Friday fold: eastern Andes

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This image graces the cover of the new report, Challenges and opportunities for research in tectonics: Understanding deformation and the processes that link Earth systems, from geologic time to human time. A community vision document submitted to the U.S. National Science Foundation: Make it bigger by clicking it The photo is of a landscape in … Read more

Friday fold: crumpled quartz vein from VGFC

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Remember the Virginia Geological Field Conference from back in October? Well here’s a folded quartz vein we observed along a small shear zone in the Blue Ridge basement complex. There are two views of it, from approximately perpendicular points of view: These rocks are Mesoproterozoic, but the vein would obviously be younger than that, and … Read more

Surviving AI, by Calum Chase

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I know what you’re thinking: another book about AI, Callan? Really? Yes, really. I don’t know what compelled me – but perhaps that the author’s name was so similar to my own spurred me onward. Surviving AI is Calum Chase’s summary of the current state of affairs with AI risk management (specifically, of course, relative … Read more

Winter ichnology puzzle

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Here’s a puzzler to warm up your chilly brain this Wednesday morning: Click to enlarge Figure out the story told by this set of imprints in the snow. The branch of science called ichnology studies the traces organisms leave behind. There’s a neat little story here. If you’ve got a guess, then you can check … Read more

Year Zero, by Rob Reid

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I was so impressed with After On that I went out an got the only other novel by Rob Reid, Year Zero. The plot set up is something rather ludicrous, but the novel works in spite of the silly premise. Here’s the idea: There are a lot of alien civilizations out there, and they are … Read more

Friday folds: Hayden Butte (“A Mountain”), Tempe

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In keeping with the Arizonarific theme of this week’s posts (thanks to my participation in the 2018 Structural Geology and Tectonics Forum), I thought I would wrap up my ‘geology of the Phoenix area‘ posts with a walk I took on my last day there. This was to what Google Maps calls “Hayden Butte,” but … Read more

2017 Yard List

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New year’s day is the time I tally up my accumulated bird species seen in my yard on the forested slope of Massanutten Mountain. This is my sixth such annual list. Here are the previous iterations: 2012 (39 species) 2013 (51 species) 2014 (58 species) 2015 (65 species) 2016 (59 species) Here we go, in … Read more

To the Bright Edge of the World, by Eowyn Ivey

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My friend Betsy recommended I read this novel, and I’m glad she did. It’s of an unusual structure: a series of documents, arranged in more or less chronological order (with some variation for plot structure), written by 5 principal characters, two in particular. The two are a U.S. Army captain sent on an expedition to … Read more

I Contain Multitudes, by Ed Yong

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Ed Yong’s “Not Exactly Rocket Science” was one of the first science blogs that came onto my radar ten years ago when I was wading into geology blogging for the first time. He has an impressive record of excellent science journalism and really evocative writing. I was delighted to bump into him and introduce myself … Read more

The #FaultCup semifinals

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Over the past few weeks, there’s been a fun game playing out on Twitter, hosted by Jorge (@lithospheric), called The Fault Cup, or #FaultCup in Twitterspeak. There’s a bracket showing one-on-one match ups between different faults, and then a 24 hour Twitter poll is posted, where the audience can vote for which one they want … Read more

Aerial Geology, by Mary Caperton Morton

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There’s a lovely new coffee table book out, just in time for holiday shopping. My fellow EARTH magazine contributor Mary Capterton Morton is the author of Aerial Geology, a beautiful massive tome that profiles a hundred geologically interesting locations across the North American continent. Mary was kind enough to forward me a copy for review, … Read more