link to the survey.

Off to the Badlands I go

This week and all of next I will be out in northwestern Nebraska doing fieldwork! During the summer, the Geology Department at Augustana College (where I currently work as a Paleontology Research Assistant - for a few more weeks at least) offers a 3-credit course entitled "Fossil Mammals of the Badlands." This 2-week course travels to the White River Badlands of South Dakota and Nebraska to learn about the paleontology and geology of the area. The group camps on Shalimar Ranch, outside of Harrison, Nebraska, and collects fossils on privately owned land. This trip has become a tradition, with the first trip in 1982. This will be my third trip and we have quite a big group this year. I am looking forward to getting out and doing some field work, enjoying the sun (hopefully!) and peace that comes from being in the field. Its always a good way to transition into summer and get my blood flowing again after the long winter. I am looking forward to the camp fires and dusty days of hiking.

This is the beginning of my my gypsy stage. I am moving out of my apartment in the morning, Kelty will be staying in Rock Island while I am in Nebraska, and when I return (the 6th) I will work my last week at Augustana (living out of the car) before heading to Colorado on the 12th! I will be living in western Colorado for good now, no going back to Rock Island. Its going to be a busy few weeks! Hope all of you have a good few weeks. I'll be sure to post some nice field pictures for you all when I get back, but for now you will have to enjoy these from past years ;)

Effort

Borrowed from Magma Cum Laude (a great blog, you should check it out)