Day 1051: Have You Ever Had Breakfast With A Geologist?
July 13, 2008 - Filed Under funny, geology, movies/tv
Thanks, Julie!
I love that the Flickr trilobite nerds are talking to one another over these pictures I took. 0 comments #
Day 976: On Barry And Houck
April 30, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, environment, geology, louisiana, new orleans, recovery
Each time someone asks why protecting New Orleans and the Louisiana coastline is America’s responsibility, I wonder what a stupid question that is. We are Americans and the providers of so much to this country, culturally and economically. Was 9/11 New York’s or D.C.’s problem? Of course not, what a question, so why are New Orleans and Louisiana constantly in the position of explaining themselves? This past week, John Barry, author of Rising Tide, and Oliver Houck, local environmental lawyer, professor and activist, have each written a piece on why it is an American duty to save New Orleans and the Louisiana coast. Please read both articles in full before returning to this post.
LA Times: Who Should Pay To Protect New Orleans?
Oliver Houck: When Bad Neighbors Spoil Good Fishing
The question is not Can America Save New Orleans? It’s What Have You Been Doing All This Time? Moreover, it’s a shame that almost three years after Katrina/Flood, we still need this level of advocacy. However, in so doing, let us not stand accused of the same provincialism and lack of analysis of which some other Americans are guilty.
Both articles are problematic in that they do not take into account that damming and agricultural discharge from the north are a result of necessary farming. The Midwest is America’s breadbasket - just as we create and convey seafood and petroleum products to the north, Midwesterners make and give us meat, grain (corn, wheat, anyone?) and dairy, with severe environmental stresses to their own soil and waterways that are then sent to the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi. Where else is the waste going to go but downhill, given the way our midcontinental drainage currently works? Wanting to sue the Midwest for sending down agricutural effluvium is like telling the oil refining industry downstream not to flare or spew other chemicals or the rest of America will take you to court for polluting the air. Those upstream and downstream of the Mississippi River are, pardon the pun, in the same boat when it comes to self-pollution, spreading the pollution and creating products that the other party and the rest of America needs. We suffer, but we enjoy the fruits of each other’s sacrifices as well.
The patch of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans isn’t called Cancer Alley because of Midwestern agricultural effluents alone. Also, how does an area host pipelines, refineries and chemical plants as a basic part of its economy and expect to get to zero levels of toxins? Why not threaten to take every single one of these industries to court, too? It’s easy to first throw angry, culturally-loaded words at nameless fellow citizens, but not display the same ire to the companies and governmental bodies that are also equally as culpable.
Not a big fan of dams, I’m all for breaking most of them down starting with the headwaters of the Mississippi. But, how about letting the river flow where it should - into the Atchafalaya - instead of constraining it to its current course to keep the Port of New Orleans alive? Let’s face it, a lot of the problems that we currently experience are very much local- and state-made.
Again, thanks so much to John Barry and Oliver Houck for keeping us on the radar screen and so effectively. We are all Americans, like it or not, as we can and do offer to and learn from one another. Anger is one thing, goodwill is another, but the growing and misinformed American Us-Versus-Them mentality is not going to get any of us anywhere.
Day 973: River, Lake, Fossil, Rock, River
April 27, 2008 - Filed Under geology, photographs, travel
A Very Full Mississippi In Memphis
Lake Mendota And Picnic Point From The Edgewater Hotel
University of Wisconsin Geology Museum’s Latest Trilobite Acquisition
Rare Botryoidal Fluorite
Bonnet Carré Spillway
Day 966: Wabash Valley Quake!
April 20, 2008 - Filed Under geology, science & technology
Sorry for the delayed aftershock (heehee!) regarding this news, but I wasn’t close enough to a computer for blog access through most of this weekend. So, which one of you lucky Midwesterners felt the 5.2 and what was it like? Don’t leave out any details.
AP: 5.2 Earthquake Rocks Large Region Of Midwest
“It shook our house where it woke me up,” said David Behm of Philo, 10 miles south of Champaign. “Windows were rattling, and you could hear it. The house was shaking inches. For people in central Illinois, this is a big deal. It’s not like California.”
No, sir, it’s not like California. It’s better. The west coast’s earthquakes have never made it to 8.0 in this nation’s recorded history. Guess which region did in 1811 and 1812 and rung churchbells as far away as Boston. That’s right - New Madrid, which is directly to the southwest of Friday’s earthquake, in another arm of the greater rift complex in northeastern Missouri.
Below is a map (from Structural Features in Illinois by W. J. Nelson, 1995) of the complex structural features underlying the southeastern edge of the Illinois Basin. For you non-geologists, a geologic structure is visible/measurable rock deformation, usually in the form of a fault (break) or a fold (bend). Keep in mind that these structures are at depth, but that quite a bit of modern-day topography follows an existing structural trend.
Friday’s quake occurred on the western edge of the Wabash Valley Fault System which straddles the Illinois-Indiana border immediately to the north of the Rough Creek Graben. Again, the New Madrid Seismic Zone is to the south and southwest. Along with the Clay City anticline, the Wabash Valley Fault system forms the southernmost extent of the La Salle Deformation Belt which extends all the way north to the western suburbs of Chicago. You may consider the flatland of Central Illinois boring, but (cue best Rod Serling imitation) deep beneath lurks the result of eons of geologic turmoil. These structures were active roughly between 450 and 300 million years ago; today’s seismicity is likely reactivation along these faults, given that the depth (~7 km) is right. The more interesting question, though, is not where these earthquakes are happening but why.
Incidentally, in the Fairfield Basin on the northern portion of the map, there should be a structure called the Divide monocline that runs east-west and “connects” the Clay City anticline on the east to the DuQuoin monocline on the west. I know this because I mapped the Divide structure on well logs as part of my undergraduate senior thesis and published my findings in a beautifully-illustrated (mostly), best-selling (not really), 43-page paperback spiritedly entitled A Two-Dimensional Subsurface Study Of The Divide Structure In Southern Illinois.
I hope all of this gives you a better idea of where Friday’s seismic activity occurred, how it relates to New Madrid activity and why geologists map seemingly old and dormant structures tens of kilometers below the earth’s crust. James Hutton and Charles Lyell famously stated the inverse, but I also believe that the past is the key to the present. The only constant about the earth is motion, change, flux, and the more we understand about this the better our predictive capability.
Related: Seismicity of the Lower Wabash Valley: Fact Sheet; Reflection Seismic Profiling of the Wabash Valley Fault System in the Illinois Basin
Witness the groan-worthy depths to which we will descend to make earth science more appealing to the masses. Discovery News: Worldwide ‘Love’ Vibe Detected. *sigh* “A subtle and mysterious global hum has been detected by seismologists studying records from Earth’s most boring seismic stations … The Love wave is a [toroidal] mode [of vibration] that essentially [slowly] torques the Earth’s north and south hemispheres against each other.” No cause for alarm, just curiosity. To be clear, “boring seismic station” here means one situated in a tectonically quiet area, far away from active plate boundaries and hot spots, not one painted grey with a fake potted plant and a well-worn copy of Newsweek from 1988 in the waiting room. 0 comments #
Day 921: Every Ting Be Eire, Mon!
March 5, 2008 - Filed Under culture-society-history, family & friends, food & drink, geology, global, photographs, recovery, travel
Last Saturday, 1100 miles away on the island of Jamaica, I turned the same age as Jesus and John Belushi when they died. Perhaps this will be the year a woman breaks into the Stonecutters Freemasons and is then promptly axed. Axed to leave, that is.
For one week, our friends, Olga, Osbourne and Salome, took six of us from the Wisconsin gang into their villa and arms once again. We swam in a lovely pool, sat by it while soaking up the sun, ate scrumptious Jamaican dishes cooked by Olga herself, walked and swam in the Caribbean and enjoyed meeting and hanging out with Runaway Bay and Swansea locals. Not once during the seven days did we know what was going on back home or in the worlds of politics, sports and entertainment. Nor did we care to know. I’ve come to realize that it’s not all that important, unless there’s a missile being lobbed in your general direction or Brett Favre retires. “Why did it take us five years to come back? Are we collectively insane?” we wondered, especially the ones who live in Wisconsin and Ohio. Two years is as long a gap we will now afford before returning to paradise.
While we vacationed, life in Jamaica went on around us. The general economic atmosphere in the portion of the north coast that we travelled (from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios) is one of building, quarrying and transportation. You couldn’t say the same five years ago, when the pothole-ridden streets and almost-dead silence of the place frightened me, until I came to know certain parts of New Orleans before and after the flood. The only troubling aspect of the enthusiastic construction there is the sheer number of sprawling mega-resorts and tall condominium towers rising up on the Caribbean waterfront, impeding views and access to locals. One observes a lot of cranes in the sky, but few are for Jamaicans, reserved instead for foreigners with money who will live part-time or permanently in Jamaica.
From what I heard and observed, the island as a whole seems to have recovered nicely from Hurricane Dean with newly paved roads and other facets of rebuilt infrastructure like schools, hospitals and shops.
[Aside: During a visit to the vast and breathttaking rock-gasm that is the Green Grotto cave system, I learned that the word hurricane arrived in our vocabulary from Hurákan, the storm god of the Mayans and the Taíno, the indigenous people of Jamaica better known to the west as the Arawak. In fact, in above-ground clearings surrounded by immediate entries to the caves, the Taíno performed many a ritual to appease the angry storm god. It is unfortunate that the current existence of the Taíno in Jamaica can only be speculated upon thanks to their massacre by successive waves of colonists. When pressed, our tour guide referred to them simply as "extinct."]
There is a price to pay for living in paradise. “Had Dean not veered away, there would be no more Jamaica,” our friends muttered slowly. Some asked me about New Orleans and what is taking us so long. When I explained that the onus of post-Katrina/Flood recovery is on the New Orleanian and the communities we form, they laughed and asked us why we don’t riot and get rid of corrupt politicians like they do. “If we don’t like those in power, they don’t stay in there too long,” said Olga. “You are Americans. We are not so rich, but we fight. What’s your excuse?” What is our excuse? Sheepishly, I grabbed my plate of fried plantains and walked away to mull it over. That was my excuse.
Mmmmm, fried plantains. The most inexpensive and delicious fruit, vegetables, seafood, spices and sweets cooked and served three times daily. Mangoes, breadfruit, pineapple and papaya to die for alongside jerk chicken and freshly-caught lobster and fish. After every meal, we promised one another not to get used to it, lest we come back home and expect the contents of the refrigerator to magically transform, auto-cook and appear on our dinner plates.
Popular Jamaican music, however, is not as insipring as the food. There is, it seems, no limit to the number of times an artist or dj can insert an airhorn into an otherwise relaxing bit of reggae, while the islander obsession with country music baffles me. Why, oh why, must my eardrums get damaged by listening to Garth Brooks and Shania Twain lyrics in off-key patois? If the fad persists, please stick with Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Thank goodness, however, for the melodious respites offered by Bob Marley, Jah Rule and Lady Saw.
The end of the week came. Olga and Osbourne shed tears as we hugged and said our goodbyes. When asked why, they responded that we are some of the nicest folks they’ve ever met, they are surprised we’ve stayed friends for half a decade and we don’t put on airs around the help. Apparently, not many visitors treat black Jamaicans with the equality and camaraderie we bestowed upon our hosts. I’ve noticed that, in general, middle-class Americans who travel abroad may not be the most cosmopolitan and, hence, stick out like a sore thumb, but do not put themselves in a class above the locals or help. The wealthy from any nation and all classes of Europeans, on the other hand, tend to maintain a strict social barrier between themselves and foreigners or those who serve them. I view it as a remanent of the baron-serf, colonist-colonized, owner-slave relationships that existed between these people and may persist until nations like Jamaica are not viewed as former colonies but as freestanding nations. Understand that this is a cultural nuance, but not one that has to endure or be tolerated. Olga, Ozzie and their families are my people now, as it should be.
Reminiscing about this trip, the one thought that floats to the top over and over again is “Thank you for letting me see, hear, feel, eat and breathe this. Thank you for the time to let go. I’m so lucky.”
Day 902: NIU’s Tragedy
February 15, 2008 - Filed Under culture-society-history, education, family & friends, geology
As a long-time resident of Illinois and Wisconsin, yesterday’s shootings on the Northern Illinois University campus hit close to home. The towns from which the victims hailed are familiar to me - Carpentersville, Cicero, Westchester. Kids from far, far Chicago suburbs and farming communities who went to college to be killed by a madman.
My initial thought was of James, but Anne quelled that fear by letting us all know within minutes of the massacre that her son is alright. Needless to say, the phone lines out of DeKalb were swamped. Then, I thought of the ex who is a professor there; thankfully, he is not on the list of victims. Following that came the news that the killings took place in an introductory geology class and that the graduate teaching assistant was one of the first to die at the scene. Oh lord. Finally, a friend emailed me that the shooter had randomly picked that class to vent his ire, like that was supposed to make anyone feel better.
What’s going on with these university killings? What makes Steven Kazmierczak, Seung-Hui Cho, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold and others like them? We look for answers in gun control debates and mental health advocacy, but it could be that these people simply are and that these things just happen in a stressful society. It is entirely possible that even someone from the most stable and loving of families, with access to the finest in health and mental care, can succumb to sheer homicidal rage. And it’s usually the nice, quiet types.
That discussion is for another time. Today, my thoughts are with NIU and the families of the departed. Rest in peace.
Update: As Ron mentions in the comments, the grad TA was not killed but only wounded in the shoulder.
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