Pools and riffles

Sand Dune Week: The Sand Hills

2011-11-21T21:44:00.008-05:00

Long time no post!

I hear it is sand dune week, so I thought I would make a little post.

The Sand Hills of western Nebraska are North America's largest sand dune formation, covering some 50-60,000 square km. Formed during the late Pleistocene and Holocene from eolian deposits, they consist of a mixture of sand sheets, transverse, liner, and parabolic dunes. The dunes are vegetatively stabilized, but during long term droughts, reduced vegetation cover allows dune movement, primarily to the southeast. Interdune areas often intersect with the water table, resulting in lakes and wetlands. Because the sandy soil limited plowing, they mostly remained grass covered. The Sand Hills are the most ecologically intact section of the Great Plains.

Such a large feature is necessarily best viewed from above.

Compound Parabolic Dunes between Alliance and Hyannis

Closer to the ground, patterns are much more difficult to discern.

Transverse Dunes at Valentine NWR

References
Loope, D. B. Swinehart, J. B. Thinking Like a Dune Field: Geologic History in the Nebraska Sand Hills. Great Plains Research 10:5-36. 2000.

The Sandhills

Earth Observatory Image of the Day

Map Monday 19: Bathymetry of Lake Baikal

2010-05-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

Lake Baikal is most famous for being the deepest and most voluminous lake in the world [assuming you don't count the Caspian Sea]. For me, the most striking feature isn't the deepest point, but rather, the average depth at 744 meter. The bathymetry, instead sloping to the lowest point, it has steep sides and a flat bottom. Image a fjord, although it isn't glacial in origin, rather tectonic. This oblique DEM gives another perspective.

Map Information
The INTAS Project 99-1669 Team. 2002. A new bathymetric map of Lake Baikal. Open-File Report on CD-Rom

Riviére de Terre

2010-05-21T23:00:00.005-04:00

Riviére de Terre by Andy Goldsworthy; photo by Emmanuel Prunevieille.

This month's Accretionary Wedge is geo-images. Although, I do like maps, I went with something different.

I first learned of the land artist Andy Goldsworthy through the documentary Rivers and Tides. As the name "land artist" implies, various "natural" materials, such as rocks, twigs, leaves, soil are used in the creation and placement of the art. Many of the features are temporary, being "destroyed" by the nature around it.

The work is made of a variety of local clays, forming the work as the clays dried.

Map Monday 18: 1911 Mount St Helens

2010-05-17T10:13:00.002-04:00

With the 30th anniversary of the 1980 eruption coming up tomorrow, why not a pre-eruption map? The below is the 1919 Mt St Helens quadrangle. Be sure to click on the image for a zoomable version of the map.

Map Information
U.S. Geological Survey. 1919. Mount St Helens quadrangle, Washington 1:125,000. United States Department of the Interior, USGS. Hosted by University of Washington.

Map Monday 17: North Side of the Moon

2010-05-10T11:58:00.005-04:00

Map Information
Lucchitta, B. 1978. Geologic map of the north side of the Moon. US Geological Survey. Online at the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Map Monday 16: Vine and Matthews Magnetic Anomalies

2010-05-03T01:04:00.006-04:00

The defining paradigm shift in 20th century earth science is clearly the widespread acceptance of plate tectonics. One of the most important lines of evidence helping to convince scientists were the existence of magnetic stripe anomalies in the rocks of the oceans. The above map, from the classic Vines & Matthews paper from 1964, shows two profiles [Atlantic and Indian Oceans]. The black is the bathymetry and the black line is the magnetic field anomaly

Map Information
Figure 1 from: Vine, F.J. and D.H. Matthews. 1964. Magnetic anomalies over oceanic ridges. Nature 201:591-592.

Map Monday 15: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

2010-04-26T00:01:00.001-04:00

Roughly 400,000 years after the big bang, the universe had expanded and therefore cooled enough to allow hydrogen atoms to form and radiation to occur.

In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson of Bell Labs, found that wherever they pointed their very precise antenna they would have static. What they stumbled upon, and later won the Nobel Prize in Physics for was the experimental evidence of this relic radiation of this initial thermal radiation, now at 2.7 K.

Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite was launched in 1989 to examine the irregularities in the radiation. 2001 saw the launch of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), to provide an even more detailed look.

These images provide "maps" of the universe and its irregularities when the universe was only 400,000 years old. These irregularities explain the present day large scale variations of mass.

COBE is the top image and WMAP is the bottom image.

Map Information
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. 1992. CMB Fluctuations from Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis: DMR Images.
WMAP Science Team. 2010. WMAP Internal Linear Combination Map from Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis: WMAP Data Product Images.

Floyd Dominy dead at 100

2010-04-25T21:05:00.003-04:00

US Reclamation Bureau official Floyd Dominy (R) inspecting the Arghandab River Dam in Afghanistan. Taken by James Burke on February 27, 1963.

Map Monday 14: La Pama

2010-04-19T00:15:00.001-04:00

In 1815, the German geologist Leopold von Bunch visited the Canary Islands and suggested that they were of volcanic origin. He also used the Spanish word caldera, meaning cauldron, to describe a few of the particular landforms he observed. The above is a later map of one of the Canary Islands, La Pama. The Caldera de Taburiente dominates the island and the map. The narrow canyon opening the Caldera to the southwest is called Barranco de Dolores [Valley of Sorrow] .

The topography of the island is beautifully shown using hachures. It wasn't until the mid 19th century that contour lines became the default way to show topography.

Map Information
Buch, Christian Leopold von. 1836. Carte Physique de Palma from Atlas des Iles Canaries.

Luna Leopold

2010-04-17T22:04:00.009-04:00

The topic of this month's Accretionary Wedge is "Geological Heroes".

The hero I picked was the hydrologist/gemorphologist Luna Leopold. In the 1950s and 1960s Leopold, along with Reds Wolman, Arthur Stahler, and others, he helped to change geomorphology from descriptive and qualitative to a quantitative, process based science. In particular, Leopold focused on rivers, studying not only how their forms were linked to various watershed attributes [landcover, climate, etc] but how rivers respond to perturbations to these attributes. For example, how does a river's shape, width, and depth react to an increase in discharge? In the classic text of fluvial geomorphology, Fluvial processes in geomorphology, Leopold [with coauthors Reds Wolman and John Miller] wrote about comparing river meanders of different rivers

The presence of the large meanders, however, poses several problems. First, how and when were such meanders initiated? Second, why do the appear to be unusually large? Third, how are they maintained as the stream corses the bedrock? Was the meander form inherited from an earlier time when the river flowed at a higher level, perhaps on a dispositional or erosional surface no longer evident in the present topography? Or do the large meanders suggest that at one time much larger volumes of water were carried by the Susquehanna? If so, did these larger rivers provide greater energy with which to mold the larger bend in bedrock? [Leopold et al. 1964]

Leopold had a long and varied career, with almost 200 publications. These range the spectrum from remote field work on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, to flume work in the laboratory. He was at times the chief hydrologist of the USGS, chair of the geology department at University of California-Berkley, and president of the Geological Society of America.

Leopold, the son of pioneering ecologist Aldo Leopold, was involved with important studies on the environmental impact of human development. A study of the possible impacts of a jetport to be built in the Everglades helped to stop it from being built.

Like his father, he as spoke about our interaction with the environment and our ethical obligations to it.

Speaking of the Persians who dominated Asia Minor in the 5th century B.C., Herodotus said, “They never defile a river with the secretions of their bodies, nor even wash their hands in one; nor will they allow others to do so, as they have a great reverence for rivers.” It is the last phrase that deserves our attention. The river is like an organism; it is internally self-adjusting. It is also resilient and can absorb changes imposed upon it, but not without limit. The limit beyond which a river cannot adjust is well illustrated by some of the effects of our national program of channelization, in which we have already dredged, straightened, channelled, revetted, trained, and “improved” more than 16,500 miles of river channels in the United States, quite apart from the thousands of reservoirs already built.....

Man’s engineering capabilities are nearly limitless. Our economic views are too insensitive to be the only criteria for judging the health of the river organism. What is needed is a gentler basis for perceiving the effects of our engineering capabilities. This more humble view of our relation to the hydrologic system requires a modicum of reverence for rivers. [Leopold 1977]

Most of his publications can be downloaded from the Virtual Luna Leopold Project

Sources:
Leopold, L., Wolman, G., Miller, J. 1964. Fluvial processes in geomorphology. W.H. Freeman and Company, San Fransisco.
Leopold, L. 1973, River Channel Change with Time: An Example. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 84:1845-1860.
Leopold, L. 1977. A Reverence for Rivers. Geology. 5:429-430.

Photographs from the past few months

2010-04-08T12:31:00.006-04:00

The north end of the Salton Trough in the Coachella Valley. San Jacinto Mountains in the background, center. The Indio Hills - San Andreas Fault are barely visible in the valley.

Badlands of the Painted Desert in Northeast Arizona

The famous El Capitan, Permian reef structure. Brian Romans of Clastic Detritus has much more information about this place.

The foredune crest, of the barrier island, Padre Island.

Lot more photographs.

Ripped from the Headlines (100 years ago)

2010-01-05T14:13:00.005-05:00

The New York Times has a cool feature where you can read selected old papers online for free (you have to pay to see all the papers). On the front page, 100 years ago (5 January 1910), is a story entitled 'Mother Earth Still Young'. The article gives the details of a lecture by William Morris Davis.

"We are now able to tell almost exactly the age of this earth," said Prof. William Morris Davis of Harvard in a lecture at the Lowell Institute. "It has existed 60,000,000 not 100,000,000 years. We are able to tell this by an examination of the cliffs in Arizona and Utah, where the time taken to lay down deposits can be easily computed."

Sure he was off by roughly 2 orders of magnitude, but he was on the front page!

Even more photographs

2009-12-20T19:21:00.003-05:00

Stoney Indian Pass in Glacier National Park. Various glacier landforms.

Split Mountain, an anticline in Dinosaur NM. Take a look at the gigapan from Ron Schott for a different view and better geology write-up.

Labyrinth Canyon of the Green River in Canyonlands NP.

Brontosaur tracks at Picket Wire Canyon in SE Colorado.

Valle Grane, part of the larger Valles Caldera in N New Mexico.

Riparian forest, floodplain, terrace of Gila River in Gila Box in eastern Arizona.

More Photographs

More photos from the field...

2009-10-08T23:21:00.002-04:00

An addition to my previous post.

John Day Fossil Beds in central Oregon

Volcanic deposits in North Fork Toutle River, near Mt St Helens.

Western section of Dry Falls, a waterfall formed during the Missoula Floods.

More photographs

I'm not dead yet

2009-08-28T14:35:00.004-04:00

Really.

So rather than be an unemployed geoscience type this summer, I decided to be a an unemployed geoscience type that travels. So for the last two months, I have been backpacking in various places in the western US. Here are a few geology influenced pictures.

Cirques, tarns, moraines, and an active rockfall (notice dust cloud on mountain on the left) in John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Mountains.

Sag Pond on San Andreas Fault at the south end of the Carrizo Plain.

Point Reyes headlands.

Lava tube at Lava Beds National Monument.

Isostatic Rebound Hudson Bay

2009-06-13T20:44:00.014-04:00

The subject of this month's Accretionary Wedge is "Let's do a time warp". Basically, what past (or future) geologic events would you like to be able to observe.

The geologic event I choose is the isostatic rebound of the Hudson Bay region. At the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning the Holocene, the massive ice sheets covering northern North America began to melt. As the weight of thousands of meters of ice over the Hudson Bay region was removed, the surface began to rise.

As the land continued to rise, new shorelines were repeatedly being formed, as the old shorelines were elevated higher. In some places, over 175 old shorelines ring the present bay level. This is equated to over 300 m over rebound in places. And it is still rising.

If I was in a space ship, watching this event unfold in a few minutes rather than thousands of year, I would see a huge mass of ice melting, followed by a quick jump of the land surface. As time would pass, the speed of the rise would slow down. On the surrounding land surface, almost bare rock surfaces, sweep clean of soil by the glaciers, would slowly become colonized by mosses and lichen. Soil would slowly begin to form, allowing shrubs and trees to gain a foot-hold. Water that would have originally laid on the nearly flat surface, would have started to cut the beginnings of stream channels.

I have reached the present. What does the future hold? The land will continue to rise, in some places still over 100 m. As the climate warms (at least in the relative future), more trees will move even more, as the rate of soil creation increases with the warmer temperatures. Lakes will fill in and drainages patterns will become less deranged.

Map Monday 13: Great Falls of the Columbia

2009-04-20T16:56:00.003-04:00

I have been missing a few map Monday for no good reason, so maybe I can get in the grove again.

This week map is of "Great Falls of the Columbia" (aka Celilo Falls). The falls was on the Columbia River, just east of the Dallas on the border of Washington and Oregon. I use "was" because it was drowned by the construction of the Dalles Dam in 1957. The falls themselves are local knickpoints at a layer of basalt (part of the Columbia River Basalt Group).

The actual map is from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Note the map shows their campsite and portage route around the falls.

The Map is from the David Rumsey collection.

Map Information
Allen, P., Biddle, N., Clark, W., Lewis, M. 1814. Great Falls of the Columbia. from History Of The Expedition Under The Command Of Captains Lewis And Clark, To The Sources Of The Missouri, Thence Across The Rocky Mountains And Down The River Columbia To The Pacific Ocean. Performed During The Years 1804-5-6.

Not Spring

2009-04-10T22:18:00.002-04:00

Ruby Valley, NV

Linear-Lee Dunes on Mars

2009-04-03T21:03:00.002-04:00

This month's IAG planetary geomorphology image is amazing.....

Spring

2009-04-02T00:52:00.003-04:00

Sichuan Province Landsides

2009-03-26T23:27:00.002-04:00

If you haven't done it yet, I would advise everyone to take a gander at Dave's landslide blog and his amazing posts and photographs of some of the aftermath from the Chinese earthquake last year. Below is my favorite (the trucks near the bottom give you a sense of scale).

Photograph by David Petley

In the field meme....

2009-03-26T23:22:00.004-04:00

Well, there another meme in the geoblogesphere, what do you have with you in the field (see some other posts).

I bet mine is going to be a little different because I have so many tools, I can't take them all into the field at one time!

Clothes
Well, I guess it depends on the weather, but the constant is chest waders. Sure, you may be able to get away with hip waders, but I always manage to get water down my leg in them. Ok, the beard is constant too, but it isn't as integral.

Equipment
Now we get into the good stuff. First, lets do some discharge. How about a nice velocity meter? I use a flowtracker that automatically does the discharge calculation for your, depending on your method (.6, .2/.8, ice surface, etc).

Well, there are always wells. Will probably need an electronic well tape (beeps when the end of the tape hits water).

We can't forget about the actual chemical make up of the water. For "everyday" sampling I will be using a Hydrolab water quality sonde.

We have to communicate with all this equipment, so we need a computer that can handle some dirty and wet field sites. Looks like a job for a toughbook.

Last, but not least, a rite-in-the-rain notebook. I am playing around with water.

Map Monday 12: Geologic Map of Surtsey

2009-03-23T00:00:00.001-04:00

With the news of a "new island" of formed by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the south Pacific getting some attention in the geobloggosphere, I thought for this return to Map Monday, why not look back at another "recently created island". Surtsey is probably the most famous example of a undersea volcano reaching the surface. It has since become an important "natural experiment" of colonization of life.

The above image is a geologic map of Surtsey by the The Surtsey Research Society. The principle craters, vents, fissures are denoted by red lines. The purple colors shows various lavas, browns are tuff and tephra, and the tans are talus slopes and sand deposits.

Map Information
Jakobsson, S. P. 2000. Geological map of Surtsey (scale 1:5.000). Icelandic Institute of Natural History and The Surtsey Research Society.

Map Monday 11: Sea Level Change 1993-2008

2009-02-08T23:24:00.004-05:00

The week's Map Monday shows sea level changes 1993-2008. The data is based on two NASA/CNES satellites (Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1). White, red, and yellow areas show locations of increased sea level, while purple and blue show decreased sea level. The most obvious change is located in the western Pacific Ocean, reflecting the negative phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). The PDO is similar to ENSO, except it can last for decades. It is also associated with weather events similar to ENSO, except not as extreme. During the negative phase of the PDO, the western Pacific is warmer, while the eastern Pacific cools (like La Niña).

Map Information
PIA11002: Portrait of a Warming Ocean and Rising Sea Levels: Trend of Sea Level Change 1993-2008. 2008. NASA/JPL.

Google Earth Historical Imagery

2009-02-02T23:31:00.009-05:00

A couple week ago, BrianR at Clastic Detritus showed off the new higher-resolution bathymetry coverage in google earth. Well, version 5.0 was released today and it has some other fun stuff to play with. I like the historic imagery.

The pain about historic imagery is finding it and getting in a usable format on your computer. Even if you not going from a paper image, it still requires some work. Well google has gathered up some old imagery. Older than 20 years is pretty spotty, but there are some locations worth checking out.

The below images are of southern Lake Tahoe from 1940, 1969, 1987, 2004, and 2007. The resolutions are low, so I suggest opening the location up in google earth (38°56'14.56"N, 120° 0'38.81"W, 4.4 km altitude).

In 1940, notice the large marshland in the middle and the elongated delta of a stream in the NE.

Now in 1969, the marshland is a marina and the delta is reduced in size on the NW (sediment no longer allowed to replace erosion of delta?). Even the stream feeding the delta has been channelized.

In 1987, a spit has developed on the NE side of the stream's mouth.

It is 2004 and there is a new delta. Why is it forming now? Perhaps there is an increased sediment supply from the stream or dredging is no longer occurring?

Finally, we are at the newest image in 2007. The delta is gone again!

Map Monday #10: Darwin's South America Cross Sections

2009-02-02T00:01:00.001-05:00

With February being the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, how about a map by Darwin. The above map shows three cross sections of the southern Andes. Included are not only elevations but simple bedrock types (granite, sandstone, etc...).

Map Information
Darwin, C. R. 1846. Plate 1. From Geological observations on South America. Being the third part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836. Smith Elder and Co.

Map from The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

Map Monday #9: Central Idaho and Western Montana Wolf Packs

2009-01-26T00:01:00.001-05:00

The Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) has been busy for the past few months. Last year, some populations of the wolf were removed from the endangered species list, however, they were put back on later by a judge. In the last days of the Bush administration, they were again delisted. However, since Obama took office, this was reversed again.

Although, wolves in the Yellowstone region get more attention, the largest population in the northern Rocky Mts is actually in central Idaho and western Montana. According to the latest public report, there are roughly 1,500 wolves in the northern Rocky Mts. Central Idaho/western Montana has 800 of these wolves, 450 are in the Yellowstone region, and 250 in northern Montana. The above map shows general locations of various wolf packs in central Idaho based on radio collar data. Maps are available for all three regions showing the wolf pack ranges.

Map Information
Central Idaho Wolf Recovery Area. 2008. From Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery 2007 Interagency Annual Report.Prepared by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Information Services Division.

Map Monday #8: Streamgages in Antarctica

2009-01-12T00:13:00.003-05:00

When you think of collecting some data in Antarctica, the cryosphere or maybe some seismology is probably what comes to mind. How about some stream discharge measurements?

The McMurdo Dry Valleys are famous for their lack of ice cover and the strong katabatic winds that blow. But during the summer, it gets warm enough to melt some ice and create streams in the dry valleys. And where there is water to measure, the USGS is there. They even have a couple sites that have real time data online! The below map shows the sites of 20 stream gage sites within Taylor valley.

I just have to include the photograph of someone doing a discharge measurement! Maybe that can be me someday.... :-)

Streamgaging on Onyx River at Lake Vanda, Wright Valley, Antarctica. Photo by Chris Jaros, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

Map Information
Locations of streamgages in the Taylor Valley, Antarctica. From Streamgaging in Antarctica. USGS Wyoming Water Science Center.

Map Monday #7: Iowa Isostatic Gravity Map

2009-01-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

The further back into the earth's past you go, the less material exists and the harder it becomes to reconstruct the paleogeography. This makes understanding the creation of the cratons, the stable cores of continents, especially difficult. Although parts of the North American craton were cleaned of covering sediments by glaciation, some parts were further buried. However, techniques such as magnetic and gravity mapping allow us to glimpse what lies under covers of sediment and rock.

Above is a isostatic gravity map of Iowa. Locations of higher gravitational acceleration (recall g=mG/r²), are locations of denser rocks (oceanic rock), locations of lower gravitational acceleration are less dense rocks (continental). On the above map, red is higher acceleration and blue is lower acceleration.

The most obvious feature is the three "stripes" across central Iowa, consisting of a central high gravity stripe, and surrounding lower gravity stripe. The central high gravity stripe is the buried remains of the failed midcontinent rift. Roughly 1100 million years ago, the North American craton tried to rift, causing the stripe of heavy basalts, which were thrust up as the Iowa horst. The surrounding five basins were filled with lighter clastic sediments. The rift failed, but the gravity differences remain after 1100 million years.

Map Information
Iowa Isostatic Gravity Anomaly Map. From Iowa Magnetic and Gravity Maps and Data: A Web Site for Distribution of Data. Kucks, R. P. and Hill, P. L. USGS Data Series 135. 2005.

Earth Impact Simulator

2009-01-01T19:14:00.004-05:00

Although this has been around for a few years, I just learned about this neat earth impact simulator from the University of Arizona's Department of Planetary Sciences. You enter your distance from the impact and the earth material the projectile hits, along with the size, density, angle, and speed of the projectile. It returns some of the effects of such an impact.

I went with

Distance from Impact: 100.00 km = 62.10 miles
Projectile Diameter: 2000.00 m = 6560.00 ft = 1.24 miles
Projectile Density: 1000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 51.00 km/s = 31.67 miles/s
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 1000 kg/m3
Target Type: Liquid Water of depth 10.00 meters, over typical rock.

With such an impact, the results would be

Final Crater Diameter: 29.3 km = 18.2 miles
Visible fireball radius: 34.2 km = 21.2 miles
The fireball appears 77.7 times larger than the sun
Much of the body suffers third degree burns
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 20 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 8.7
The ejecta will arrive approximately 144 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness: 1.36 m = 4.45 ft
The air blast will arrive at approximately 303 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 844000 Pa = 8.44 bars = 120 psi
Max wind velocity: 693 m/s = 1550 mph

I am toast, literally!

There is even a paper describing how the simulator was created!
Collins, G. S., Melosh, H.J., Marcus, R. A. 2005. Earth Impact Effects Program: A Web-based computer program for calculating the regional environmental consequences of a meteoroid impact on Earth. Meteoritics & Planetary Science 40(6):817–840.

Map Monday #6: Seismicity Cross Section

2008-12-29T00:01:00.002-05:00

As previously shown many times on the geoblogosphere, the USGS's earthquake site is a good site for recent and occurring earthquakes. While looking through the site I saw on November 24, 2008 at 09:02 UTC, a 7.3 magnitude quake happened in the Sea of Okhotsk, off the west coast of Kamchatka. Under the "seismic cross section" there is a great map illustrating the variation in quake depth at subduction zones. The November 24 quake was deep focus at a depth of 491 km, well into the Wadati-Benioff zone. The map shows the increasing depth of foci from the boundary, as the subducting plate moves deeper into the mantle.

Map Information
Seismic Cross Section for Magnitude 7.3 Sea of Okhotsk at
Monday, November 24, 2008 at 09:02:58 UTC. Preliminary Earthquake Report U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center World Data Center for Seismology, Denver.

Map Monday #5: Worldwide Glaciation

2008-12-22T10:14:00.005-05:00

On this week's map Monday, it is back those hotbeds of early geologic research, glaciers and the Alps. Unlike the previous map that focused on glaciation in the Alps, this attempted to combine the presently known evidence of glaciation to produce a world wide map. The map includes inserts showing greater detail in the Alps, North American, and the south island of New Zealand. The largest maps are polar projections of both the north and south poles. Once again, the map is from the David Rumsey collection.

Map Information
Eisverbreitung, einst und jetzt. Polar Ansicht der Erde in Lambert's flachenrechter Azimuthal-projection . (with) Der Rhein-Gletscher nach A. Favre. (with) Der Rhone Gletscher nach A. Falsan. (with) Seen-Gebiet in Nord-Amerika nach Chamberlin und Wright. (with) Die Europaischen Alpen. (with) Iseo-Gletscher nach Stroppani. (with) Der Loisach- und Inn-Gletscher n. Penck & Bayberger. (with) Die Sudlichen Alpen (Neu-Seeland) nach J. v. Haast. Entw. v. Herm. Berghaus 1884, Ausg. 1886. Gotha: Justus Perthes (1892)

Snow on the valley floor

2008-12-18T23:35:00.005-05:00

The week saw a couple of storms with very low snow levels, down to some Mojave valley floors. Even Las Vegas got 3.6 in of snow, the most since 1979! Now, some places in Nevada do get snow (it is the name), but it is unusual for my location. In my own neck of the ~~woods~~ desert, we had two snow events, totaling 4.9 in for the last three days (I am the 5 in SE Nevada). The yearly average snowfall for my location is 1.9 in!

The back end of the storm system this morning.

That isn't salt in the foreground.

One Northern Shoveler and several American Coots gather in the only ice free part of a pond.

Map Monday #4: Mercator's North Pole

2008-12-08T00:01:00.001-05:00

Gerardus Mercator was a pretty influential cartographer. In fact, when most people think of a map of the world, they think of Mercator's projection (for better or worse). One of Mercator's accomplishments was his 1595 posthumously published atlas, Atlantis pars altera.

As you would expect from a map from 1595 there are some major issues. His northern America has no connection with reality, Greenland is smaller, and an island (Frisland) has appeared between Iceland and Greenland. What is most interesting his his depiction of the geographic north pole and his two magnetic north poles. The below is Mercator describing the geographic north pole and one of the magnetic north poles.

In the midst of the four countries is a Whirl-pool . . . into which there empty these four indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes round and descends into the earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel. It is four degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogether. Except that right under the Pole there lies a bare rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles, and it is all of magnetic stone

Mercator's other magnetic north pole is located in the present day Chukchi Sea north of the Bering Strait.

Map Information
Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio from Atlantis pars altera. Mercator, Gerhard. 1595.

Titan Cryovolcanism

2008-12-02T20:59:00.003-05:00

Little did I know yesterday, but Titan is also the subject of this month's planetary geomorphology image of the month from the IAG. The image shows cryovolcanism on the surface of Titan, particularly Ganesa Macula, a possible shield volcano. Cryovolcanoes are like their counterparts on earth, except they erupt "cold" materials such as water or ammonia.

Map Monday #3: Titan Topography

2008-12-01T20:41:00.004-05:00

I am a little late with this week's map because I spent the holiday backpacking in Death Valley, which is evidently the place you spend your first Nevada Thanksgiving.

So the first two weeks have been 19th century maps. Why not something much more recent? The above image are elevations of Titan (on of Saturn's moons) obtained by the Cassini space probe in 2007. The top half is a radar scan of part of Titan's north pole. This has been converted into a DEM and transformed into a topographic image of elevations on the bottom half. You really need to click on the image to get a good view.

Map Monday #2: Glaciers of the Alps

2008-11-24T01:00:00.000-05:00

One of the first important research foci of early (19th century) geology was the Alps and their associated glaciers. People like De Saussure and Agassiz were climbing around the mountains (helping to invent the sport of mountaineering) trying to understand the processes involved.

This week's map is from 1854 and illustrates features of several Alpine glaciers. Not only is the speed of the glacier shown, but also the location of moraines and erratic boulders. These features were the first evidence of ice ages in the earth's past.

Just like last week's map, this is from the David Rumsey Collection.

Illustrations of the glacier systems of the Alps and of glacial phenomena in general. From the surveys and sketches of Professor Forbes, the maps of Raymond, Weiss, Charpentier &c., by A.K. Johnston, F.R.S.E. Engraved by W. & A.K. Johnston. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh & London. 1st. November 1854. (1856)

Map Monday #1: Lake Bonneville

2008-11-17T00:16:00.005-05:00

With such great post series like where on google earth, geopuzzles, and the alliterative sea-floor Sunday, Friday faults, and Friday field foto, when not start out the week with map Monday?

The map is of the pluvial Lake Bonneville, completed during the Wheeler Survey, one of the large "west of the 100th meridian" surveys that helped to establish the USGS in the 1870s. The data for the map was gathered in part by the great 19th century geomorphologist, G. K. Gilbert. The map is part of the David Rumsey Map Collection. Click on the image for a larger look. If you also have time, check out this neat little flash "brief history of Lake Bonneville" from the Utah State Geological Survey.

Restored Outline Of Lake Bonneville. Geological Data By G.K. Gilbert & E.E. Howell. J. Bien lith. Portions Of Western Utah & Eastern Nevada. Expeditions of 1869, 1871, 1872 & 1873 Under the Command of 1st. Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army. U.S. Geographical Surveys West Of The One-Hundredth Meridian. (1876)

Desert Lake and Dune Field

2008-11-09T20:16:00.018-05:00

Desert lake and Sand Dune Field from Google Earth.

Last weekend I took a trip to Desert Lake located in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. The lake is a large dry playa located in Desert Valley, an endorheic basin. An endorheic basin, also known as a closed basin, has no water exiting or leaving it. The valley itself is located on the southern side of the larger endorheic Great Basin. Because of the unique names of the playa and valley, I haven't been able to find much published literature about the area.

Desert Valley drains an area starting at the Groom and Tikaboo ranges near Rachel, through Nellis Air Force Range, before terminating at Desert Lake.

Although it was wetter in the area during the Pleistocene and may well have sustained a permanent lake, now the area receives less than 15 cm of rainfall a year. The frequency of induation of this playa, like most playas, is probably unknown (Lichvar et al. 2004)

Desert Lake as seen from the dune field looking toward the southwest

There are lots of playas in southern Nevada, but desert is more unique because of its associated sand dunes. To the east of the lake is the Sheep Range, a 1,500-2,000 m mountain range of Cambrian to Devonian dolmite and limestone (Jayko, 2007). Along with predominately westerly winds, this allows the formation of a dune field.

The Sheep Range from just north of Desert Lake

This process is also illustrated on the larger and more famous Great Sand Dunes National Park. As seen in this image from the park's website, winds blow the deposited sand west until it is again deposited at the base of the mountains. Winds blowing through mountains passes from the east help to pile the sand into dunes. For much more information about the Great Sand Dunes see a recent paper in Geomorphology (Madole et al., 2008).

Desert Lake Sand Dune Field

I estimated the tallest dunes as > 20 m. The Dune Field covers only a few square km of land, however, the surrounding area is quite sand, but is mostly covered in vegetation. The dunes themselves are only sparsely vegetated with Ambrosia eriocentra (woolly bursage) and Chilopsis linearis (desert willow). The dune field is one of the northernmost natural occurses of C. linearis (Ackerman, 2003).

Chilopsis linearis

Finally, just for fun, here is a shot of some ripples on the dunes and check out geology.aboout.com's recent visit to the Kelso Dunes in California.

References:
Ackerman, T. L. 2003. A Flora of the Desert National Wildlife Range, Nevada. Mentzelia 7:1-89.

Jayko, A. S. 2007. Geologic Map of the Pahranagat Range 30' × 60' Quadrangle, Lincoln and Nye Counties, Nevada. US Geological Survey.

Lichvar, R., Gustina, G., Bolus, R. 2004. Ponding duration, ponding frequency, and field indicators: A case study on three California, USA, playas. Wetlands 24:406–413.

Madole, R. F., Romig, J. H., Aleinikoff, J. N., VanStistine, D. P., Yacob, E. Y. 2008. On the origin and age of the Great Sand Dunes, Colorado. Geomorphology 99:99-119.

Animals in the field

2008-11-09T20:00:00.004-05:00

Before it was trees, now it is animals in the field. Well I have three, all from eastern Tennessee.

Ruffled Grouse

Eastern Box Turtle

Ok, this isn't really an animal, just the evidence of one. Black bear scat.

Global ground water

2008-10-28T10:35:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, there was some discussion of the global geology map, one geology. UNESCO has released a global map of ground water. It shows estimates of the recharge rates, locations of natural discharge, and ground water mining.

It has the entire globe and continents available as pdfs. It also has a web based mapping interface, that isn't currently working for me.

Favorite trees

2008-10-25T12:08:00.004-04:00

Starting with Geotripper, others have been posting some of their favorite trees .

I could do an entire blog of my favorite trees, but two particular species stand out for me. First, is Aesculus flava (Yellow Buckeye). Although I had seen the species many times before, it wasn't until going to the headwaters of Dunn Creek in the Great Smoky Mountains during my thesis field work that I became awestruck by it. By wood volume, the tree may be in the top six largest species in the eastern US (Tsuga canadensis, Liriodendron tulipifera, Pinus strobus, Taxodium distichum, Quercus virginiana, Aesculus flava?). When it grows in a forest situation, it develops a powerful straight bole that slowly tapers with height. Below are four +4.5 m CBH trees I found near or at my field sites.

My other favorite tree has to be Pinus virginiana (Virginia Pine). If you ever climb a rocky ridge in Appalachia, you will find it. Although it can grow on better sites, its classic home is a rock ledge, exposed to the wind and sun, growing in almost no soil. Unlike most pines that have a straight bole until they get old, Virginia pine starts out twisted and gnarly when young. When you combine the tree with its rocky and exposed homes, I imagine a tough individual that takes the worst nature can give, yet still grows and maintains a unique individuality. It is so tough, it is commonly planted on old coal strip mines where little else will grow. Below is one growing out of a sandstone ledge along the Big South Fork River.

Online textbook

2008-10-23T19:16:00.002-04:00

I am always happy when I see another journal or textbook going online for free.

The USGS has put the textbook Unsaturated Zone Hydrology for Scientists and Engineers, downloadable for free on their website. However, it is not in the public domain.

I have only had a chance to read a couple chapters, but so far so good (as far as textbooks go...). It is geared for upper level undergraduates and graduates students.

And the cover is excellent (definitely look at a bigger view).

Hat tip to Waterwired.

Fun with a camera and a scope

2008-10-06T00:09:00.002-04:00

My workplace has a very nice Leica Televid 77mm birding scope, so I decided to try my hand at some photographs using the scope. It was a lot harder than I thought! My best photograph was of a Brewer's blackbird on top of a telephone pool.

My shots of a group of American coot didn't turn out so well...

Finally, a night shot of a controlled burn on the refuge and an anti-Southern Nevada Water Authority display from near Baker, NV.

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

2008-10-01T17:00:00.002-04:00

October 2 is the 40th anniversary of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. To quote the act (emphasis added)

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States that certain selected rivers of the Nation which, with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values, shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations.

Today, over 11,000 miles of 165 rivers are protect by the act. I couldn't find a good map showing all the rivers, so I created one.

So if you can, go out and enjoy a river tomorrow.

Geology of Pluto

2008-09-23T20:31:00.007-04:00

The topic of this month's Accretionary Wedge is geology in space.

There is a lot of sexy stuff to talk about, but I thought, what about a space body that has been through some tough times recently. Pluto used to be a planet, the select club of only 8 other members in our solar system. But in 2006 it was downgraded to just a dwarf planet. It deserves some attention.

The hardest thing about studying the geology of Pluto is the distance. Pluto is at a minimum 4.28 billion km from earth. A little to far for a rock hammer. At that distance, even satellites have problems.

First, what is Pluto made of? Using spectroscopy, Pluto's surface has been determined to be mostly frozen N₂ with a small amounts of CH₄ and CO. Based on its density, Pluto is thought to have a solid rock core. The radioactive decay from this core could be enough to melt the bottom of Pluto's frozen surface, resulting in a layer of liquid between the core and surface.

Pluto's surface, however, is not flat and featureless, as Hubble images have reveled. Pluto has locations of varying albedo that are probably a result of not only surface frost, but also impact craters.

Despite Pluto's great distance from the sun, its atmosphere's composition is still controlled by the sun. Just like with ice caps on Earth, although the sun may not have enough energy to melt the frozen material, it can sublimate some of it. Because of this sublimation, Pluto's atmosphere has a similar composition to its surface. Pluto, like Saturn's moon, Titan, Neptune's moon, Triton, and the Earth, has a N₂ dominated atmosphere. However, this atmosphere is sparse, at only 3 microbars of pressure versus the Earth's average of 10130 microbars. Because of Pluto's thin atmosphere and great distance from the sun, the average surface temperature is only 40 Kelvin.

Pluto has not been forgotten. In 2006, the New Horizons mission was launched to study Pluto and the Kuiper belt. Pluto won't be reached 2015, but the satellite should great expand our knowledge of Pluto, the distant ~~9th planet~~ dwarf plant of our solar system.

References
NASA's New Horizons Mission. What We Know About Pluto, Charon and the
Kuiper Belt. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/science/whatWeKnow.html

Owen, T. C., Roush, T. L., Cruikshank, D. P., Elliot J. L., Young, L. A., De Bergh, C., Schmitt, B., Geballe, T. R., Brown, R. H., Bartholomew, M. J. 1993. Surface Ices and the Atmospheric Composition of Pluto. Science 261(5122): 745 - 748.

Stern, A., Buie, M. 1996. Hubble Reveals Surface of Pluto for First Time. Hubble Newscenter. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1996/09/

Williams, D. R. 2006. Pluto Fact Sheet. NASA Planetary Fact Sheets. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html

Ancient Permafrost

2008-09-23T19:27:00.002-04:00

The current issue of Science has a short article about a 740,000 year old ice wedge found in a section of permafrost in Yukon, Canada [Froese et al., 2008].

An ice wedge is a vertically oriented section of ice the forms in periglacial environments. Water enters a crack in the soil and then freezes, forms an ice wedge, and expands the soil crack further, making the wedge larger (check out this cool animation). It is associated with permafrost.

As the climate warms, there are concerns that melting permafrost will release large amounts of CO₂ [Zimov et al., 2006]. However, we don't know exactly how permafrost and related periglacial features will react to warmer temperatures.

The researchers found an ice wedge under a volcanic ash layer, thereby predating the ash layer. The ash layer was dated to over 700,000 years ago. Not only does this make this ice wedge the oldest dated ice in North America, but it shows that ice has survived warmer interglacial periods in the past.

References
Froese, D. G., Westgate, J. A., Reyes, A. V., Enkin, R. J., Preece, S. J. 2008. Ancient Permafrost and a Future, Warmer Arctic. Science 321(5896): 1648.

Zimov, S. A., Schurr, E. A. G., Chapin III, F. S. 2006. Permafrost and the Global Carbon Budget. Science 312(5780): 1612-1613.

Image: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Alexander von Humboldt

2008-09-14T11:12:00.002-04:00

We have Darwin Day, why not Alexander von Humboldt day (September 14)? If you ask for the greatest natural scientist (a term not used until much later) in the 19th century, you would probably get Darwin. How about number two?

In these days of specialization, the range of topics people like von Humboldt examined is remarkable. Geography, volcanology, mineralogy, electromagnetism, biology, meteorology, and oceanography were all impacted by his work. On his famous South American travels, which later influenced Darwin on his journey on the Beagle, von Humboldt proved the link between the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, found the earth's magnetic field decreased from the poles to the equator, and nearly reached the top of Chimborazo, what was then thought to be the tallest mountain the world.

The image below is a copy of his diagram of Chimborazo. Not only is it a beautiful image, but it also contains loads of information he gathered while climbing the peak. This includes data about altitude, appearance of electricity, vegetation, changes in weight, blueness of the sky, animals, location of the snowline, the boiling point of water, and atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, and composition. The site hosting it has even translated some of the German notes in English. So go take a look this von Humboldt day!

Lunar Crater Volcanic Field

2008-08-10T17:46:00.003-04:00

With Looking for Detachment writing a series great posts about geology in Great Basin National Park and elsewhere, I thought I would do something a little further south. The Lunar Crater Volcanic Field is located in central Nevada, among the numerous north south trending basins and ranges.

The field is approximately 10 km wide and 40 km long and is composed of a number of cinder cones, basalt flows, and at least two maars. Maars are low relief craters formed by the expansion of steam from the contact between magma and ground water, or by the expansion of magmatic gas. Lunar crater is a nearly circular maar 130 m deep and 1,050 m wide. The other maar in the field is named Easy Chair Crater and is located only a few km to the north.

The field was created during at least three active volcanic periods in the late Pliocene and Pleistocene (4 million - 15,000 years before present) as evidenced by three distinct basalt flows. The oldest flow is mostly covered with sand and vegetation [Sagebrush (Artemisia sp.) and Joinfir (Ephedra nevadensis)], but are exposed as the cliffs in lunar crater as the explosive steam broke its way through this oldest deposit. The intermediate flow has a thin sandy soil cover, less vegetation and is associated with the episode that created the two maars. The youngest flow is located at the north end of the field and has little to no soil or vegetation covering it, visible as the black patch in the below photo.

Lunar crater's most interesting features are a dike extending from the south side of the crater to a small cinder cone (opposite in above crater photo) and a playa-alluvial fan that has developed from a ephemeral stream that incised into a rhyolite and tuff layer. The fan-playa system has the expected decrease in particle size as you move from the fanhead to the playa. Because of the steep slope around the base of the crater, few or no cattle have appeared to have made it onto the crater floor, so the vegetation looks mostly undistributed. Salt tolerate greaswood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus) is found on the playa, sagebrush on the gravely fan, and a few currant (Ribes sp.) in the shadier and wetter site at the fanhead amongst boulders from the rhyolite and tuff.

Source:
Scott, D. and Trask, N. 1971. Geology of the Lunar Crater Volcanic Field, Nye County, Nevada. US Geological Survey Professional Paper 599-1.

Geoscience careers in Science

2008-08-07T18:44:00.003-04:00

The current issue of Science has a entire section on geoscience careers an issue that has been receiving some attention on other geoscience blogs recently.

When hydrogeologists talk about their field, one word keeps coming up: "recession-proof." While geologists in the energy and mineral industries face roller-coaster hiring-and-firing cycles, those who study the movement and chemistry of water seeping through rocks and sediment find demand for their expertise almost as steady as the flow of groundwater itself.

A few more Owens valleys?

2008-07-11T16:09:00.005-04:00

I haven't posted in a while. My excuse is new job + lack of personal internet = few postings. Hopefully, I can do some good post about my job and its interesting setting in the not to distant future. This post will give some background to the area I am working in.

Las Vegas is the fourth fastest growing city in the US. Its population is expected to double in the next 30 years. As can be expected with a rapidly expanding city, its demand for water is also ballooning. However, with a drying Lake Mead, Las Vegas’s current water source, the city is looking for other options. With every other river in the vicinity already tapped, they are looking at ground water.

Parts of eastern Nevada and western Utah are underlain by large areas of carbonate rock that form the Great Basin aquifer. The aquifer's water currently is released in numerous springs that provide unique habitats in the middle of the desert, irrigation water, and municipal water for several small towns.

Las Vegas, hungry for the water in this aquifer, have bought up water rights in numerous Great Basin valleys for the stated desire to pump large amounts of water out of these valleys to feed its growing population.

On Wednesday, Nevada’s state engineer approved the Southern Nevada Water Authority (basically Las Vegas) to pump over 18,000 acre-feet of water, half of what SNWA wanted, from three valleys in Nevada’s Lincoln County. This is only one chunk of water that SNWA wants to pump. It is also seeking 50,000 acre-feet from Snake Valley, the site of Great Basin National Park.

The valleys to be pumped are located to the east of me and are connected to the same aquifer that is the source for the water at my job location. I am quite skeptical of the claims that the huge amount of water to be pumped won’t affect current ground water levels. I hope this doesn’t result in a few more Owens valleys. More posts on this later.

Waterwired has some more information.

Where on (Google) Earth #126

2008-05-19T16:34:00.007-04:00

Well, I FINALLY got a where on google earth (Winter Park Sinkhole in Florida). So hello, #126.

Winner is the first to post the location (latitude, longitude) and tells a little about the geology.

No Schott Rule for this one...

USGS to release Landsat Archive for no cost

2008-05-06T00:18:00.002-04:00

Some excellent news from the USGS

the USGS is pursuing an aggressive schedule to provide users with electronic access to any Landsat scene held in the USGS-managed national archive of global scenes dating back to Landsat 1, launched in 1972.

River measurement

2008-04-21T23:40:00.006-04:00

With the recent rise of the lower Mississippi River, as reported by Kim on several occasions, I thought a post explaining some of the basic terms about river measurement would be useful.

At each monitoring site, a gaging station is located. The gaging station measures the height of the water, also known as the gage height, relative to some feature unique to that site. For this reason, the gage height can't be compared between different stations. One station's flood gage height may be another's low water gage height. The image to the left shows one possible instrument that is measuring the water height by measuring the height of water in the instrument that is also connected to the stream. However, this can not be done in all situations so a variety of different methods can be used.

The next step is to measure velocity. Velocity is difficult to measure because the water flow in the channel is not laminar as it interacts with the stream channels. The way around this is to measure the velocity in a series of sections, and using these various measures to find velocity. With stream water velocity and the the size of each section, the discharge, or the amount of water flowing through the stream channel over a period of time can be calculated.

Of course, it is not possible to measure velocity and calculated discharge all the time, so discharge measurements are combined with gage heights. With enough discharge measurements and gage heights a stage-discharge curve, also known as a rating curve, can be created. The rating curve allows discharges and gage heights to be predicted. However, rating curves are statistical interpolations, and may not reflect the reality of the stream. The are normally plotted log-linear so the rating curve is straight.

The final terminology used is flood stage. Flood stage is best defined as when the river fills its stream channel and starts to also flow on the surrounding floodplain. What a flood actually is (most places don't look like the lower Mississippi River) is a subject for another post.

Off to the AAG

2008-04-14T23:09:00.002-04:00

Well, tomorrow I am off to the meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Boston. Not really a hard rock type of place, although, there should be some good geomorphology stuff. And, of course, my ground breaking paper will be presented!

First Post (well...)

2008-04-01T01:21:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone that congratulated me on my thesis defense!

I decided I really didn't want to bother with this site. However, I may want to try my hand at a few good earth science posts in the future. So, I am moving to blogger. It seems popular with others in the geo-blogosphere. I moved several posts over just to see how I liked it and I was pretty impressed how well it worked. Of course, best of all it is free (as in cost).

So redirect yourself to http://poolsandriffles.blogspot.com/ (everyone else seems to have a cool sounding name).

First order of business is to finally win a round of Where on Google Earth .

I passed

2008-03-31T23:34:00.001-04:00

Well, I passed my thesis defense!

Now, to get to work on edits :(

In the not to distant future

2008-03-25T00:37:00.000-04:00

Well, I have been quiet for several months. Well, this Friday (March 28) is my thesis defense! I am pretty confident about my methods and results, however, my biggest fear is some committee member will decide I use other statistical tests or methods. I am hoping that been the first masters student to graduate on time will help them not get crazy about changes.

Also, this site has an uncertain future. I have been trying to decide what I want to do. I have had this site in one form or another for like 5 years. The main reason I even had the sites was just to play with the technology (databases, servers, software). However, I have since grow uninterested by the current happenings in these technologies (nothing is really happening).

As I look back on my posts, I am frankly embarrassed by most of them. There are very few I find worthy of reading, and I have never been a fan of posting for posting's sake. This is especially obvious to me as I read some of the great posts by others.

So this site currently is set to die on April 4. I haven't decided what I am going to do. C'est la vie.

Obed River 2

2008-01-25T04:01:00.000-05:00

Taking a break from thesis writing, I took a short hike over at Obed River. I had been there before, but it is a nice place, free of the traffic that plagues other places. With the leaves off the trees I got a few nice shots of the gorge. The rock here is basically flat lying sandstones, so nothing to fancy in terms of geology. I was rather surprised to see some logging almost up to the cliff themselves (notice the slash pile in photograph two), but since this isn't a national park or wilderness area, that kinda of stuff is allowed. An air photo from the area shows how close it already was. Technically, all these shots are of the cliffs over Clear Creek. I once again tried to do a panorama with hugin on the last image (photo 2 is showing the upper right of photo 3).

Learning about the history of science

2008-01-08T02:59:00.000-05:00

A couple months back I was searching through the various cabinets in my office. As an office for grad students, it is been filled with old maps, journals, textbooks, and teaching aids that various professors have no room for. One interesting book I found was Geology in the Nineteenth Century: Changing Views of a Changing World by Mott Greene. Although I haven't had a chance to read it, the review from Science (behind evil pay barrier) sounds interesting enough.

This perspective enables Greene to escape unthinking acceptance of widely held ideas about the history of geology. Many of these have already been abandoned by the small community of historians of geology, but the scope of Greene's alternative analysis should bring their weaknesses to the attention of a wider audience. For example, Lyell and other British geologists, normally revered for their influence on Darwin, turn out to be minor figures in this story, whereas European geologists such as Beaumont, Suess, and the Nappe theorists in the Alps, as well as Americans like James Hall, the Rogers brothers, and J. D. Dana, loom large. The usual identification of uniformitarians and catastrophists as the main camps in 19th-century geology is shown to fail to capture the divisions between different theorists in geotectonics. And the Taylor-Wegener hypothesis of continental drift no longer appears as a brilliant but inexplicable premonition of plate tectonic theory but simply as one of a number of equally plausible (if equally inadequate) responses to the collapse of the Suessian synthesis, others being advanced by Bailey Willis, John Joly, and Chamberlin. In short, Greene treats 19th-century geology as an exciting theoretical discipline in its own right, rather than as merely the activity that set the stage for the Darwinian revolution by extending the time scale and outlining the history of life on earth.

However, that did get me thinking about learning the history of science in science classes. Why isn't the history or particular scientific disciplines taught more often as either a tool used to help learning or for its own sake? Sure, most classes will hit the big points. Every intro geology class will mention a few words about Wegener when talking about plate tectonics. However, many advanced textbooks give scant view to the history of the science. I was lucky enough to have an instructor talk for some time about the history of geomorphology from catastrophism to Davis's erosion cycle to now, more Gilbert influenced process based ideas. However, my experience is that this is the exception rather than the norm. Do scientists shy away from talking about the past because they think students won't care, they don't have enough time, or because it emphasizes more accurately the fallibility of science? I wonder if teaching the history of science is a way to interest people in science, to connect them another way to it. Rather than someone talking about the ability for a glacier to move larger rocks far away from their sources and depositing them, why not try tell them of earlier geologists trying to understand the movement of erratics in the Alps, putting the student in the boots on some cold mountain top?

Teaching climate change

2007-11-21T13:31:00.000-05:00

I am lecturing the introductory level Physical Geography this fall and the last week of the class (3 lectures) is devoted to climate change. I have had several discussion with my teaching colleagues about how to teach it. Of all the things the students will learn, this may be the most important. Of course, I would like them to remember everything, but that seems unlikely. The biggest thing I would want them to take away is not the finer points of climate change, but why we know them. Those of us that are daily involved in doing science often forget that most of the public, including college students, don't have a good understanding about how science is done. The idea of the lone person in a lab coat still reigns. A lot of the popular opposition to anthropogenic climate change has to do with powerful misunderstandings about this.

All of My Faults Are Stress Related did a couple posts about how to teach climate change to students. Sadly given the level of my students (very few are science majors) I don't think a discussion would work. My idea is to talk about the past climate and climate change first. Show them the various types of evidence used from many different techniques and types of scientists. The evidence doesn't point different directions, but converges on an accept view of what the climate was like in the past. Only after this will I talk about present climate change. Then using the same lines of evidence that were discussed before, show them that the climate is now changing primarily because of the actions of us humans. Then end with some predictions about how the world will be different in the future.

There are some excellent resources available, including the IPCC reports, real climate, and nice images at global warming art (see image below) which should make my job easier.

Zoogeomorphology

2007-11-14T17:12:00.000-05:00

September saw the first edition of The Accretionary Wedge, which I took part in. However, I wasn't able to write anything for the second one. The subject of the third edition caught my attention. "Geology and Life", aka "Between a Rock and a Squishy Face" to be hosted by The Other 95%. After I thought about it I decided not to write about my thesis topic. I have just started writing my thesis yesterday and could use a break. Well, technically I haven't start, but instead spent time getting emacs/auctex just right and rsync working for daily backups (aka wasting time). I promise I will start tomorrow. ;-)

Anyways, I thought of another subject that would be perfect and I have an interest. Zoogeomorpholgy is the study of the impacts of animals on the landscape. Man is the most obvious geomorphic agent. Some of our actions are only important on short temporal scales of our perspective, but others will surely be found in the geological record in the future. Removal of natural vegetation cover increases erosion resulting in an larger sediment fluxes entering oceans [1]. Anthropogenic climate change will also have an influence on geomorphology. However, for this I want to focus on non-human animals. A comprehensive review of this subject is available in the book Zoogeomorphology by David Butler [2]. Termite mounds, crayfish burrows (>40,000 kg per hectare), birds ingesting sediment for use in their gizzards, animal paths to salt licks, and rabbit holes are only a sampling of geomorphic roles animals can play. I am going to focus on American Beavers (Castor canadensis) and Gray Whales (Eschrichtius robustus).

Beavers use mixtures of wood and mud to make dams across streams to create ponds. These dams vary greatly in size, with largest dam reported at 652 m long, although they are more typically tens of meters in length [1]. They can store large amounts of sediment. Researchers examining streams in a Quebec, Canada, found that an average size single dam could store 6,000 cubic meters of sediment [3]. Over a watershed of hundreds of square km, this could be on the magnitude of hundreds of thousands. Using estimations of pre-European contact beaver numbers, sediment stored behind beaver dams in North America is greater than 100 billion cubic meters [4]. After dams are abandoned, the ponds often form new valley floors.

In terms of hydrology, beaver dams also raise the local water table. Finally, dam burst can cause extreme floods, greatly affecting stream morphology. Butler reported a dam burst that increased flow 1000 times over normal rates and moving 1 m granite rocks. This flood ended up killing four people. A dam burst in the Sierra Nevada Mts in California resulted in a dramatic drop in local base level and an associated .5 m of stream channel incision [5].

One of the more surprising examples of zoogeomorphology is the action of Gray Whale (Eschrichtius robustus) feeding. They winter near Baja California, but migrate to the Chukchi and Bering Seas between Alaska and Siberia during the Arctic summer. This is the longest mammalian migration in the world. In the Arctic sea, they feed on benthic crustaceans, or those that live in or on the sea floor. Using their mouths, gray whales scoop sediment from the sea-bottom. The sediment filtered via baleen, although some is ingest along with crustaceans. This filtered sediment is released near the surface in plumes. Off the California coast, researchers found that in areas of only a few square km, gray whales moved hundreds of tons of sediment [6]. In the Bering Sea, it has been calculated that 120 million cubic meters of sediment is moved by gray whales every year. This is 3 times the annual load of the Yukon River, that also empties into the sea [2].

References:
[1]: Walling, D.E. (2006). Human impact on land–ocean sediment transfer by the world's rivers. Geomorphology 79:192-216.
[2]: Butler, D. (1995). Zoogeomorphology. Animals as Geomorphic Agents. Cambridge University Press.
[3]: Naiman, R., Melillo, J., Hobbie, J. (1986). Ecosystem Alteration of Boreal Forest Streams by Beaver (Castor Canadensis). Ecology 67:1254-1269.
[4]: Butler, D., Malanson, G. (2005). The geomorphic influences of beaver dams and failures of beaver dams. Geomorphology 71:48-60.
[5]: Kondolf, G., Cada, G., Sale, M., Felando, T. (1991). Distribution and stability of potential salmonid spawning gravels in steep boulder-bed streams of the eastern Sierra Nevada. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 120:177-186.
[6]: Cacchoine, D., Drake, D., Field, M., Tate, G. (1987). Sea-floor gouges caused by migrating gray whales off northern California. Continental Shelf Research 7:553–560.

Image Sources:
Termite mound: Litchfield Park - Termite Mound by Daryl Fritz
Beaver: Beaver by Tancread
Gray Whale: Gray Whale by NMFS

Angel Falls Overlook

2007-11-12T03:01:00.000-05:00

It had been over a year since I last went to Big South Fork so I thought I would go back. The geology of the area is nearly horizontal laying Mississippian and Pennsylvanian aged sandstones and shales. The Cumberland Plateau's topograph in the area is relatively flat, but becomes quite steep and rugged in streams and rivers valleys. Not only has the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River has cut a deep valley, but even small streams quickly cut down (a sample topomap shows this clearly). This results in the largest natural arches in the eastern US, rock-shelters, and cliffs. The first image is of the Angel Falls overlook from a ridge to the west. The next two images are of the Big South Fork from Angel Falls overlook, the third one is a panorama made with hugin). The last one is a site with some interesting weathering.

There is interesting ecology present too. Drier sites are a mixture of White Pine (Pinus strobus), Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida), Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana), White Oak (Quercus alba), Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea), and under-stories of Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) as shown in the first image. The second image shows a tough Virginia Pine hanging on a cliff and the third a photogenic Common Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia).

Finally, the park has many signs of past human activities, from Native American to European settlers to industrial logging and coal mining. The last image shows the house and English-style barn built around 1900 by John Litton.

Another step done...

2007-11-10T02:31:00.000-05:00

I passed my comps this week. Now all I have to do is write the actual thesis...... doh.

Big Fodderstack

2007-11-04T02:08:00.000-05:00

Last year on November 4, I went to Little Fodderstack in Cherokee National Forest. I thought this November 3 I would go see its neighbor, Big Fodderstack. This fall has been much warmer and drier so I didn't know what to expect. Both of these images are of Brush Mountain, from different sides. Big Fodderstack is visible in the background of the first one.

After spending so much time in wet, cool, and dark cove forests doing my thesis field work, I enjoy going to open oak-pine forest. There was a nice variation in forest composition, based on altitude and location on the ridge. Near the valleys, there were numerous Chestnut Oak (Quercus prinus) and White Pine (Pinus strobus). On closer inspected, I noticed a few Shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata), although most were dead or dying as the more shade tolerant White pine finally made it to the canopy. Further up the ridge, Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana) dominated, although they too were being replaced. There were also a great number of Black Oak (Quercus velutina), a species I am not very acquainted with. The understory was dominated by Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) which was flame red in color. I was also surprised by the large quantity of American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) sprouts, some up to 20 ft.

The trail doesn't go all the way to the top of Fodderstack, although a bushwhack pretty easily gets you there. It is marked by a cairn and a USGS benchmark.

A story on the need for open access

2007-10-20T01:13:00.000-04:00

I am a supporter of open access, the idea that scientific/scholarly materials should not be locked-up and available only to those with the money to pay. However, as a student at a large university, I have never been directly affected by the closed access of our current system. Sure there were times I wanted an article in electronic form, but my school didn't have access so I had to go to the library and read it in a paper form. A few times I even had to use interlibrary loan to get a copy from another university. But I had never been refused the ability to read a scientific paper in any form.

Recently I was reading a paper and saw a reference that could be useful to me. It turned out to be a PhD dissertation at a university in a neighboring state. It was from 2001, so I suspected there was a good chance it was available in an electronic form. I went to WorldCat, searched, and found it was available in an electronic form. When I tried to download it, I was surprised when this came up.

At the request of the author, access to these materials is limited to the *** campus network only.

At request of the author? An author of a dissertation is limiting electronic access to their work to their university only? A journal restricting access is the status quo, but an author doing it.... I was not only surprised, but also dismayed. Fine I will just get the paper copy via interlibrary loan. I sent in my request and this morning I got this email in reply.

Dear ***,

A request you have placed:
Title: ***
Author: *** 2001

has been canceled by the Interlibrary Services staff for the following reason:

(NML) No More Locations.

We have exhausted all sources for your request. This doesn't circulate from *** and is not available for purchase from Dissertation Express.

If you have a question about this canceled item or any Interlibrary Services policies and procedures, please contact us at ***.

Not only was I being refused the electronic copy, but even the paper copy was restricted to their university. I was shocked. I didn't want to copy it or print it, I just wanted to read it. Why would somebody restrict access to scientific material? Why would a fellow student, a colleague, refuse me the right to read their work? I had never heard of this person before and I couldn't find where they currently were with a google search. I would like to ask them why they did it? Were they tricked into thinking that restriction on access is the same thing as protecting ones work from plagiarism. Did they consider the harm they would cause by doing this? How would they feel if this had been done to them?

A small issue to be sure. I doubt there was anything present in it that other studies haven't found, but I will never know. It is a reminder of the damage that can be done by restrictions on information.

Last round of thesis photographs

2007-10-20T00:59:00.000-04:00

As if you hadn't seen enough streams and pieces of woods, I bring you my last set of thesis field work photographs. Pretty self explanatory. The last image is two ~13 ft CBH Yellow Buckeyes (Aesculus flava) only a few feet apart. I mentioned the amazing Yellow Buckeyes along Dunn Creek in another post.

USGS Podcast

2007-10-15T13:11:00.000-04:00

It just recently came to my attention that the USGS now has a podcast called corecast. They just started in August, but are pretty good IMHO. They are short (<15 min), which is a plus in my book, good quality sound, and informative without being to dumbed down. Since this week is "Earth Science Week" they are doing one everyday. So go take a listen.

Thesis photographs take 4

2007-10-06T00:11:00.000-04:00

Time for another round of thesis photographs. These are from upper Dunn Creek, a quite amazing area. Although it is fall (and leaves are starting to change), there are still a few wildflowers. A found a very localized grouping of Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica). In the streams there was tons of woody debris. The third image is a panorama that turned out pretty well.

The streams have more fish and salamanders than I ever saw in any other site while doing my field work. However, this may have to do with the weather. It was cool and rainy that day while all other days I was out were warm and dry.

However, the most amazing features were the trees. I had to hike through Albright Grove to get to the stream, but the huge trees didn't end there. Although there were numerous large Hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) and Tulip Populars (Liriodendron tulipifera), the Yellow Buckeyes (Aesculus flava) were what stood out. Not only were their sizes amazing, but there were many of them (outnumbering the Hemlocks).

A large Yellow Buckeye is a beautiful site. The bark takes on an attractive and distinct shaggy quality. The trunk itself is massive and I would guess perhaps 3rd in wood volume of GSMNP species (after Hemlock and Tulip Popular?). Despite the trunk size, it is quite graceful looking.

The first image is a Tulip Popular with a nice looking symmetric buttress. The other two are Yellow Buckeyes. I measured the CBH (circumference at breast height) of the last one as 14 ft 9 in!

Grassy Cove 2

2007-09-30T13:53:00.000-04:00

Late last year I went to Grassy Cove a large valley (more info on that page). I went back and started at the southern end of the trail. However, first I stopped at the head of the Sequatchie Valley. The valley was originally an anticline. The top layer of rock was sandstone (and around the valley still is), but was eroded away at the anticline and limestone was exposed, that erodes very quickly and differently. I created this cartoon below to illustrative it.

Grassy cove's drainage is connected to the valley underground and the Sequatchie River starts at several springs at the head of the valley. Unfortunately, the spring are on private land and I was unable to see them, however, that may change. These first couple of pictures are of the Sequatchie Valley far up near the head.

The first 1.5 miles of the trail was on private land and as I reached the top of the mountain I ran into several logging roads and machinery.

The forest was pretty young (20-40 years) but was mostly nut producing oaks (Red, White, Chestnut, Chinkapin) and hickories (Pignut, Shellbark, Shagbark). I sampled a few hickory nuts, although most were the slightly bitter Pignut. While I was eating one, a group of 3 Gray Squirrels surround on me on trees about 15 ft way and made the loudest chattering and the most extreme tail-flicking I have ever seen from squirrels.

The trail also had numerous wildflowers, including several asters and a species of goldenrod. I did find one American Chestnut sprout, but was to short to have any nuts.

Even more thesis photographs

2007-09-23T17:03:00.000-04:00

Here are some more photographs from doing my thesis work I forgot to post before. The first few are images of the streams I worked in and more examples of large woody debris (the last one is really good).

I found (almost stepped on) a really nice looking Indian Pipe and a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) while getting to a stream

Finally, one day I followed a very steep stream several hundred meters and found no suitable location to do a measurement. Instead of going down the way I came, I climbed a nearby ridge and followed it down. It had been a while since I had not been in a cove forest but instead in a nice, open oak-pine forest. This ridge was mostly Chestnut Oak (Quercus montana) and Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus).

Playing in the sandbox

2007-09-02T19:37:00.000-04:00

Update: The first Accretionary Wedge is up (I am late in posting this)

Clastic Detritus is starting a geology blog carnival (The Accretionary Wedge) with the first subject as "Why do you study geology?". For several days I had been trying to think of some captivating story for why I study what I do. For most important choices we make in life, there is no neat storyline connecting point A to point B. Rather, thousands of little strands of life combine to direct us where we end up at. I did think of one anecdote, though it certainly doesn't completely explain why I study what I do, that provides some illumination.

Like most children, I had a sandbox. I can still remember it. I was blue, roughly 1.5 ft x1.5 ft x 8 in, and stood on the back patio of my house, out of the sun under a maple tree. Although I can't recall it ever being fixed, no doubt it had been rebuilt several times as water I poured in the sand rotted the wood, especially the bottom. Buying a new bag of sand every Spring took on a Christmas type significance, at the same time a reminisce of past and the promise of future fun. I am not sure what the normal age was to stop playing in the sand, but I am sure I did it much later than most (perhaps I was 10 or 11 when I stopped?).

However, unlike most kids, I don't remember ever wasting much time on Army Men or castles in my sandbox. Instead I attempted to make replications of real world locations that I had never seen. The fact that I was from a place (Ohio) where glacial drift covered most rocks, except some erratics, helped to make sand a suitable medium. I also loved maps as a child and had not only atlases, but also road maps, city maps, and a DeLorme Gazetteer. So I would find an interesting location I had never been in my life on a map and try to use the information I had available to make it in my sand box. For example, I might find a location where two roads came together and crossed a stream. Looking back, my goal wasn't really some sort of photo-quality realism, but a view of how this place was now, how that compared to the past, and how humans had interacted with it. Why did the road follow the stream for 50 ft, then turned swiftly away? Was the slope next to the stream too steep for a road or had the settler's horse just decide to turn for no reason? Was the hillside smooth or did rocks stick out like chocolate chips in cookies? Did the stream have little sand bars in it or was it uniform?

Of course, as a 7 year old, I didn't have access to topographic maps or air photographs, but had to use real world examples available to me. The stream in my backyard twists like a rope while the stream down the road was perfectly straight with no curves at all. This steep hillside is rocky while that gradual hillside is not.

In time I learned some of the why for what I had sculpted in my sandbox. That stream was probably so straight because some farmers had made it that way many years ago. I also learned the damaged that had done to the stream.

Fast forward to where I am today. I am a geomorphologist that studies how we affect the landforms and landscapes we live with. Ostensibly I do this so we can learn how to rehabilitate the landscapes we have already scarred and decrease the amount of damage we do to them in the present and the future. However, just as the cosmologists finds a beauty in understanding the workings of a star, I think just understanding how we interacted with the landscape (and how it reacts back) is fun, interesting, and worthy of study in itself. Perhaps I haven't outgrown the sandbox.

Photographs: Sandbox by JayeClaire; Curved Road by cindy47452

Buffalo Moutain Windfarm

2007-09-01T20:11:00.000-04:00

I previously mentioned that I would be helping on a bat mortality study at the Buffalo Mountain Windfarm. Although the study is not yet finished, I have uploaded some photographs I have taken.

The turbines are huge (260 ft tall, the blades are 135 ft long) and there are 18 of them along the mountain. The mountain is >3300 ft in elevation with occasional views of the surrounding mountains (although most have been coal mined).

The dead bats we are looking for are pretty small (bodies 1-2 in in length). Here is a dead, I think, Little Brown (it may be Eastern Pipistrelle).

Finally, this mountain, and the surround region, has taken multiple hits. In the past it has been coal mined and there are old coal benches everywhere. Now, part of the mountain is the WIndrock ATV area, that is also extremely damaging the mountain. The first two are a eroded gully on the mountain top, the third an old bench, and the last two are current ATV trails (there are much worse ATV trails, these images turned out the best.... we where driving when they were taken).

Bat and Wind turbines

2007-08-25T15:41:00.000-04:00

For several nights the next 2 weeks I am taking part in a study by TVA about Bat Mortality associated with a windfarm north of Oak Ridge. This isn't the first study that has been done at this location, but it sounds quite interesting. The previous studies found that many more bats than birds were being killed, and the vast majority of these bat deaths occurred in late August and early September (during bat migration). Some of the things this is going to try to answer are (1) what is the time of these deaths (throughout the night, only at sunset/rise), (2) are the bats feeding when they hit or are they just flying (a portable radar is going to measure bat movements), and (3) do different turbines have different kill numbers (there are two different types of turbines there). For example, if the most of the kills were found to be at sunset/rise, then the turbines could just be stop for a couple hours a night for a few weeks and stop the vast majority of bat deaths.

My first night is tonight, so hopefully I will be able to post some cool pictures and more information in the future. Below is the picture I took in February from Frozen Head. Notice the small white things on the ridge line in the background.

Even more photographs from thesis work

2007-08-23T00:56:00.000-04:00

This batch of photographs are going to show some of the artifacts/remains of logging I have found while doing my field work. This is by no means comprehensive of what I have seen, just some of the nice looking ones.

First, I have several old rail road track pieces, now mostly covered by vegetation. The first image is from the floodplain of Big Creek, but the second image is from far up Mouse Creek (you will see the slopes in another image).

Also far up Mouse Creek I found this chain. It was on the side of the stream. It is possible it was stretched across the creek to hold the logs back until they were all ready to be "floated" down to the sawmills. The second image shows, to my best guess, some sort of heater for warmth or cooking food (it is about 2.5 ft tall, 1 ft across).

Finally, up along the slope there are several old logging skids. Notice the extreme slope (> 30 degrees) in the lower left and upper right it was built into.

More photographs from thesis work

2007-08-13T01:31:00.000-04:00

I thought I would share a few more photographs I have taken while doing my thesis work. First the ugly. Often getting to sites requires going through "rhododendron hells". These are thickets of rhododendrons that make it near impossible to walk without getting caught on something. The first image is taken be me in one, and the second is looking into one (I had to go through it).

The next two images were taken a old growth regions of the park. The first one is a tree in a stream that was approximately 3.5 ft in diameter and 30 ft long. This was only a small part of the tree, as most was not in the stream, but on the hillside above it. The next is the base on a long dead tree (perhaps American Chestnut... the bark is long gone) that was still roughly 15 ft in diameter. To get an idea of how the tree could have look, see this rather famous image (I have seen it many times).

Lastly, a huge Tulip Popular and Black Bear scat, both in Albright Grove.

House Mountain

2007-06-16T16:56:00.000-04:00

House Mountain (topo). In is within Knox County, so is quick to get to, however, I was the only person there. Numerous wild flowers where in bloom including Virginia spiderwort, wild hydrangea, and this familiar looking yellow flower I couldn't name. I also saw several box turtles high up on the mountain's slope.

The mountain has several nice views, however, the haze decreased the range of visibility. I also ran into a rusting shack near several concrete supports with nothing on top of them. According to the topo map, this was a lookout tower (the tower must have been taken down).

Perhaps the most interesting thing on House Mountain was the results of a forest fire from earlier this year. The fire killed most plants less than 5-10 ft in height, but the taller trees survived. There were a large number of tree seedlings (mostly black locust and chestnut oak) and numerous herbaceous plants.

Snake Den Mountain

2007-05-14T00:23:00.000-04:00

With my Spring semester over, I hiked up Snake Den Mountain and Inadu Knob in GSMNP. It looks like spring finally reached the mountains, as numerous wildflowers were blooming, including large numbers of trillium.

However, it wasn't the only interesting I saw. Near the top of Inadu Knob, are a few pieces of a Air Force F-4 Phantom that crashed in 1984.

Finally, here is a view of English Mountain from Snake Den Mountain and a view of Snake Den Mountain and Inadu Knob.

Cumberland Mountain 2

2007-05-02T00:25:00.000-04:00

Last fall I went to hike on the Cumberland Trail on Cumberland Mountain. Tuesday, I went back, this time hiking the east end. I thought I would try to explain the some of the geology (god knows I don't understand that much either). Cumberland Mt is a strike ridge and is the backside of the Pine Mountain thrust plate, whose front is about 10 miles to the northwest. On the image below I have added a dark line on the front and back of the plate. At Cumberland Mt, the rock is nearly vertical, as will be seen in my first photograph, so there is a quick transition from the mountain to the flat Powell RIver valley. Geology nerds can read more at (Smalley, 1985).

The trail is steep and rock and is not helped by those nearly vertical rocks. The forest is a pretty young (< 30 years) Maple-Beech forest and is replacing the pioneering Pitch and Virginia Pines.

I also same several Eastern Fence Lizards. However, the most spectacular things are the views, not only of the Powell Valley below, but also Norris Lake (TVA lake), and the mountains to the northwest.

Road Prong

2007-04-20T00:27:00.000-04:00

Tuesday was a beautiful day and with most classes canceled because most people were at the AAG meeting in San Francisco, I went to the park to do a little site scouting at Road Prong. I was surprised to see Clingsman Dome Road closed, so I parked at Newfound Gap and walk the ~ 2 miles of the Appalachian Trail to Road Prong. I quickly noticed there were a large number of large Red Spruce trees down over the trail from the high winds we had the past 3 days.

The stream itself had several examples of large woody debris both creating waterfalls and directing the water movement.

There was also an old debris dam made of large logs that created a pool upstream of it.

Suddenly, I came on a large section of stream completely covered with large Red Spruce. I tried climbing over it but gove up after 300 ft as it was getting more difficult.

I walked back on the Clingsman Dome Road and saw why it was closed. There were many trees down blocking the road, however, I did get some good pictures of the Mt Le Conte Massif and the valley of the Beach Flats Prong in North Carolina.

The Media's Natural Disaster Coverage

2006-06-14T15:32:00.000-04:00

With the recent formation and movement over Florida of the first tropical system in the Atlantic in 2006, Alberto, the media frenzy over tropical systems this year has started. Although, I am happy about the increased coverage natural events are getting, the type of coverage is awful at best, turning such events into man vs nature battles, neglecting the wider causes, and not providing "solutions" to the problems highlighted by these events, rather playing sound-bytes from politicians.

The man vs nature battle view is most prevalent before the event, often taking the guise of people nailing boards over the windows of their homes, lines of people at grocery stores, and cars jamming the freeways going out of town. All of these images help to propel the battle mentality. Rather than a more truthful view that these are natural events, with both positive and negative results, communities in the path often resemble 1940 England waiting for Nazi planes.

As Katrina and New Orleans as an example, the media did drive in the fact that large portions of the city exists below sea level. However, the investigation stopped there. Why would a city build on such land, or why would people live on such land were questions that were not asked. The socioeconomic reasons for poor people living on below sea level land were not examined, other than on a superficial level. Capitalism, new deal socialism, and the flight from the inner city all have their role to play. Similarly, the environment stances of the various local, state, and national governments and businesses helped to create the conditions that allowed such a disaster to take place. Once again, the media gave facts like the dates on when the levées were built, but not in why levées would be built in the first place. Left unexamined was the idea that the environment should be engineered against rather than with. When taken together, these causes form complex relationships. Low wages for the poorest of New Orleans resulted in them being clustered in some of the most at risk areas. However, civil engineering project spent millions of dollars on protecting these high risk areas. These engineering projects help to destroy much of the wetlands of southeastern Louisiana, increasing the risk to everyone.

Lastly, the issues of solutions to stop or mitigate such future events were rarely discussed, except by politicians, that have little to no clue on what actually needs to be done. Those that knew in government were often silenced by bureaucracy and academics had little power to implement solutions. It is here were a proper understanding of the causes are necessary. Should billions be spent to rebuild levées to protect some of the lowest valued land in the country? Many thousands have moved to places like Houston. Will these new homes be any safer than New Orlenes, as much of Houston is built on coastal wetlands? Does a person have a right to build their house on a barrier island, when it will be destroyed in the future, and should the government stop the legally from doing this?

Sadly, from all the coverage of Alberto I have seen, I doesn't appear the media has started to do any of this.

Morphology on Titan

2005-12-09T02:43:00.000-05:00

Last January, the Cassini spaceprobe acquired amazing photographs and other science data from Saturn''s moon Titan. It now appears that even river morphology of Titan resembles that of earth.

There are only three parameters that differ significantly between Earth and Titan, Parker said. First is the acceleration due to gravity – on Titan it is about one-seventh the value on Earth. Second is the viscosity of flowing fluid – the viscosity of liquid methane on Titan is about one-fifth that of water on Earth. Third is the submerged specific gravity of sediment – the value on Titan is about two-thirds of that on Earth.
“What this means is that for the same discharge of liquid methane as to water, the channel characteristics on Titan should be remarkably similar to those on Earth,” Parker said. “However, because of the smaller acceleration due to gravity, channel slopes on Titan should be wider, deeper and less steep than those on Earth.”
Wildcards that make Parker’s predictions tentative include a freeze-thaw process of methane that might not be analogous to the freeze-thaw process of water on Earth, and the formation of hydrocarbons on Titan that might add a kind of cohesion not encountered on Earth. “The interaction of sunlight with a hydrocarbon rich atmosphere could possibly precipitate very sticky compounds that could give streams on Titan a degree of cohesion that makes them behave differently,” Parker said.

Here are some examples of Titan images that appear to be similar to structures on earth.

Dunes

Canyons

Rivers

The lizard vs the....swirly spiral thing

2005-06-21T00:15:00.000-04:00

On Friday Slashdot picked up the story about the conflict between Debian and Mozilla. The situation involves Mozilla's trademark policy and The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). Mozilla says

Our code is free, but we do strictly enforce our trademark rights, we must, in order to keep them valid. Our trademarks include, among others, the names Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, Bugzilla and XUL, as well as the Mozilla logo, Firefox logo, Thunderbird logo and the red lizard logo. This means that, while you have considerable freedom to redistribute and modify our software, there are tight restrictions on your ability to use the Mozilla name and logos, even when built into binaries that we provide.

Basically, you are allowed to change/use their code, but you can not release it using the Mozilla name. The logic behind this is, if joe developer releases his own version of Firefox that is not of high quality, Mozilla will get "a bad name". Now enters Debian. Debian uses Mozilla code, and modifies it to include in their operating system. Debian is known for their quality software, so Mozilla waves their normal policy specifically, and only for Debian. However, DFSG says in article 8

License Must Not Be Specific to Debian. The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program''s being part of a Debian system. If the program is extracted from Debian and used or distributed without Debian but otherwise within the terms of the program''s license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system.

This says that if Debian gets certain rights, those rights must be passed on to everyone using Debian. If Debian uses the Mozilla trademark and doesn''t pass it on, Debian is violating its own guidelines. If Debian doesn''t use the Mozilla trademark, they will have to name it something different and it will be a splinter in the FOSS community. To those whom ask "why does this matter", if Debian were to agree to this Knoppix, Mepis, Ubuntu, and every other Debian based operating system could not use the Mozilla trademark. Lets hope Mozilla comes to develop a trademark policy that is in-line with the concept of freedom.

Drilling in ANWR

2004-11-08T00:36:00.000-05:00

An essay I wrote for college 2 years ago. I updated for today's oil prices. Counters most pro-ANWR drilling arguments, IMHO

Oil has been an important resource in the world for more than 100 years. Nearly every aspect of modern life is influenced by it. With the war in Iraq, the old issue of the relationship of the Middle East and the United States in the business of oil has come to the forefront. Many are advancing the idea of drilling in Alaska's ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Range). This issue is once again forcing people to debate the benefits and costs of economic freedom and prosperity against environmental harm on Alaska's North Slope.

One of the principle arguments that proponents of oil drilling in ANWR use is that it will reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign oil, especially that of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries).

....U.S. dependence on imported oil is another important factor in the ANWR debate. Development supporters cite recent oil import levels of 57% of the U.S. market, and project increases to 65% by 2020.(Corn and Gelb)

From this they reason that, instead of being at the will of OPEC, the United States should increase domestic drilling and thereby decrease foreign dependence. Although it is true that OPEC can influence the world oil market, it cannot "starve" the United States since

Only a quarter of the oil consumed in the United States now comes from OPEC members. (Lovins and Lovins)

The last time that the United States was in the position of rapidly rising oil prices was from the late seventies to the middles eighties.

From 1979 to 1986, GDP grew 20 percent while total energy use fell by 5 percent.(Lovins and Lovins)

A drop in total energy use coupled with a rise in the United States economy was the result of energy conservation, improved energy efficiency, and more domestic drilling. This increase in the oil production of the United States did help with the energy crisis of the mid 1970's to the mid 1980's, but times have changed.
Since then drilling in the United States has become significantly more difficult.

The United States has exploited its reserves longer and more fully than has any other nation, so the essence of its oil problem is that finding and lifting the next barrel typically costs more at home than abroad. (Lovins and Lovins)

The economic viability of ANWR drilling is no exception to this issue. According to the United States Geological Survey 1998 Petroleum Assessment there are an estimated 4.3 billion barrels (95% chance of that amount) to 9.8 billion barrels (5% chance of that amount) with an expected value of 7.7 billion barrels. However, with a market price of $50, only 7 billion barrels would be economically viable (Bird and Houseknecht). The United States daily oil consumption is 20.04 million barrels per day (Annual Energy Review); therefore, at peak capacity the ANWR reserves would only satisfy 6.84% of the country's demand for oil and would only do so for only 14 years. But such levels of production could not occur until after about ten years of development (Taylor). This would barely make a dent in the United States oil consumption, and it would still sell at the same price of OPEC oil!

Ignoring many of the economic ramifications of the issue, environmental groups are opposed to ANWR drilling because of harm it would certainly cause to the delicate ecosystems. ANWR is a mixture of tundra, boreal forests, and mountains.

...the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge includes nearly 20 million acres (the size of South Carolina), three wild rivers, and the largest designated wilderness (8 million acres) in the National Wildlife Refuge System. (Official)

Environmental groups state that ANWR is one of the last pristine, untouched locations not only in the United States, but of also in the entire world. Drilling proponents are quick to point out that ANWR is currently not untouched by man.

Development advocates counter this argument by arguing that the 1002 area (the part of ANWR where drilling would occur) is not pristine. They note the presence of the native village of Kaktovik, the nearby DEWline (Distant Early Warning line, for missile detection) station... and the remnants of former or uncompleted DEWline installations scattered in or near the 1002 area. Together with Kaktovik, the DEW site operates a garbage dump and a runway.(Corn and Gelb)

But regardless of the current state of ANWR the most important issue is how completely can the landscape be returned to its natural state once the drilling is finished. The harsh climate of northern Alaska complicates the issue.

Recovery... might then take substantially longer in the harsh Arctic environment... rehabilitation that would not begin until 2070 or 2100.(Corn and Gelb)

The problem may not be one of ours but of the next generations. Drilling advocates use this fact to explain that in the future new types of clean up methods will be available. Since the first USGS study of the 1987 clean up methods have improved, but, using this logic, we should increase nuclear energy because we will find a way to dispose of it in a clean way sometime.

Furthermore, some types of cleanup might not be desirable or practical deep gravel production pads, for example, might be impossible to remove without further damage, and thus might necessarily become a permanent feature of the landscape. (Corn and Gelb)

Just because we can clean it up does not mean that we will not also effect the environment in the course of the clean up. In a ecosystem such as in ANWR any human activity may effect it in ways not yet discovered.

Economists and environmental groups have often been at odds about oil drilling. However, concerning ANWR, a partnership has been formed between those two groups, with the economists questioning the economic viability of drilling in the distant and remote lands and environmental advocates on the side of protecting the environment. Even conservative economic think-tanks, such as the Cato Institute have worries."Even if you're happy digging up the tundra, there's little reason to think that drilling in ANWR will do much to bring down energy prices" (Taylor). The support seems to only be hard-core Bush energy plan supporters. The facts are that the small amount of oil would have little effect on gasoline prices. Even if it would only slightly affect the environment, would it be worth the barely detectable impact it would have on our economy? In an increasingly technological world, is it important to have a place where human impact is at a minimum? After the matter of drilling in ANWR is settled this last question will still be an important issue for years to come.&

Corn, M. Lynne, and Bernard A. Gelb. "The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: The Next Chapter."Congressional Research Service Reports.August 2001. http://cnie.org/NLE/CRSreports/natural/nrgen-23.cfm#summary

Energy Information Administration. "Annual Energy Review." http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/contents.html

Lovins, Amory, and Hunter Lovins. "Fools Gold in Alaska." Foreign Affairs July-August. 2001:72-86.

Taylor, Jerry. "Just Say "No" to the Energy Plan."National Review Online.18 May 2001.n. pag. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/commment-taylor051801.shtml

United States Fish and Wildlife Service. "Official Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Site" 30 Aug. 2001 http://www.r7.fws.gov/nwr/arctic/contnet.html

United States Geological Survey. "Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 1002 Area, Petroleum Assessment, 1998, Including Economic Analysis.". By Kenneth Bird