Tag Archives: Geology

How about just making mesothelioma the state disease?

The California state rock is serpentine (correct name, serpentinite), which comes in many varieties, some which contain asbestos, which doesn’t get dangerous unless you grind it up and spread it into the air. Just sitting there, as it does through … Continue reading

Posted in Geology, Photography, Places, Politics, problems | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Dig your Ordovican great-Xth granddaddy/mommy

Or let the paleontologists dig it for you. That’s what a team led by Yale researchers did last year in southeastern Morocco’s Lower and Upper Fezouata Formations. The result is covered by LiveScience in Oldest Soft-Bodied Marine Fossils Discovered . … Continue reading

Posted in Geology, Life, Photography, Travel | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge fly-by

The shot above, made on Sunday out the window of a plane on approach to Las Vegas, comes three and a half years after this shot, which I took from the ground at Hoover Dam. Here’s a whole set of … Continue reading

Posted in Past, Photography, Places, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

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 … Continue reading

Posted in Future, Geology, Ideas, infrastructure, Life, News, Past, Photography, Places, problems, Science, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

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 … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Blogging, Geology, Ideas, Journalism, Life, Live Web, News, radio | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Thinking past the I-I boundary

For the form of life we call business, we are at a boundary between eras. For biological forms of life, the most recent of these is the K-T boundary between theĀ  Mesozoic and the Cenozoic Eras. The Mezozoic Era ended … Continue reading

Posted in Berkman, Business, Cluetrain, Future, infrastructure, News, Past, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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 … Continue reading

Posted in Geology, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments