White Sand Beaches
I got a question from Jane who, while reading Marker Bed, became intrigued by the reference to quartz sand on page 29 of the print versions. (By the way, if you have not yet...
Category: Marine
Paleontology: How the Earth Makes a Fossil
We’ve spent a couple recent posts discussing geologic time and the two methods earth scientists use to describe and measure it. We started with a general introduction to earthtime and absolute age dating (Intro...
Going Up?
There have been a flood of articles over the past couple days with the same overarching message: the climate crisis is irreversible and we have already moved beyond the threshold we’d need to stay...
What’s Next?
I spend quite a bit of time thinking about what the earth is going to look like when humans are no longer around to take care of it. I had a student once who...
Barometric Air Pressure 101
A Request… Please hit the Subscribe button and sign up for updates to this blog. It costs you nothing and gives me nothing, other than a bit of emotional validation for my efforts. What...
A Search for Alien Life
Are we alone in the universe? Whether you are coming at this as a biologist, anthropologist, or religious scholar, this is a question which has occupied — and befuddled — thinking minds for centuries,...
Plastic Water Bottles: Friend or Foe?
I read yet another article about the dangers of plastics (this time from Newsweek on 09 January, 2024). I could go on and on about the possible permutations of the controversy and potential dangers...
I Can’t Take the Pressure Anymore…
A Request… Please hit the Subscribe button and sign up for updates to this blog. It costs you nothing and gives me nothing, other than a bit of emotional validation for my efforts. What...
Deep Sea Mining
I read an interesting article in Mother Jones (7/16/23) about mining on the deep-sea floor (aka the abyssal plain) for metallic nodules. This follows up on another article on the same site that discusses...
Climate change and sea level rise
How long can you tread water? It’s become almost a daily bluster: articles bemoaning the reality of climate change and how it is going to destroy the earth and lead to the end of...
