Lithium and Green Energy
I saw an article this morning about a lithium prospect in the Alvord desert of southeastern Oregon. The company that was exploring for the metal — used in batteries for electric vehicles, consumer electronics,...
Mike Strickler Geologist
Wildfire
We all have those times of the year that we really enjoy. For myself I love the late fall when the rain machine here in southwestern Oregon (usually) turns on (if we’re lucky) and...
Cut Banks and Point Bars
It’s funny: water is nearly incapable of going in a straight line when it’s moving across the land. Think about it. Any little thing — or nothing — will divert the flow. I once...
Kinetic Energy
Susie and I were married in our teens, and by the beginning of our third year at the university we were broke — flat busted and living on ramen and bean burritos (love can...
Do geologists know what they’re doing?
I got an exceptionally apt question a while back on my GeoMania website: “Are geologists sure that they’re right about how the earth works?” This is a tough one to respond to without sounding...
As simple as black and white
I am absolutely convinced that we are all born geologists. I mean, really, what kid doesn’t have a rock collection? Sadly, most of us lose the love by middle school when the burdens and...
Here Comes the Sun…
I spent much of my high school years on a surfboard. It became a full-throated obsession during my senior year when the school test-drove a new program called “Self-Imposed Scheduling.” If you were in...
Climate Change?
Europe — indeed much of the northern hemisphere, thanks to five separate high-pressure domes — is sweltering under an unprecedented heat wave: airport schedules disrupted because runways are buckling… older folks dying from heatstroke…...
Water, water everywhere…
I’ve been a collector of good ideas for as long as I can remember. But just like an on switch cannot exist without an off, or an up without a down, for every positive...
West coast tectonics
I had an interesting question come across my GeoMania website a while back: “If Mt. St. Helens and the whole west coast is a convergent plate boundary with subduction, how come there are no...
