Older Than Dirt
“How old is the earth?” has been a recurring question for centuries, and the dates and procedures used to estimate its age have surely evolved with time. Enter “age of the earth” into your...
Mike Strickler Geologist
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What’s in a Name?
This one will of necessity be short — duty calls. I recently published a post regarding the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The subject continues to prompt countless articles that run the full gamut:...
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Flash Floods, Slot Canyons, and Kinetic Energy
The recent episodes of flooding in Nepal and the Grand Canyon are horrific, to say the least. My heart goes out to those affected at both locations. Each of the floods were the result...
Wire Gold
I had a question come in about Marker Bed and figured the response could make a great blog post that would wreak lethal damage upon a pair of fowl avians with one ballistically-launched projectile:...
El Niño Southern Oscillation
I’m probably going to get most of this wrong, but since even the guys driving the Cray supercomputers don’t really understand the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and what makes it tick, I guess...
Bats
Thanks to the nature of my job as an exploration field geologist, I have spent a lot of time underground. Again, because of the nature of my job, most of my time underground has...
A Couple Legitimate Questions
This one is going to stray a bit from the Earth and I apologize in advance. But at least it’ll be short, and — as a reward for your forbearance — I will try...
Nature Abhors a Vacuum
I pulled into the post office a couple days ago and there it was — yet another square-backed vehicle with a dirty rear window. The driver was just getting out (she was from California...
Cyclospora and Climate Change?
Regular followers of this blog know of my wholehearted acceptance of Climate Change, and that — IMHO — it poses an existential threat to our established and very comfy way of life (click here...
Cataracts Really Suck
Conventional wisdom tells us we are born with five senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch — which (hopefully) supply us with needed input for the rest of our lives. All have their...
Primary v. Secondary Industry
There is a lot being said these days about bringing back our nation’s lost glory. This causes me indigestion on multiple levels. Fortunately, two of them are easy to reconcile: I cannot agree with...
Deep Sea Mining: Part 2
Before we jump into the deep water, a couple possibly irrelevant tangents: I love the earth, am fascinated by its processes, and wish it a long and happy life. Anybody who has opened their...
Thermosteric Sea Level Rise
The SciTechDaily website had an interesting article (28 May 2026) that summarized an international study about how climate change is affecting global sea level rise. The team included researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric...
