earth science
gregladen | May 6, 2009According to Texas Education Expert!
She knows because she looked at some web sites!!!!!!!!! Holy Crap!!!!
gregladen | May 6, 2009Many years ago, a sudden event occurred that changed everything. Or at least, that is what we think now. But in truth, the event took longer than many today believe, and many of the specific details, the exact order of events, the actual meaning of each detail, are not fully understood. Indeed, in the process of describing this event today, we find considerable disagreement, or at least, it is clear that one person's version is different than another's. I'd be happy to give you my version of it. What qualifies me to do that? Well, for one thing, I was there when it happened...
I refer,…
gregladen | May 5, 2009Erik Klemetti has an excellent description of the situation here.
Redoubt is WSW of Anchorage, Alaska but is otherwise, I think, pretty isolated.
Keep an eye on it here and here, via web cam.
Good thing someone is keeping an eye on these volcanoes!
sciencewoman | April 29, 2009Let me now sing the praises of NASA's Earth Observatory, a phenomenal web-based public education resource that is celebrating its 10th birthday today. Every day for the past decade, NASA has been uploading spectacular remote sensing images and astronaut photographs and accompanying them with clearly written, jargon-free but scientifically accurate explanations of the pictured phenomena. The Earth Observatory is one of my favorite web destinations, and I get their weekly email newsletter, and follow them on twitter. (Follow me!)
On numerous occasions, I've used Earth Observatory images to…
gregladen | April 23, 2009Educator alert: The best example of the Naturalistic Fallacy EVAH!!!! The money quote is....
"Carbon Dioxide is Natural. It is not harmful. It is part of earth's life cycle. And yet we are being told we have to reduce this natural substance, and reduce the american standard of living, to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is a naturally occurring in the Earth."
Here it is... Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann:
hat tip: dump bachmann
gregladen | April 21, 2009Monica sent me a link to a Faux News story on global warming, which makes the claim that global warming is not real because ice is expanding, and not contracting, in Antarctica. It also makes the claim that 90 percent of the earth's ice and 80 percent of the earth's fresh water is in Antarctica, which I assume is mentioned because it would make Antarctica seem more important than other parts of the world, and thus the "fact" that global warming is not happening there is proof of ... whatever.
I'd like to clarify.
To start with, let's get the fresh water thing straight. Most of the fresh…
gregladen | April 4, 2009A very large percentage of the earth's land masses were covered by glacial ice during the last glaciation. Right now it is about 10%, but during the Ice Age it was much more. Enough of the earth's water was trapped in this glacial ice that the oceans were about 120 to 150 meters lower than they are now. The thicker ice sheets were one or two kilometers thick, and they tended to slide around quite a bit, grinding down the surface of the earth and turning bedrock into dust and cobbles.
Then the ice went away, but the effects of the ice having been there are still being felt. A paper…
gregladen | March 22, 2009There has always been Oxygen on the earth, but it was not floating around free in the atmosphere as it is today (most of it still isn't). Indeed, it is kind of strange that the earth is blanketed in a mixture of toxic, corrosive liquid (water) and equally corrosive gas (the oxygen in the atmosphere). Imagine showing up at a planet without an atmosphere or liquid water, and splashing the water and spraying the air from he earth all over that planet. Depending on the planet, it could be like throwing vinegar into a bowl of baking soda. Third grade science fair time!
In fact, this could…
gregladen | March 14, 2009Spring is an ecological phenomenon of weather and biota linked to orbital geometry. More importantly, spring is here, as of this very moment, in Anoka County, Minnesota.
The parts of Anoka County, Minnesota that are not built on consist of scrubland, prairie, and marsh. So there is a lot of grass. For the last several weeks it has been unseasonably cold. So the soil beneath the grass is frozen solid. This frozen-state is facilitated by the fact that we have not had much snow, which otherwise might have insulated the ground and kept it warmer. And, this lack of snow means that when we…
gregladen | March 10, 2009Dino spoor, that is. A recently reported finding in PLoS ONE clarifies a number of questions about how certain dinosaurs held their front limbs (zombie/Frankenstein-position palm-down vs. huggie-wuggie palms-facing-each-other). This research confirms ...
that early theropods, like later birds, held their palms facing medially, in contrast to ... prints previously attributed to theropods that have forward-pointing digits. Both the symmetrical resting posture and the medially-facing palms therefore evolved by the Early Jurassic, much earlier in the theropod lineage than previously recognized…
gregladen | March 4, 2009A computer model of the formation of Olympus Mons (a big giant mountain on Mars) indicates that this geological formation should contain pockets of water.
The scientists explained that their finding is more implication than revelation. "What we were analyzing was the structure of Olympus Mons, why it's shaped the way it is," said McGovern, an adjunct assistant professor of Earth science and staff scientist at the NASA-affiliated Lunar and Planetary Institute. "What we found has implications for life - but implications are what go at the end of a paper."
This water would be liquid. Warm, in…
gregladen | February 26, 2009A "pre-existing condition" in the North Indian Ocean stoked the sudden intensification of last year's Tropical Cyclone Nargis just before its devastating landfall in Burma, according to a new NASA/university study. The cyclone became Burma's worst natural disaster ever and one of the deadliest cyclones of all time.
Scientists at the National Taiwan University, Taipei; and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., used data from satellite altimeters, measurements of ocean depth and temperature and an ocean model to analyze the ocean conditions present at the time of the catastrophic…
gregladen | February 22, 2009This story:
10 tornadoes confirmed in Ga., including one with winds topping 160 mph
Ten tornadoes, one packing winds of more than 160 mph, touched down in parts of Georgia on Wednesday, the National Weather Service said Friday.
The storms caused an estimated $25 million in insured losses, said John W. Oxendine, the state's insurance commissioner.
"I spent some time surveying damage and talking to residents in Jasper, Putnam and Hancock Counties" on Friday, Oxendine said in statement. "I believe claims will easily reach $25 million. Actual losses are much higher when you consider things like…
gregladen | February 10, 2009A quick note for those of you interested in mud volcanoes (and I know there are many of you). From an article titled "Earthquake Triggering of Mud Volcanoes" by Magna et al we learn that ...
Mud volcanoes sometimes erupt within days after nearby earthquakes. The number of such nearly coincident events is larger than would be expected by chance and the eruptions are thus assumed to be triggered by earthquakes. Here we compile observations of the response of mud volcanoes and other geologic systems (earthquakes, volcanoes, liquefaction, ground water, and geysers) to earthquakes. The…
gregladen | February 5, 2009The first time I read the following passage from The Voyage, I was reminded of my own first experience in a rain forest (in Zaire, not Congo). Evident in this passage is at least a glimmering of Darwin's appreciation for the complexity of ecosystems. Darwin could be considered the first scientific ecologist.
But enough of my commentary ... this passage very much stands on it's own ...
reposted and slightly modified
BAHIA, OR SAN SALVADOR. BRAZIL, FEB. 29TH.--The day has past delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first…
gregladen | February 5, 2009
Behold this humble passage by Darwin, which is what immediately follows his discussion of the octopus. This passage is a touchstone to several important aspects of what Darwin was doing and thinking, and is a poignant link to what Darwin did not know:
Repost with slight modifications
ST. PAUL'S ROCKS.--In crossing the Atlantic we hove to, during the morning of February 16th, close to the island of St. Paul.
Ah, sorry to interrupt. Saint Paul's Rocks are in the Atlantic roughly half way between South America and Africa. That geographical information should give you a hint of why…
gregladen | February 4, 2009Or, more accurately, did these dinosaurs either engage in intraspecific combat (such as territorial or mating contests among males) or fight predators such as Tyrannosaurs, like in the movies?
Well, one thing we know for sure: If any folklore, belief, or 'fact' related to a fossil species sits around long enough, eventually someone will come along and study it. This usually involves reformulating the idea as one or more testable hypotheses, then attacking the hypotheses ... much like Tyrannosaurus might or might not have attacked Triceratops, to see if it can be killed, or alternatively,…
gregladen | February 3, 2009An article released moments ago in PLoS ONE, by Gingerich et al., describes one of the more interesting fossil discoveries ever.
To cut right to the conclusion: We now have reason to believe that the proto-whale Maiacetus inuus, a true transitional form, gave birth on land, not in the water.
Artist's conception of male Maiacetus inuus with opaque skeleton overlay. Credit: John Klausmeyer and Bonnie Miljour, University of Michigan Museums of Natural History
Maiacetus inuus is a newly described member of a larger group of proto-cetids (proto-whales) that are believed to be largely aquatic…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2009tags: earth science, geoscience, nature, streaming video
What does an geoscientist do and how do you become one? The footage on this video is really remarkable [6:38]