Green Gabbro

Evelyn Julia Brumm, Rest in Peace

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:00:42 -0500

My grandmother died early this morning after a short battle with cancer. She was 85.

This is not a proper eulogy; those are hard to write.

However. Grandma voted by absentee ballot early last week, before the morphine took over. If she managed to vote, so can all y'alls (at least, assuming I finish writing this before the polls close).

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Happy Halloween, Charlie Brown!

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:48:54 -0500

I'm tempted to hand out rocks to the neighborhood children tonight... but I suppose caramels are just as bad for their teeth.

Read the comments on this post...

Where on (Google) Earth? #152

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:46:34 -0500

The Where on Google Earth? competition has been going on for almost two years now, wandering the geoblogosphere from winner to winner. During that time, we've covered all 7 continents and a whole buncha islands, but we've revealed one great big bias. We're landlubbers.

I've managed to find one again - for the first time since I moved to ScienceBlogs! - and I think it's time to start correcting this historical inequity.

For new players, here's the game: Open up Google Earth and try to find the patch of Earth pictured here. Be the first to post its coordinates, and describe the geology as best you can, and you win! Winner hosts the next round.

For old players: I'm invoking the Schott Rule. Wait one hour for each previous win before answering this one... unless you buy your way out of the rule by giving $5 or more to DonorsChoose! In that case, you may post your solution as soon as you have donated.

Read the comments on this post...

Introducing Thomas M. Rock

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:55:10 -0500

So far, Thomas M. is the only one to take advantage of my Donors Choose fundraising gimmicks. So, this rose quartz cobble, which I picked up while hiking in the hills near Santa Fe, shall henceforth be known as Thomas.

When you find something so well-rounded in a sedimentary deposit it's always hard to say precisely where it came from - especially when you subsequently forget where, exactly, you were hiking that day. Northern New Mexico is home to a number of pegmatites, coarse-grained igneous veins that host spectacular crystals and economically useful deposits of lithium and beryllium. Most of these are associated with the 1.4 billion year old granites in the Sangre de Cristo and Sandia mountains; the other major igneous intrusive episode in the region was 34 million years ago in the Cerrillos Hills.

There are a couple of rocks I picked up in the same spot which, on closer inspection, might actually have a bit of lepidolite (purple lithium-rich mica) in them. That's typically associated with the older pegmatites. So if I had to bet, I would bet that Thomas M. Rock is 1.4 billion years old, related to what was formerly the United States' primary source of beryllium.

If you want a 1.4 billion year old piece of quartz named after you - possibly one with lepidolite inclusions, or maybe they're tourmaline or something, they're pretty small and it's hard to tell but they are definitely an attractive deep mauve - well, you've got until Friday to donate at least $20 to any of the projects on my Donors Choose challenge slate or the California No on 8 campaign.

And for those of you giving to Donors Choose, our overlords at Seed have agreed to contribute $15,000 in matching funds!

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Geopuzzle: Beach Detectives

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:12:20 -0500

Someone stole 500 truckloads of sand from a beach on the north shore of Jamaica. Police are using "forensic tests" on other beaches on the island to identify the thief; I'm guessing this involves a geologist looking at sand in a microscope.

This page has better images of magnified sand grains than I was able to find on Flickr, and it's a nice overview of some of the things you can learn about a beach by examining the sand... but I wanted to do my own quiz anyway. Can you match the beaches to the sand?

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Coffee Bean Bridging

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:35:47 -0500

My coffee grinder sometimes pauses in its labors, and makes a high-pitched whining noise that is nigh unbearable to the uncaffeinated ear. The noise happens because even though there are plenty of beans in the hopper, they've managed to arrange themselves in such a way that they don't fall down. A good jostle of the grinder will set things right.

This problem is not new. Random loose particles frequently produce such quasi-stable, gravity-defying arrangements. Back in the day when I was working on well drilling projects, we worried about it happening in the gravel that surrounds the well casing. This gravel is installed to prevent sand from the surrounding material from getting into the well and wrecking the pump. If the gravel "bridges" during installation, leaving a gravel-free gap underneath, that's a place where sand will get in.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Oh Look, Links

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:44:21 -0500

I'm saving all my brilliance for a job interview today. So here, have some slices of other people's brilliance.

Great news! Seed is raffling off prizes for the Donors Choose challenge! Donate as little as $5 for a chance to win 1 of 50 free subscriptions to Seed magazine or 1 of ~15 pieces of ScienceBlogs schwag - mugs, laptop covers, and USB drives. At the end of the month, there will be a grand prize drawing for an iPod Touch. Right now, only 160 people have donated to the ScienceBlogs challenge (and we're beating the mommy bloggers! Yeah!) so your odds of winning are high. To enter, simply forward your donation confirmation email to scienceblogs[@]gmail.com - do it quick, so you can get in on the prize drawings before PZ and his horde mount a late entry to the challenge!

The San Francisco exploratorium has created a neat web app to display how we know what we know. There's an interesting mix of direct experience and hearsay for propositions like "Humans cause global warming" and "ghosts exist" - and you can split up the data by the scientist/nonscientist status of the participants. (via: Bioephemera)
There'll be a workshop on communicating your science to the public held on the Sunday before the fall AGU meeting. Are any of you going?
Short Geologist has a good post up about the social subtleties of nicknames in the workplace

Below the fold is your moment of YouTube zen.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

What Donors Should Choose

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:37:39 -0500

There is still no official word from Seed about matching funds and/or prize drawings for the Donors Choose Challenge. However, Janet has posted a list of individual ScienceBloggers' incentives here. Donating to another Scibling's challenge might not contribute to the glory of the geoblogosphere, but it will contribute to education.

If I weren't trying to win bragging rights, I would claim that the contribution to education is what matters. But really, pretending that bragging rights aren't important is just sour grapes from an ethicist whose readers do not share her commitment to charity. Bragging rights matter! And we are going to win some - all of us. All of us who donate, anyway - if you don't give, you don't get any bragging rights or warm fuzzies. And since northern hemisphere winter is coming on, most of you will need all the warm fuzzies you can get; please consider donating.

Below the fold, I've listed the three projects from my challenge slate where I think your donation will make the most impact.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Papers I Haven't Been Reading Lately

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:22:28 -0500

As papers come through my RSS reader, I flag anything that looks interesting, with the vague intention of getting back to it later.

Ha, ha. Very few of the articles I flag actually make it through my periodic purging of the to-read list. Since Berkeley has finally figured out that I'm no longer a student and they should stop providing me with library access to journals, the barrier between "hm, looks interesting" and "I'm actually going to read this" has gotten even higher.

Below the fold: 5 papers that haven't quite made the hurdle.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Donors Choose Update: Prizes!

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:30:21 -0500

As you may or may not be aware, Green Gabbro is one of the smallest blogs on the ScienceBlogs network. But on the challenge leaderboard tonight, I'm just two donors behind a first place tie between Drug Monkey, Science Women, and Uncertain Principles. These blogs all get at least triple my traffic (and Science Woman and Alice have stooped to bribery, to boot), but still are struggling to keep up with your generosity.

On a per capita basis, the geoblogosphere kicks philanthropic ass!

I'm also pleased to report that we've put new hot plates into a woefully underequipped high school science lab and rock samples and stream tables into the hands of 125 Texas 4th graders. I spent hours exploring fluid mechanics and sediment mobilization in my backyard sand box as a kid; I can only assume that playing with stream tables in science class will instantly turn the entire 4th grade population of this elementary school into an insatiable horde of small geologists.

Of course, the challenge is barely beginning. There are still three weeks left, and geology - the future of which depends on your contributions towards the propagandizing of young and impressionable minds - could still fall back into ignominious obscurity.

And if kids in this Oklahoma classroom don't get some rocks in the next two weeks, they won't be getting any rocks at all! Santa Claus is not going to leave coal in their stockings. We need to step up and do it ourselves.

I know that your budget is already stretched. You've been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch every day this month and throwing every last penny you can find to either the Obama campaign or No on 8.

So I'm going to stoop to bribery. Click through to see the prizes.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Drill, Baby, Drill... for Geothermal!

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:28:18 -0500

A week ago, the USGS updated its official estimates of U.S. geothermal energy resources for the first time in over 30 years. During the past three decades, we've made significant progress on technology to exploit geothermal energy in areas where there's plenty of heat in the ground, but no natural hydrogeologic plumbing system to help us exploit it. In other words: We are much better at cracking rocks underground than we used to be.

Assuming that this type of rock-cracking technology (aka "enhanced" geothermal systems) continues to work out as well as expected, the new study estimates that the equivalent of 50% of the nation's current electricity supply is just sitting around in the ground in the Western U.S. That's less than the 150% of current electricity that we could get if we blanketed the windiest 6% of the nation in windmills (source), but it is still nothing to sniff at.

Here's where we should be drilling:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

In Which I Want Your Money: Donors Choose Challenge 2008

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:25:18 -0500

I've seen the geoblogosphere periodically erupt in harrumphing about the way geology is treated (and by "treated" we usually mean "ignored") in K-12 education. Well, now's our chance to fix that. Budget cuts and the No Child Left Behind Act mean that science is getting squeezed out of elementary school classrooms. Teachers know that their students love science, and are determined to keep them engaged, but they don't have the resources they need.

That's where you come in.

Donors Choose is a nonprofit organization designed to help you help schools tackle the projects you think are important. They gather proposals from public school teachers, and handle all the money stuff; you pick out the proposals that seem most compelling, and provide students with desperately-needed educational resources.

I've highlighted several projects that will bring low-tech hands-on Earth science to kids across the country: rock and mineral kits, stream tables, and basic lab supplies like notebooks and safety goggles.

All of the projects are at "high poverty" schools - at least 40% of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, meaning that their families earn 130% or less of the federal poverty line. And by "federal poverty line" I mean "supporting a family of 4 on a grad student's salary". These are not classrooms where parents will chip in to buy the latest educational doohickeys; these are classrooms where parents can barely afford pencils.

Since my partner's grad student salary only supports two people right now, and not four, I figure we can spare ten bucks. If we can spare ten bucks, so can you - and if everyone who reads this blog throws $10 into the pot, we can bring several hundred kids ~~to the Dark Side~~ the joys of geology.

Seed Media Group, the ScienceBorg corporate mothership, has put up matching money for the past two years' challenges. I don't have details about matching funds for this year's challenge, but I am assuming that some will be forthcoming. Moreover, a few projects on my challenge slate have also been sponsored with matching funds from other charitable foundations. Pick one of these, and your $10 will turn into $30! That's a much better deal than the $5 special at your local greasy noodle emporium; pack sandwiches for the rest of the week, and give your lunch money to support public schools.

I'll be writing much more in the coming month about the individual projects you should support, the glory that will accrue to the geoblogosphere as we create a nation of budding young geoscientists, and the fabulous prizes you can win by donating (save your donation thank-you email!). For now, though, please take a few moments to browse through some of the projects that need funding. Which do you like? Are there any listed by Donors Choose that you think I should include in the challenge?

Read the comments on this post...

New Accretionary Wedge!

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:19:18 -0500

This month's geoblog carnival is on Geologeeeee.... innnn... SPAAAAAAACE!!1! - you simply must click through to see the cover.
If you need more geoblog goodness, Lutz at geoberg.de is working on a complete list of the entire geoblogosphere! See it in English or German. There are currently 101 blogs on the list, more than twice as many as covered by Callan's geoblogosphere survey results. Guess it's time to update my blogroll... (h/t: NOVA Geoblog)
Conversely, if you need a perspective check from non-geologists, go read what freelance writers think is interesting about a volcano photograph.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Reminder: Seattle Millionth Comment Party Today

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 07:58:14 -0500

TODAY! TODAY TODAY! Come party with me, Sandra, Dave, and GrrlScientist in the upper mezzanine at Ozzie's, 105 W. Mercer St. just behind the Space Needle*.

Some of the Seattle Skeptics are showing up, and later on, a few folks from the Pacific Science Center. Meet lots of people who care about science and science education, and drink beer (or orange juice, you know, if you're into that sort of thing) on Seed's dime! We'll buy the first couple of rounds, at least, and keep going until we run out of budget.

We'll start at 4 and carry on until... um, I'm not sure how long we'll carry on, but I promised my Science Center friend that we'd be there until at least 6:30.

Hope to see you there!

*I refuse to call it Seattle Center. Dumbest name EVAR, especially for something that is decidedly off-center from downtown.

Read the comments on this post...

What Planet is my Clafoutis From?

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:38:46 -0500

Like so many moments of culinary inspiration, this plum clafoutis is nothing like what I was thinking of prior to actually wandering into the kitchen to make dinner.

I was going to make pancake dome pancakes.

Pancake domes are features on Venus. They are so named because they look like pancakes:

Actually, they are volcanoes.

It would be trivial to make a batch of ordinary pancakes, point out the uncanny resemblance, and call it a day; it would also be cheating. Pancake dome pancakes should erupt. This, from Stofan et al. 2000 ¹, is roughly the mechanism I wanted:

Moreover, I wanted to do this with ingredients I had on hand that needed to be used up. This led me to think of using kale leaves to encourage the formation of a central vent, with some kind of watery homemade applesauce concoction as the lava. Except I wasn't sure about getting the applesauce to boil and erupt before the bottom of the pancake burned - maybe it would help if I used vodka and/or egg and/or baking soda and vinegar in the applesauce? With more kale on the bottom?

The longer I thought about it, the more delicious the pancake dome pancakes became - and by "delicious" I mean "horrifying".

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...