Georneys Has Moved!

Georneys has a new home on the American Geophysical Union Network of Earth and Space Science Blogs. 

The new url for Georneys is: http://blogs.agu.org/georneys/

Be sure to update your RSS feeds! We're currently working on moving my Google Friend Followers over to the new site. I'll give you an update on that in a day or two.

I hope that you'll continue to read Georneys over at AGU! I will keep the blogger site for Georneys up as an archive.

Geology Word of the Week: F is for Fumarole

Fumarole 1. Yellowstone, Western USA, Fall 2005.

def. Fumarole:
A crustal opening, usually in the vicinity of a volcano, through which steam and other hot gases-- such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide-- are emitted. Fumarole comes from the Latin word "fumus," which means smoke. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was incorporated into English through the French word "fumarolle" [1].

Interesting Search Terms That Found My Blog #2

For the past little while, I have been keeping track of some interesting search terms that found my blog. These are just a sampling of ones that I happened across. I've put some "answers" below the search terms. Enjoy!

Also see:
Interesting Search Terms That Found My Blog #1

A Swiss Fold

Last week I blogged about the "Chondrite Town" of Chur in Switzerland. As I was going through my pictures from Switzerland to find the Chur picture, I came across some photographs of a spectacular Swiss fold. Of course, I was reminded of my fellow geoblogger Callan Bentley and his Friday Fold posts! If you like folds, Callan provides them a-plenty on Fridays.

Gorgeous Swiss Fold. Switzerland, June 2010.

4th of July Rocks: Red, White, and Blue

Happy 4th of July, everyone! In honor of the 4th, here are some red, white, and blue rocks.
Red sandstone:

Red Standstone. Arches National Park, Utah, Fall 2005.

Newly-deposited white travertine:

Travertine forming in an alkaline pool. Oman, January 2009.

And, last but not least, brilliant bright blue kyanite crystals:

Blue kyanite. Image courtesy of Ian Stimpson's Flickr stream.

Geology Word of the Week: E is for Eclogite

Eclogite from the Mariánské Lázně Complex in the west Czech Republic.
Keele collection. Check out those gorgeous pink garnets!
Photo courtesy of Ian Stimpson.

def. Eclogite:
A high-pressure, high-temperature, coarse-grained metamorphic rock consisting primarily of pink-red garnet (almadine-pyrope variety) and green pyroxene (omphacite, a sodium-rich variety). Eclogites may also contain small amounts of other high-pressure minerals such as kyanite, quartz, hornblende, and zoisite. Eclogites form when mafic rock (basalt or gabbro) descends deep within the Earth, generally at a subduction zone. Mafic rocks consist primarily of pyroxene and plagioclase (along with some amphibole and olivine). At high pressures and temperatures, the original minerals in mafic rock are squished into the more compact (denser) minerals garnet and omphacite, and the mafic rock becomes eclogite. Eclogites form when mafic rock encounters temperatures greater than ~400 degrees Celsius and pressures greater than ~12 kbar (or ~1.2 GPa). These temperatures and pressures mean that eclogites form at a minimum depth of ~40 km; some eclogites may form as deep as ~150 km. As a reference, ocean crust (which is comprised primarily of basalt and gabbro) is generally only 6-10 km thick. Because they are very dense and inclined to descend even deeper into Earth's mantle, eclogites are rarely brought to Earth's surface. Eclogites may be exposed in ophiolite sequences and other places where deep mantle rocks are brought to Earth's surface. Often, eclogites experience partial or full retrograde metamorphism as they are brought to Earth's surface. That is, if eclogites are brought to the surface slowly, their minerals may change back into minerals that are stable at lower temperatures and pressures. Sometimes, higher-pressure minerals will have rims of lower-pressure minerals around them.

Bad Geology: Young Earth Creationists are Not Geologists

On twitter today, @geosociety and @earthmagazine were asking if people would attend a field trip led by Young Earth Creationists-- people who believe Earth is only ~6,000 years old. The question on twitter was in response to this Earth Magazine article about Young Earth Creationists leading a field trip at a recent Geological Society of America conference. I replied that, yes, I would attend such a field trip, but only so that I could rip the Young Earth Cretationists leading the field trip to shreds.

Accretionary Wedge #35: Favorite Geology Words

As many of you know, I hosted the Accretionary Wedge Geoblog Carnival for June, and I asked What's Your Favorite Geology Word? Turns out, many of you have favorite geology words! Geologists-- like many scientists, I suppose-- are fond of their jargon. Personally, I'm so fond of jargon that I blog about a geology word every week. I love many geology words, but if I had to pick an absolute favorite, it's ophiolite.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated and shared a favorite geology word! The words are listed below, in the order in which they were posted. If I somehow missed your word, please let me know in the comments, and I'll add it.

Chondrite Town

The road to the chondritic uniform reservoir. Switzerland, June 2010.

Last June I spent ten days in Switzerland and Italy exploring the geology of The Alps as part of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's annual Geodynamics Program. As we were driving one day on the trip, several geochemists in the group became very excited about the above sign. Apparently, the mysterious chondritic uniform reservoir (CHUR) is located in Switzerland! We tried our best to persuade our instructors that we should visit this important Earth reservoir, but we were told that Chur is a charming little Swiss town, not a place where we could find chondrites. So, we continued our drive to the mountains, but not before I snapped a photo as we passed a sign for Chur.

***For those who are not familiar, chondrites are primitive, stony meteorites that have not undergone significant melting or differentiation. Thus, chondrites are considered the original "starting material" for planet Earth, which scientists believe formed through accretion of chondritic bodies. The Earth probably started out as roughly chondritic then underwent chemical differentiation. To put it simply, the heavy stuff sunk to the center of the Earth (the core) and the lighter stuff floated to the top of the Earth (the crust) and the medium stuff stayed in the middle (the mantle).  For long-lived chemical systems (for example, the samarium-neodymium isotope system), geochemists like to think about how these chemical systems may have evolved over the ~4.54 billion year history of the Earth. Often, geochemists like to compare the evolution of certain chemical systems to a baseline. One baseline that is sometimes used is CHUR-- the chondritic uniform reservoir. The chemical composition of CHUR is based on the average chemical composition of chondritic meteorites. Where do we obtain these chondrites, if planets differentiated? Well, not all bits and pieces of the original chondrite parent bodies were incorporated into planets, which then differentiated. Some chondrite bits and pieces survived and have been zooming around our solar system. Chondrites often fall to Earth as meteorites, where they are sometimes recognized. Since these meteorites are stony, they look like Earth rocks and are tricky to tell apart. There could be one in your backyard! Most chondrite meteorites are found in places where there are few rocks, such as in deserts and in Antarctica.***

Geology Word of the Week: D is for Delta

The Nile Delta as seen from Earth orbit. Photo courtesy of
NASA and taken from Wikipedia here.

def. Delta:
1. The fourth letter of the Greek alphabet (uppercase Δ, lowercase δ).
2. A popular US airline with questionable service (except for those delicious little snacks they serve with your drink), often-delayed flights, and a hilarious in-flight safety video. 
3. A triangle-shaped deposit of sediment that forms where a river or stream flows into an ocean, lake, or other large, standing body of water.

Sorry, Folks, but Callan was Attacked by a T-Rex

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting up with Callan Bentley of Mountain Beltway. After several months of interacting on the internet, it was great to meet up in real life! I hope to meet some more of my fellow geobloggers over the next year or so.

Unfortunately, shortly after we met up, Callan was attacked by a T-Rex in the University of Wyoming Geology Museum:

A T-Rex attacks Callan.

Fortunately, Callan managed to escape, and we were able to tour the rest of the museum and have a sandwich afterward. Safe travels to Montana, Callan!

Limestone, Wildflowers, and Big Sky: A Wyoming Trail Run

I arrived in Wyoming last Sunday, and I'll be here for two months working with one of my advisors. I haven't had too much time to explore yet, but today (Monday) I went on a beautiful trail run*. Wyoming really is beautiful. I enjoy all the quiet, wide-open spaces. Here are a few pictures from today's trail run:

Wyoming big sky 1.

Forget Rent... I'm Moving to the Smithsonian

Note: For the next couple of weeks, I am going to be fairly busy. This weekend I started (finally) finishing up the book in which I compile all the interviews I carried out with my dad about the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Disaster. I've been listening to all the interviews again, cleaning up the transcripts, and writing a couple of background chapters. The task is taking me longer than I expected because, frankly, it is somewhat depressing to listen to all of the Fukushima interviews again. I can only handle one or two before I need to take a break. I am persevering, though. I am also busy working on a couple of super secret (for now) guest blog pieces. I'm also doing my regular graduate school work for ~8-9 hours a day. As I work on these other projects, I am going to limit my regular blogging to the geology word of the week and the occasional picture of my summer digs in Laramie, Wyoming. So, to keep my blog readers entertained over the next few weeks, I am going to re-post some geology posts that I wrote on Skepchick before I started a geology blog. The first post is below. This post originally appeared on Skepchick in 2006 here. Enjoy!

Elephant in the Rotunda, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Picture taken from wikipedia here.

There is nothing better than having an empty museum all to yourself. If I ever become wealthy, I think that I’ll rent out the great museums of the world at odd hours so that I can quietly appreciate them. Or maybe I’ll just hone my burglary skills and sneak it at night. I’m not interested in stealing anything, just enjoying the richness of the exhibits without all the lines, tourists, and misbehaving toddlers. 

One of my favorite books from childhood is From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a book about a little girl and her brother who run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week or so. After all of the tourists go home for the day, the two children have the run of the museum, bathing in the public fountain, sleeping in an antique bed in one of the exhibits, and generally having a good time with all of the artwork and artifacts. After reading this book, I nearly packed a bag and ran away to the nearest big museum, which fortunately was several hours away. Running away from home is not easily accomplished by an eight-year-old stuck in rural New Hampshire with no public transportation.

Geology Word of the Week: C is for Coquina

Coquina rock. Image taken from wikipedia here.

def. Coquina ("co-keen-ah"):
A sedimentary rock consisting of loosely-consolidated fragments of shells and/or coral. The matrix or "cement" consolidating the fragments is generally calcium carbonate or phosphate. Coquina is a soft, white rock which is often used as a building stone. Coquina forms in near-shore environments, such as marine reefs. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, coquina is a loanword from Spanish meaning "shell-fish" or "cockle" (a type of bivalve mollusc). Also according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first used in English (to refer to the building stone) in 1837 in the book The Territory of Florida by J.L. Williams.

My New Favorite T-Shirt

I just love this shirt.

Just before leaving the East coast, I picked up a new t-shirt. Isn't it great?

Chapman's Peak Nonconformity

Chapman's Peak Nonconformity, South Africa, May 2011.

On my recent trip to South Africa (see also my recent posts Sevilla Rock Art Trail, The Maltese Cross, The "Peace in Africa" in Port, and Cape Peninsula in Pictures), I spent my very last day touring around Cape Town with my fiance, my future sister-in-law, and her boyfriend. One of the things that we did just before I headed to the airport was drive along the Chapman's Peak Drive, a road just outside Cape Town that stretches from Noordhoek (which means "North Corner" in Afrikaans) to Houtbaai (which means "Wood Bay" in Afrikaans; the Afrikaans-English hybrid "Hout Bay" is commonly used). The drive follows the rocky coastline and provides breathtaking views. First constructed during World War I (and considered an incredible feat of engineering for the time), the drive was closed for a time in the 1990s due to safety concerns. The winding road is built on quite steep terrain and is frequently covered by rockfalls. However, the drive was re-opened in the 2000s (with reinforced safety features) as a scenic toll road catering to foreign tourists. However, there are many residents of Hout Bay and the surrounds who travel along Chapman's Peak everyday. Occasionally, the drive is closed because of weather or rockfall.

Finalists Announced in the 3 Quarks Daily Science Blogging Contest

Georneys didn't make it to the final round of judging in the 3 Quarks Daily Science Blogging Contest-- I guess ophiolites and geology words weren't the editors' cup of tea, and there was some stiff competition-- but that's fine. As I said, I'm thrilled to have just made it to the semifinal round and to have had so much support during the voting round. Since I'm relatively new to the science blogging scene, I'm proud to have such a strong following. Thanks again for all your support!

Here are the 9 finalist posts (6 chosen from the 20 semifinalists, and 3 wildcard entries added by the 3 Quarks Daily editors):

1. Cosmic Variance: The Fine Structure Constant is Probably Constant
2. Dr. Carin Bondar: Sacrifice on the Serengeti
3. Empirical Zeal: Blind Fish in Dark Caves Shed Light on the Evolution of Sleep
4. Highly Allochthonous: Levees and the Illusion of Flood Control
5. Laelaps: The Pelican's Beak - Success and Evolutionary Stasis
6. Oh, For the Love of Science: Prehistoric Clues Provide Insight into Climate's Future Impact on Oceans
7. Opinionator: Morals Without God?
8. Scientific American Guest Blog: Seratonin and Sexual Preference: Is It Really That Simple?
9. Starts With A Bang: Where Is Everybody? 

There are some great posts among the finalists, but I'm rooting for the geology-themed posts by Anne Jefferson of Highly Allochthonous and by Brian Switek of Laelaps. Good luck to them!

Geology Word of the Week: B is for Brunton

Brunton "Pocket Transit" Compass. Image taken from here.

def. Brunton:
A fancy, highly-precise compass used by geologists (and surveyors, engineers, archaeologists, etc.) for navigation and also to measure the strike and dip of rock layers in the field.

Semifinalists Announced in the 3 Quarks Daily Science Blogging Contest

The semifinalists were just announced in this year's 3 Quarks Daily Science Blogging Contest. These semifinalists are the twenty blog posts (out of 87) that had the most votes in a public voting contest. There are some great posts in there, including one by Anne Jefferson of Highly Allochthonous, one by Brian Switek of Laelaps, and two by my friend (and former Middle School classmate) Christie Wilcox of Observations of a Nerd. Congratulations, everyone!

I am also happy to announce that my post Geology Word of the Week: O is for Ophiolite is one of the semifinal posts. Amazingly, my post received the second-most votes! I am relatively new to the science blogging scene, so I'm humbled and very grateful that so many people voted for me. Most of all, I'm thrilled that-- hopefully-- many more people are now learning the word "ophiolite," which is one of my favorite geology words.

There are two more rounds of judging before the winners are announced. First, the editors of 3 Quarks Daily are going to select six posts from the top twenty semi-finalists. The editors may also add up to three "wild card" posts of their own choosing. Then, the top three final winners will be chosen by Lisa Randall.

Whether or not Georneys advances into the final rounds, I'm thrilled to be a semifinalist in the 3 Quarks Daily contest. Thanks again to everyone who voted!

Why We Need Scientific Ocean Drilling

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that they will fund only 6 months of scientific ocean drilling on the ship JOIDES Resolution in 2012. There is much need for scientific drilling, but NSF has been debating the expense of ocean drilling in the midst of budget cuts. There's a chance that NSF may choose not to fund any scientific ocean drilling in the near future (The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program ends in 2013), but for now drilling is cut down to just half the year. Since most drilling expeditions take ~2 months, this means only ~3 drilling expeditions will be funded next year.

As a marine geologist, the cut-back of ocean drilling makes me very sad. Ocean drilling provides much valuable scientific information, much of which cannot be obtain except with drilling.

Why is scientific ocean drilling important? My PhD advisor Susan Humphris explains why in this recent EOS article "The Need for Scientific Ocean Drilling."