Geology
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Passive Assistance
Four more of my aerial photos now illustrate their subjects in Wikipedia: Nebraska National Forest and the nearby town of Thedford, both in the Sand Hills region; and Morgan Hill and Dunaliella Salina (a micro algae that colors salt ponds, such as those on the left), both in the Bay Area. There are now 120… Continue reading
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Los Angeles vs. Nature
John McPhee is the best nonfiction writer alive. My opinion, of course. But I happen to be right. Nobody describes anything better. No writer does a better job of digging into subjects most would find dull (rocks, pine barrens, river levees, minor species of fish) and making them not only interesting but relevant. Sometimes extremely… Continue reading
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Hanging with Haiti
I posted a lot today, but nothing matters more — or has been more on the front of my mind — than Haiti. What hell that such an already troubled country should be hit by an earthquake so bad, and so close to its most dense population centers. So, as I try to get my head… Continue reading
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Matterhorn by Moonlight
There are mountains, and there is the Matterhorn. It’s all a matter of sculpture and presentation. Great art, great framing. The Matterhorn is ice sculpture. It was carved by ice out of rock pushed to the sky by a collision between Italy and Europe that’s still going on. The ice was as high as the… Continue reading
alps, blue, Cervino, Matterhorn, night, Pennine Alps, Photography, snow, switzerland, white, winter, Zermatt -
Fire seasonings
I’m on the East Coast for the rest of the current fire season in California. Which is cool, literally. I miss Santa Barbara, but not the fear of destruction (which I generally don’t have there, but I need my rationalizations). Speaking of which, here’s The Mania of Owning Things, my EOF column for August 2009… Continue reading
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Getting quakes straight
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has an excellent Earthquake Center for all the earthquakes in the world, which is very handy at a time when many are happening at once, followed in some cases by tsunamis that cross seas to strike coastlines minutes to hours later. For example, this list of earthquakes of magnitude… Continue reading
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Shaking and baking
My postings last week on the Station Fire (below) brought an invitation from Dave to contribute something along the same lines for InBerkeley. I did, and the title is The Next Berkeley Fire. Since fire is one of the two big dangers of living in this corner of paradise, I visited the subject of earthquakes… Continue reading
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Living on Borrowed Land
Why do mature redwood trees have trunks that rise two hundred feet before branches commence, live for centuries and have bark that’s a foot thick? Because they are adapted to fire. Why does the silver-green chaparral that covers California’s hills and mountains burn so easily? Because it’s supposed to. Why, other than its color, is… Continue reading
Future, Geology, Ideas, infrastructure, Life, News, Past, Photography, Places, problems, Science, Technology“John McPhee”, California poppies, California poppy, carbon, coal, diaspora, evolution, Figueroa Mountain, Figureroa loop, geologists, Geology, human, humanity, ophiolites, Plant Sherer, redwood, redwoods, San Gabriel Mountains, San gabriels, Station Fire, stationfire, subduction, The Control of Nature, UCSB, Uncommon Carriers, wildfire, wildfires -
Geology vs. Weather
I love this: … and I hope the good (or evil, depending on your perspective) folks at Despair.com don’t mind my promoting their best t-shirt yet. (If it helps, I just ordered one.) You’ll notice that blogging isn’t in the diagram (though Despair does feature it in four other purchasable forms). I bring that up… Continue reading
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A perfect storm in midair
They might have split up or they might have capsized They may have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names Of the wives and the sons and the daughters. — Gordon Lightfoot, from “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” A storm on Lake Superior drowned the Edmund… Continue reading
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Looking over St. Louis
Got these shots of St. Louis and the convergence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers while flying to Austin by way of Chicago two Fridays ago. You can see the Gateway Arch, right of center, Busch Stadium, the Edward Jones Dome, the City Museum, and lots of barge traffic on the river. I actually didn’t… Continue reading
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And porn soon followed
Says here that sex came along at least 365 billion million years ago. Continue reading
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Magma roots
The problem with “grass roots” as a metaphor is that it reduces its contributors to the miniscopic. Not microscopic, because then you couldn’t see them without a microscope. But miniscopic, meaning they’re small. You have to get down on all fours to eyeball them and say hi. So I’ve been thinking about alternative meaphors where… Continue reading
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Visting a Late Lake
Not long ago as geology goes — nine, ten, twelve millennia — one of the world’s largest lakes covered most of Minnesota, plus much of North Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and a corner of South Dakota. It’s called Lake Agassiz, named after the scientist Louis Agassiz, who figured out the Ice Age (continental glaciation, basically),… Continue reading
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Coal ranching
On Tuesday I got my first good look into the coal mines of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. This is literally where the deer and the antelope played, until the human appetite for power began eating it up. Featured are the Jacobs Ranch and Black Thunder Mines. The latter is featured in John McPhee’s Uncommon Carriers.… Continue reading
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A portrait of the Swiss Alps
On departure from Zürich to Paris yesterday the ground was shrowded in gloom and haze, but above it the sky was clear and crystalline. I sat purposely on the left side of the plane to get a view, even though I knew I’d be photographing the scene against the sun, which would be low in… Continue reading