art

My Halloween costume

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Here’s what I did for my Halloween costume this year. I decided to be a frog egg mass, with spawning frogs spewing gametes all over in a big orgiastic mess. Start with one ‘normal’ Callan: Switch to frog-egg colored clothing: Don a pair of foam packing bubble wrap “trousers: Add a “tunic” of bubble wrap, … Read more

Rockies stratigraphic column checklist

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I just drew up a little checklist for the different formations my Rockies students will be seeing next starting next week out in Montana: The original black and white images (two columns on two pages) come from Self-Guided Field Trips Near Bozeman (1982), by Stephan G. Custer, Donald L. Smith, Molly Walker, and 1982’s crop … Read more

Friday fold(s): the Outdoor Lab

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Today’s Friday fold takes me back 25 years, to when I visited the Outdoor Lab with my science class in Arlington County Public Schools. I revisited this exemplary outdoor education facility on Tuesday, at the invitation of its director, Neil Heinekamp. Neil wanted a geology “expert” to take a look at their rocks, and I … Read more

Less U.S. concern for climate change

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A new poll by Gallup suggests that the proportion of the U.S. population concerned about climate change has dropped to an almost record low (51% of the “polled population worrying about climate change a great deal/fair amount”). The data are interesting to look at: (source) I thought I detected a little pattern here with the … Read more

Art imitates art

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Something occurred to me this morning when I saw this: (source) …And it was this: (source) Do you think it’s a coincidence that NOAA’s mapmaker chose that particular royal blue / sky blue / white color scheme, augmented by gray continents with yellow accents? I suspect it’s a beautiful shout-out to the classic piece of … Read more

Friday fold: the importance of younging direction

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Today’s edition of the Friday fold is a cross-section: Doesn’t look too spectacular, does it? — “Why, it’s just a bunch of strata folded into anticlines and synclines,” I’ll bet you’re thinking. But no… it’s actually more complicated than that. We know it’s more complicated by examining geopetal primary structures in the strata. Geopetal structures … Read more

Reminder: AW#30, the Bake Sale

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This is a friendly reminder that you have one more week to prepare your brownies, cakes, puddings, eclairs, gumballs, gobstoppers, and cookies for the Accretionary Wedge Bake Sale. The deadline for the submission of entries is a week from tomorrow, next Friday, January 28. Leave a link in the comments here, or at the original … Read more

How to make a Grand Canyon in seven easy steps

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This series of cartoon images ended up on the board yesterday in Historical Geology lab… E = erosion D = deposition Yes, oversimplified: I didn’t include the newest thinking about the subtleties involved in putting together the Brahma and Vishnu Schists and Zoroaster Granite, and I didn’t include mention of faulting (either ancient or more … Read more

Lola, the cartoonist's companion

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted any photos of my supremely helpful cat Lola on the blog, so here you go: Lola loves to sit on paper, so when I break out the sketchbook to start working on my monthly cartoon for EARTH magazine, she sidles right up and stakes a claim. Fortunately, I … Read more