Oblate Spheroid

I’ve been swamped with post-GSA catching up, but I do have a few posts in the works. Until then, enjoy the geekiest Halloween costumes EVER, courtesy of the College of Wooster’s mineralogy class. Wooster Geologists » Blog Archive » It was a dark and stormy night…Halloween in Mineralogy.

Writing this from my room at the fabulous McMenamin’s Kennedy School (the only hotel I’ve ever stayed in with chalkboards in the rooms, four bars, and a movie theater…) after a rather successful Pardee session at the 2009 GSA. Among the highlights: There seems to be a growing push for a sort of crowdsourcing in [...]

It’s the week before the Geological Society of America annual meeting. AAAAGGGH!!!! Here’s a preview of what I’m working on: Google Earth image with 1940 aerial image overlay (and grid) showing Puyallup River valley between Puyallup and Tacoma. Image from Puget Sound River History Project. As environmental science instructors, we like to hope we can [...]

I’m in the middle of writing a grant proposal: hashing out user fees, equipment and supply costs, student stipends, etc… I’m half-seriously thinking about stocking my lab with surplus equipment bought at auctions. OK, not really. “Runs great” is NOT a wonderful endorsement for a sensitive lab instrument.

From the San Jose Mercury News: “Ground penetrating radar is used on the next-door neighbor’s property of kidnap suspects Phillip and Nancy Garrido Friday Sept. 19, 2009 at the site in unincorporated Antioch, Calif. Investigators also tore down a shed in the Garrido backyard and hauled away the debris.” Photo credit: Karl Mondon/Staff. The San [...]

Forgot to post this when it came through my email inbox a while ago: grad-school friend Daniel Glavin, now of NASA, gave a lecture at the Library of Congress earlier this summer. It’s on the web now. Congratulations, Danny! Astrobiology: Life in Space Webcast (Library of Congress).

Fred Vine, of the Vine-Matthews-Morley hypothesis, explains the pattern of seafloor magnetic reversals in what I believe is a TV show from the 70s. More info on the source as I figure it out. Vine uses a number of pedagogical techniques that we still trot out to demonstrate magnetic reversals and seafloor spreading: the cut [...]

Super cool annotated panorama of a cirque in the north Cascades. This kind of thing would be a great GigaPan project (see also: xrez), and would be fun to do with a class – say, physical geography. Print is available from the photographer for $84 plus shipping. Nooksack Cirque Panorama by Greg Higgins.

Opabinia was a small arthropod that lived during the Cambrian. Formerly available only in stone from the Burgess Shale, it is now available in full 3D plush from WeirdBugLady on Etsy (special order required).

Kurt Schwehr (blogging at Kurt’s Weblog) posted something a couple of days ago about the recently updated pseudo-bathymetry on Google Earth (see the graphics and broader discussion at Ogle Earth, too). Dave Sandwell (David T. Sandwell, to be precise…) wrote to Kurt with some clarifications about data sources. In passing, Sandwell mentions an easter egg [...]