A Year of Travel & New Year's Resolutions

I am relatively new to the geoblogging scene, but several geobloggers-- such as Callan Bentley over at Mountain Beltway and Jessica Ball over at Magma Cum Laude-- have posted a summary of their year of travel. I love travel, so I think I will continue their year-end tradition here at Georneys. Thanks to other geobloggers for the idea!

I am very fortunate to have the ability and opportunity to travel often, both for my work and for my personal life. Below is a summary of my 2010 travels. I've blogged about a few of these most recent travels. Perhaps I will blog about some of the others in the coming year, particularly since I plan to spend most of my time in lab and then writing up my thesis so that I can graduate!

December 2009 - January 2010: South Africa & Oman
My fiance Jackie lives in his native South Africa, so we commute between Cape Cod and Cape Town to see each other. My advisors are fortunately wonderful about letting me periodically work on my thesis from South Africa. I traveled to South Africa in December 2009 to spend the holidays with Jackie and his family. At the end of December, Jackie and I flew to Oman for a month of fieldwork for my thesis research. Jackie came along as my field assistant. We then flew back to South Africa, where I spent another week before returning to Cape Cod.

Jackie, an elephant, and I, Knysna, South Africa, December 2009.

Geology Word of the Week: I is for Ichnite

Fossil dinosaur footprint, Wyoming, Fall 2005.

def. Ichnite:
A fossilized footprint.

Winter Blizzard

My fiance, my two cats, and I are currently up in New Hampshire visiting my parents and sister for Newtonmas. We have decided not to drive back down to Woods Hole today because of this:

Winter storm from StormPulse. Image taken a few minutes ago. Click on the image for a larger version.

A Christmas Rock: Fossiliferous Coal

Merry Christmas & Happy Newtonmas, Everyone!

To celebrate, here are some beautiful pictures of coal taken from the interwebs. I'll take coal rocks like these in my stocking any Christmas!

Fossil ferns in coal from Morocco. Image from Wikipedia Commons.

A Famous Ocean Floor Map

Before I started a geology blog, I used to sporadically blog about geology over at Skepchick. These days, I blog here at Georneys about geology, and I blog over at Skepchick about other skeptical and scientific things, such as the silliness of having no 13th floor in buildings. Occasionally, I will re-post some of my old geology posts from Skepchick. I will also sometimes cross-post on both blogs. The post below originally appeared on Skepchick in 2007 here.

The 1977 World Ocean Floor Map created by Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp. Image taken from here.

One of the most famous world maps is the 1977 World Ocean Floor Map (see above) created by Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp, a pioneering female oceanographer and kick-ass female scientist. Prior to the publication of this map, scientists had very little idea of what the seafloor looked like on a global scale.

Although the concepts of mid-ocean ridges and plate tectonics seem innate to the work of oceanographers and geochemists today, these concepts are remarkably recent in their development. Plate tectonics was not fully accepted by the scientific community until the late 1960s and early 1970s, and this first great seafloor map was not published until the late 1970s. Mid-ocean ridges were not discovered until the work of Heezen and Tharp in the 1950s and 1960s.

Geology Word of the Week: H is for Hotspot

Travertine forming at a hotspring, Yellowstone hotspot, Fall 2005.

 def. Hotspot:
1. A place where you can obtain internet in order to write your geology blog.
2. A thermal anomaly within Earth's mantle, generally consisting of a hot, rising plume of mantle material that generates volcanism- or increased volcanism- on Earth's surface.

Audio Slideshow on My Thesis Research in Oman

Sitting on some travertine, Samail Ophiolite, Oman, January 2009.

A little over a year ago, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Oceanus Magazine put together a wonderful audio slideshow on my thesis research in Oman. Since I just presented some of the results of this research at AGU, I thought this would be a good time to post a link to the slideshow. Be sure to check out the other Oceanus audio slideshows here. There is so much great research happening at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution! These slideshows are designed for a general audience, so I explain my research in fairly simple terms. One of the challenges of recording the audio for this slideshow was avoiding technical language. They made me keep re-recording the audio until I was able to explain my research with as little jargon as possible! Also, I apologize for my overuse of the word "fascinating." I just find my research so- well- fascinating!

Click on the link below to watch the slideshow:
Oceanus Audio Slideshow

AGU Wrap-Up

San Francisco sunset, December 2010. Picture taken by my friend Kyle.

I am currently in the San Francisco airport waiting to fly back from the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting to my home base in Woods Hole. My flight back to Boston was supposed to leave an hour or so ago, but the flight has now been delayed by several hours due to "severe weather." The weather didn't look so bad when my fiance and I left our hotel this morning, but I guess that there are some bad clouds and high winds up where the airplanes fly. Looking outside the airport window now, the fog is producing pretty much white-out conditions.

Oh, well. Hopefully, we'll be able to rebook our connection in Salt Lake City and make it to Boston sometime late late late this evening. I have the best fiance ever- he flew in from South Africa (about 30 hours of traveling) on Saturday night and left with me for AGU Monday afternoon (another 13 hours or so of travel). He sat patiently through a full day of AGU on Tuesday and partial AGU days on Wednesday and Thursday. Fortunately, since he's also a geologist his company paid for him to attend AGU as well, so he was able to go off to some interesting sedimentary talks while I met up with colleagues and attended the CO2 sequestration talks which are related to my research. Now that we're looking at a very long trip home, my fiance is still being very sweet. He's been standing in line for about 30 minutes waiting to rebook our flight. I definitely have found myself a keeper.

Geology Word of the Week: G is for Gondwana

Note: I started the Geology Word of the Week at Skepchick, where I am one of several fabulous, skeptical women (and one deserving man) bloggers. For the first few weeks of the Geology Word of the Week, I am going to re-post my "Geology Words of the Week(ish)" from Skepchick. Before being distracted by graduate school and life, I made my way from A to G... I will re-post those letters here and then continue with the rest of the alphabet. In 26 weeks, I will have made my way through the alphabet!

Gondwana Reconstruction. Image from Wikipedia Commons.

This week we are at the letter G… I immediately thought of one of my favorite geology words: Gondwana!


def. Gondwana:
Gondwana is an ancient geological supercontinent that was comprised of modern-day Antarctica, South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Arabia. Gondwana first formed ~500 million years ago and later joined with the supercontinent Laurasia, that was comprised of modern-day North America, Europe, and Asia, to form a super-supercontinent named Pangea. Subsequently, Pangea began breaking up ~175 million years ago. The first stage of that separation was rifting of Laurasia from Gondwana. Eventually, all of the modern-day continents formed and gradually moved (over the past ~175 million years) into their present positions.

A Geology Conference in an Earthquake Zone

Hotel Earthquake Evacuation Guide, San Francisco, December 2010.

After a long day of travel yesterday, I arrived in San Francisco for the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Conference. The conference is held here in San Francisco every year. This is my first time at AGU. I'm very excited to be here, if a little overwhelmed by all of the people! I have to wonder a little, though, about the choice of conference venue. San Francisco, as the above "Earthquake Procedures" emergency evacuation guide I found in my hotel room reminds me, is located along the San Andreas fault and is prone to Earthquakes.  Sure, there hasn't been a major earthquake (as far as I know) during this or previous AGU conferences, but it's only a matter of time. Hopefully, during this (and subsequent) AGU meetings there won't be a repeat of the great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Perhaps AGU should consider moving their fall conference to a more geologically stable interior region- Kansas, for instance. Though I guess then you'd have to worry about tornadoes. And perhaps it wouldn't be quite as scenic.

I've had a great conference so far- I spent the day meeting with colleagues and attending a session on geological carbon sequestration. I also visited the vendor's hall and visited the life-size mock-up sphere of the Alvin deep-sea submersible, which was transported by truck from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), my home base of operations. Be sure to stop by and visit the sphere- you can also enter a raffle to win a real Alvin porthole! WHOI, by the way, is an oceanographic institution located on ephemeral glacial till that will likely be underwater in the near future due to sea level rise...

Me and the Alvin Sphere Mock-Up, San Francisco, December 2010.

Okay, off to explore San Francisco a little! Hope to see some of you tonight at the AGU Movie Event!

What to Buy a Geologist for Christmas- Part II

My What to Buy a Geologist for Christmas post has been attracting some serious (well, for my little blog anyway) traffic over the past few days. Apparently, many people find my blog post by googleing phrases such as "geology christmas gifts," "geology gifts," and "what to buy a geologist." I guess many people are doing their Christmas shopping for their geologist friends and family!

Over the past few days, I've thought up another ten items that I think a geologist would like for Christmas. Again, please feel free to post your own suggestions for geological Christmas gifts in the comments!

Gift #1: Trilobite Jewelry from Surlyramics

Image from Surlyramics Etsy shop.

AGU Movie Event

"The Core" movie poster. Image from wikipedia.com.

 "Deep Impact" movie poster. Image from wikipedia.com.

For those of you who like bad geology movies and who are attending the American Geophysical Union conference next week in San Francisco, I just wanted to advertise that there is an event called AGU Sciences Meet Hollywood.

The director of "The Core" and the screenwriter for "Deep Impact" will be there, among others. Sounds like fun!

This event takes place Tuesday night in Moscone Center South, Room 300. Hope to see some of you there!

Geology Word of the Week: F is for Fabric

Note: I started the Geology Word of the Week at Skepchick, where I am one of several fabulous, skeptical women (and one deserving man) bloggers. For the first few weeks of the Geology Word of the Week, I am going to re-post my "Geology Words of the Week(ish)" from Skepchick. Before being distracted by graduate school and life, I made my way from A to G... I will re-post those letters here and then continue with the rest of the alphabet. In 26 weeks, I will have made my way through the alphabet!

Foliated fabric in a sedimentary carbonate rock, Oman 2009.

def. Fabric:

The arrangement of the elements (minerals, textures, fossils, layers) that make up that rock. The fabric of a rock is basically the pattern of the rock.

How to Wash Dishes

Teflon beakers in Aqua Regia.

Some days, I feel that I do nothing but wash dishes... I wash dishes in lab and then go home and wash more dishes. Below is my guide to washing dishes, both at home and in lab.

What to Buy a Geologist for Christmas

Zayna (my cat) in my Newtonmas tree.

Christmas is just over three weeks away. If you're like me, you've recently put up your tree and a few decorations and are contemplating what to buy your friends and relatives. My family isn't religious, so we celebrate Newtonmas instead of Christmas. We call the holiday Newtonmas because Issac Newton, the famous mathematician and scientist, was born on Christmas Day. We celebrate Newtonmas on the same day as Christmas.

My family is very festive about Newtonmas. My mom often throws a science-themed Newtonmas Party, and we have all kinds of Newtonmas decorations, including a Newtonmas tree. The best thing about a Newtonmas tree is that you don't have to use an angel or a star as a tree topper (unless you want to). Rather, you can use anything you want! When we lived in Europe for a couple of years, we bought a little Napoleon doll and this has become our traditional tree-topper. Since I've moved out of the house and started putting up my own tree, I've used various stuffed animals and toys as tree-toppers. This year I'm using the little blue dragon from the "How to Train Your Dragon" movie. Because dragons are cute and are as real as angels, to me anyway. In honor of Newton, my family exchanges gifts and eats delicious food and even plays Christmas music. Because music is pretty, whatever your religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

Many of you may be wondering what to buy a geologist for Christmas/Newtomas. Below I've listed a few suggestions of gifts I think a geologist would like. Feel free to post your own suggestions for gifts in the comments!

And Merry Christmas/Chanukah/Newtonmas!

Gift #1: Geology Cake T-Shirt

Image from Threadless.com

This T-shirt is sold by Threadless.com here. Unfortunately, this t-shirt is currently sold out. Everyone should help request a reprint! A quick note is that geoblogger Callan Bentley pointed out in his NOVA blog that the angular unconformity cake/geology layer is highly improbable. Despite that, this is a fun t-shirt!

Cost: $18 (cheaper if it's on sale!). 

Geology Word of the Week: E is for Eustasy

Ocean meets land, Western Cape, South Africa, March 2009.

def. Eustasy:
A global change in sea level. The key word in the definition is global-- eustasy is not used to refer to local variations in sea level. Rather, a eustatic change in sea level occurs when there is a global change in (a.) the total amount of water in the oceans and/or (b.) the total volume of the ocean basins.