When I shifted from personal/political blogging to science blogging, and particularly when I started writing here at ScienceBlogs, I wanted to be a reliable source. Turns out that it’s difficult for me to care about being reliable without dredging up a whole bunch of other issues about wanting to be seen as an AUTHORITAH! – Cartman voice and and all. So, that slowly got to be less fun.

Turns out, I miss having a blog that was less about explaining things, and more about discussing them.

I’m not making any promises – it’s been almost 10 years since I started doing this and I have never made promises – but I’ve written a couple of posts about foraging and bicycles, which are things I’ve been doing lately that I don’t feel so much like an authoritah! about. They’re on my old domain. That’s where more posts will appear, too, if I write them.

?The 18,000 marriages will be evidence that California is not going to fall apart if gay people get married,? Mr. Lok said. ?It?s not like there?s not going to be an earthquake.?

Oh ho ho, won’t Mr. Lok and his husband be chuckling at that one when San Francisco falls into the ocean! In fact, the potential link between same-sex marriage and earthquakes is one of the strongest arguments I’ve ever seen in favor of preserving the traditional-except-for-all-the-ways-we’ve-changed-it-in-the-past institution of opposite-sex-only marriage.

While the observation that same-sex marriage might be followed by earthquakes has been made before – notably by Israeli parliamentarian Shlomo Benizri and American preacher Pat Robertson – science has advanced beyond the simple “God does it” explanations most commonly proposed by nutcase conservative public figures. Below the fold, I will tell you how we actually think this process works.

The Castro district in San Francisco is constantly emitting small pulses of gay energy, called Love waves. These Love waves usually pass harmlessly through the crust, causing only occasional dirty thoughts in sensitive individuals.

Each time that a committed same-sex couple’s family bond is recognized and supported by the government, another pulse of gay energy is emitted from the relevant bureau. If this recognition occurs in the form of marriage, the pulse is strengthened, by a factor of approximately 31, through a complicated resonance of the couple’s wedding rings with their official marriage license (the exact multiplier varies depending on the font chosen by each county registrar, but it’s usually Helvetica).

Under normal conditions, these Love waves would also dissipate harmlessly in the crust. However, due to California’s unique geographic and geological conditions, the pulses emitted from state offices in Sacramento combine with the Love waves coming from the Castro in a phenomenon known as constructive interference. This interaction creates a pattern of standing Love waves in the soft sediments of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta:

At the constructively interfering nodes between San Francisco and Sacramento, gay energy is strong enough to penetrate the crust all the way to the seismogenic zone. The effects of this penetration on the seismogenic zone are governed by lubrication theory. Suffice it to say, when enough gay energy lubricates the underlying faults, California will be doomed – maybe not immediately after same-sex marriage is finally legalized for good, but definitely on or after April 15 the following year. Nothing emits pulses of pure gay energy more efficiently than a joint tax return.

(NB: Small numbers of same-sex marriages, typically involving a transgendered spouse whose legal gender is or was different from his/her preferred or identified gender, have been legally recognized even when same-sex marriage generally has not been. These marriages still cause Love waves to be emitted from Sacramento, but their effects have thus far been lost in the noise of ordinary tectonic and heterosexual seismicity. However, the effects of sub-seismogenic quantities of gay energy on the water in the delta – which is an important source of drinking water for Southern California – have not been studied.)

• Multiple cup holders. Constantly scrounging for the whatsit you put on the passenger seat next to the map, that has since rolled onto the floor or gotten wedged in the cushions, is tiresome. Actually, what I want is a cup holder (or two, if I am in the field with a coworker), plus a pencil holder, a GPS holder, and a wallet-change-keys-iPod holder… but we could start with just putting the parking brake lever on the left-hand side somewhere, instead of the right, and using that console space for storage. Chevy Aveo, I’m looking at you here.
• Emergency kit. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a rental car that came obviously stocked with basic first aid supplies, or been offered a kit in the list of pay-per-day add-ons, but it would be nice. It’s a pain to pack your own, but when you’re driving around on random back-country logging roads all day, it’s a good thing to have with you.
• Aux input on the stereo. Much easier than fiddling with a little “personal radio station” adapter thingie, or trying to find decent music on the radio.
• Although I’m sure the folks at Enterprise would be horrified if they saw some of the roads I covered with their precious little econoblob, four-wheel drive is still worth thinking about for, say, back-country logging roads. It’s unfortunate that the “wee little Jeep” class isn’t more well-represented on the rental market, because for any job I’ve been on short of a multimodal geophysical survey or 30-person field trip, a “standard” 4WD pickup or SUV is total gas-guzzling overkill (I’ve complained about this before).

Huh, I suppose it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

1: I was really surprised by how many of you fell for my April Fools joke.

2: I do have a real job now. I’m an environmental consultant, and I can’t be much more specific than that – not because I am trying to keep the details a secret, but because I work for a tiny, multidisciplinary company, which is rapidly expanding my collection of professional hats. Last week I was primarily a technical writer, this week I’ll be out in the field doing preliminary ground work for a survey of natural resource use, and in the near future they’ve promised me hydrodynamic modeling, ecological risk assessments, GIS work, and some other stuff that depends on the outcome of the several proposals we’ve all been working on. I’ve been enjoying it so far.

This is not a promise to get back to a regular blogging schedule. It’s not the job that’s the problem, though – it’s the cat I finally felt responsible enough to adopt. Apparently the time and brainspace I had previously devoted to blogging is the exact same time and brainspace required to dangle a string from the end of a stick. Who knew?

This is also not a shut-down notice. Blogging has been a rewarding hobby for the past 8 years and I am not going to quit entirely, though I’m thinking about if/how I want to scale back and/or change venues.

What this is, is a reminder that if you are interested in following my sporadic updates – including any announcements about a new URL – you can set up an email subscription to alert you of new entries. The sign-up is at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar.

After months of searching in a desperate economy, I am incredibly relieved to have been offered a permanent position. Not just relieved, but tremendously excited – I’ve managed to find an incredibly exciting, challenging, and meaningful job. As of today, I am the newest adjunct fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture!

My role will be to expand the Institute’s existing “Teach the Controversy” campaign to include other scientific debates. Eventually this will encompass everything from protecting linguistics professors who discuss the number of words that Eskimos have for snow, to advocating for free market policy solutions in the design of the next big particle accelerator (to ensure that any wormholes created only lead to awesome alternate universes), to making sure that the broab is included as part of an alternate functional diagram in neuroanatomy textbooks. For now, though, I’ll be getting my feet wet sticking close to my field of expertise: the Expanding Earth hypothesis.

The Expanding Earth hypothesis was one of a number of ideas proposed during the heady days following the discovery of sea-floor spreading. While the modern theory of plate tectonics eventually emerged as the most popular scientific paradigm, not all of the alternative viewpoints were thoroughly falsified. Some of them still address some inconsistencies in the data – inconsistencies that would be glaring if we weren’t all working with plate tectonics blinders on. I will be working – through both “new” and “old” media – to make sure those inconsistencies are given a fair hearing in the public sphere.

This might seem like a bit of a departure from my previously-expressed views, but it really isn’t. I have long thought that we in the geoblogosphere do ourselves a disservice with too much talk about “EEdiots” – we’re accomplishing nothing but alienating people who might otherwise listen, and we look like judgmental buffoons. This isn’t about my personal beliefs or the merits of any particular position, it’s about the fundamental value of academic freedom and spirited, respectful debate. I firmly believe that minority viewpoints and “alternative” theories can have great pedagogical value – even if most students reject them in the end, they will learn so much when they are allowed to explore all sides of the argument for themselves!

My new commute is lovely on a bicycle, but today, I have also pledged to fight through downtown Seattle’s traffic and parking to participate in Drive to Work Day. American society was built on the automobile, and now our nation’s auto manufacturers are in crisis. Now, more than ever, it is vital that we act to preserve our car-centric culture, and I hope you will all join me in taking action to strengthen your bond to the automobile.

I am not a geologist, nor will I become one any time soon. To comply with Washington law, I would need to complete coursework in the core subjects of geology (as specified in WAC 308-15-040: structural geology, mineralogy, petrology and sedimentary geology/stratigraphy) and then my professional clock would start ticking – experience gained prior to completing these educational requirements doesn’t count towards the necessary 5 years. So, assuming I have understood the requirements correctly (always a gamble!), it would take a minimum of 6 years to become a Washington professional geologist. Even if there is a way to appeal for a shortcut, man, what an annoying hurdle.

On the other hand, if I got a job in California I could be a geologist in a few months. In fact, as far as I can tell, Washington is almost uniquely strict about this – only Nebraska has an equivalently rigid licensing requirement.

Disclaimer: This map is based on my quick skim of these ASBOG summaries. It is not intended to provide professional or legal advice; for actual information on licensing for professional geologists in your jurisdiction, you should consult applicable authorities.

In case anyone else wants to make a cheesy custom-colored map of the U.S., here’s the quickie web app I used.

I have a B.S. in geophysics and an M.S. in earth and planetary science with a funky geophysics/geohydrology emphasis. I took some intro physical geology and earth history as a sophomore, but I have never taken formal courses in mineralogy, petrology, structural geology, sedimentology, or stratigraphy. However, I’ve picked up the basics of these fields from older kids on the street corner and make use of them in my work.

Please assume while you are answering the poll that my work involves using my knowledge of the Earth’s history, processes, and constituent materials for the benefit of humanity, and not just creating ugly abstract art. My work does not, however, require that I identify any minerals trickier than feldspar, or touch a Brunton with a ten-foot pole – to which I say phew, because I’m not very good at either of those things.

I’ll have a post up tomorrow with my answer.

Was the timing of these two events just coincidence?

Yes.

Why do I think the events were unrelated? Well:

1. Earthquakes happen all the time. Thankfully for Tongan residents, I am using a geological definition of “time” here, but still: A major earthquake on a major plate boundary does not require any special explanation.
2. The earthquake was a perfectly ordinary plate boundary event. Everything we know about this earthquake so far – its hypocentral location, the direction of slip along the fault – is completely consistent with the other earthquakes we’ve recorded in that part of the world, most of which have not been associated with volcanic eruptions. Part of the top of the Pacific plate slipped a little further underneath the bottom of the Indo-Australian plate, nothing volcanic about it.
3. The earthquake began 270 km away from the volcano. That’s many times the size of the structure we call Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai.
4. I can’t think of a good physical mechanism for a volcano to produce the postulated spooky-earthquakes-at-a-distance. We don’t understand all of what makes an earthquake happen now rather than later, but we can make a list of ways that an explosion of magma 270 km away might be felt at the plate interface. It’s a pretty short list: Were there any significant earthquakes associated with the eruption, whose passing seismic waves might have triggered the 7.9? No. A couple of earthquakes occurred before the eruption, but they were small – only M5 – and I haven’t looked at them in detail, or seen any firm evidence that they were directly associated with the volcano, either.

So while it’s possible that research in the distant future might uncover an explanation for the close timing of these two events (and there is quite a lot of exciting work happening now about the relationships between volcanism, seismicity, and fluids in subduction zones, but it’s mostly discussing the kinds of relationships that must be carefully teased from decades of observation), I quite like Occam’s razor on this one. There is no reason to reach beyond our current understanding of volcanoes and earthquakes to explain what makes perfect sense as a coincidence.

Meanwhile, if you’re hoping for more volcano stuff, there is some high-quality Tonga volcano porn here (still pictures) and here (video). Volcanologist and new Scibling Erik Klemetti has more to say about the eruption, too.

Extracting information from this pathetic excuse for a usable map is, in fact, a learned skill. I only realized this a couple of weeks ago, when I sat down with the company’s graphic designer to show her how to do what I was doing. She was impressed at my ability to rapidly find relevant landmarks in the Pollockian heap of worms and pink spaghetti on my screen.

While we were going over the technical details, she made an offhand comment about turning the different image layers different colors, instead of looking at several layers of gray on gray. That’s not hard to do, but the relevant knob is squirreled away under a couple of option panels; I showed her where it was and turned my base map light blue, as an example.

And lo, my life became much easier.

Learning to work with a poorly-designed system is kind of a waste of effort.

If you put Edward Tufte in an empty pot, and slowly add chartjunk, will he leap out before he is boiled alive?

I have been hanging around with seismologists for some time now, and I don’t think I have ever heard anyone use the word “temblor” in either ordinary or technical speech. I have only ever seen it in news reports, where it seems to fulfill a need to (a) limit the number of times a single word is repeated in a short space, and/or (b) use short words in headlines to satisfy layout constraints.

Am I alone here?