On a day we were meant to look forward to Curiosity landing on Mars, a terrorist gunned down six Sikh worshippers and a responding police officer at a Milwaukee gurudwara. My first reaction was, “Go buy a gun and a permit and get yourself to the range.” This was immediately followed by, “Don’t be stupid.”

I think about it. And think about it. And think about it. It all comes down to helplessness. Racist halfwit Wade Page thought the answer was killing Sikhs; heaven only knows what the question was. I want to think the answer is strapping a shotgun to my back not bothering to conceal anything so Stay The Hell Away. Rinku Sen wonders, “Must I arm my mother and send her to the shooting range if she wants to wear a sari in public?”

And what? What is this going to accomplish? Us turning into future George Zimmermans, shooting “preemptively” at each and every perceived threat? Great. That’s how Islamophobia got out of hand in the first place. That’s how yesterday happened.

I expected more from us by now.

And that includes more funding for NASA. This is a picture of the Curiosity Rover landing on Mars as captured by the NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Is that an orthogonal, vertical joint set to the right?

Keep looking. It’s all we can do.

This month’s Accretionary Wedge is hosted by Professor Charles Carrigan and calls for posts on geoscience and technology.

There is no question that technology has played an enormous role in the furthering of geoscience, and I’d like to assemble a series of posts from the geoblogosphere that describes the relationship.  So, fellow geobloggers, how do you perceive technology impacting the work you do?

Hardly anyone I know in geoscience can get work done today without a computer and telecommunications. So, let’s look at some other things. What follows is some technology I’ve used as a geoscientist. I do this for three reasons:

1) Bet you I can use an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator on this. To promote getting hands-on experience with solving the same and different problems with a wide assortment of tools. This is so that if you’re faced with a situation that requires one of them, you will know to go to what tool works best and possess a certain sense memory of having used it or, at the very least, good notes, online references and human contacts to fall back on.

2) Marshall McLuhan said, “Obsolescence never meant the end of anything, it’s just the beginning.” Technology is ever-changing and increasingly obsolete. But, being in the habit of tinkering with new things is to your benefit.

3) “Hey, even chewing gum used at the right time is technology,” quoth MacGyver. Again, this word “technology.” It is different things to different people and it took me working with various types of technology – physical experiments, application-focused computer programming, data acquisition with electro-grav-mag tools, seismic interpretation on paper and screen, 3D visualization equipment, and field gear – to really make me appreciate what science requires. A curious mind and a metric crap ton of devices to gather and analyze the ever-important data.

User! (from Cartoons I Drew by Andrew Fraser)

Speaking of curiosity, I took apart my father’s manual typewriter when I was 15 and still regret it. It was in a hundred pieces, I was in tears and no one in the family knew how to put it back together. Sure, Dad had moved onto a portable word processor and the whole place was ransacked only a few months later, but I monkeyed with a piece of technology paying no attention to how to put it back. I destroyed and learned nothing (except never to do that again without a manual). But, wow, can I type at the speed of light, and work my way through any technology placed in front of me to wondrous ends. This is just my way of saying at the outset that I have great respect for technology and am unafraid of it, but all I am is a well-educated user. I utilize technology to do and share geoscience and my hat is off to the instrument makers.

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Well Log Analysis As part of an undergraduate structural geology project, I picked six markers on fifty paper well logs to constrain the timing of Paleozoic deformation along the Divide structure in Southern Illinois. Logs examined were SP, gamma ray and resistivity. This was invaluable experience as many geologists and drillers still use paper logs to this day – it is easier to compare stratigraphic markers and patterns between wells on paper and show the big deposition/deformation picture at a better scale. Zaki Bassiouni’s Theory, Measurement, and Interpretation of Well Logs is also one of the best investments I’ve made.

Physical Experiments. For my first MS, I performed physical experiments of transtensional folding using a custom-machined apparatus. Experimental modeling using physical materials is a useful method to study the kinematics and dynamics of deformation in 3D, in this case the formation of folds in a combination of shearing and extension. The apparatus was essentially a solid metal platform with two metal strips and a latex sheet attached to the two strips. One of the metal strips was fixed and another free to move along the horizontal surface of the metal platform controlled by a motor. The idea was to place various deformable materials like plasticine and silicone on the latex strip and deform them in any combination of opening, closing and wrenching. There’s nothing like physically witnessing the long axis of the horizontal strain ellipse rotate through the fold hinges during transtensional deformation to understand the relationship between observable structures and the physics that made them. Again, like well logs, experimental models only grow in importance. Research labs increasingly conduct physical experiments (AGL’s salt tectonics animations, for example) to make conceptual models of the subsurface which can be used at the exploratory phase or in the absence of sufficient well penetrations.

Placeholder for deformation machine line drawing

Lacoste Romberg G-1 gravimeter Also as part of the first masters, I used the first LR G-series gravimeter to measure the morphology of geologic basement west of Loreto in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Location and local topography measurements were conducted with a Total Station device and used to correct for free air and Bouguer anomalies. It took about a week and long days of careful back-bending (literally!) gravimeter adjustment to collect data for four east-west transects. The gravity measurements were then interpreted to determine the effects of the transtensional opening of the Gulf of Mexico on basement deformation and sediment deposition.

Handheld rock drill to core rock samples for geochemical and magnetic analysis. That was a lot of fun and I felt like Ash walking around with the drill in hand. It took me more than an hour to drill out the one-inch sample of Baraboo quartzite shown at the start of the post, while a two-inch sample of St. Peter sandstone was acquired in under five seconds. Learn your Mohs hardness scale, kids!

MagnetoTelluric Data Measurements Milk is everything in Wisconsin. Back in the late 1990s, dairy farmers around the state were convinced that stray voltage from farm electric lines resulted in their cows’ decreased milk production. (my pet theory is that the cows were merely recovering from the last Packers Superbowl win.) In the summer of 2001, I worked as part of a University of Wisconsin geological engineering team installing EMI magnetotelluric MT24 systems at two farms and one remote monitoring site in southern Wisconsin. You can read more about the magnetotelluric method and experimental setup in the report referenced above. While the results of the study were inconclusive, it taught a lot about the interference provided by manmade structures and cultural noise to signal. And that it’s really weird to properly install and orient a probe in the ground with a 1-ton animal strolling by you.

Ground-Penetrating Radar Another enjoyable experiment was riding in a boat collecting ground-penetrating radar data of the western shoreline of Lake Michigan to measure shore erosion all the way from Milwaukee to Kewaunee County. GPR acquisition is a lot like seismic but uses high-frequency radio waves instead of sonic explosions to image the subsurface and is perfect for shallow, high-resolution surveys. Another difference between GPR and seismic is that GPR images permittivity/conductivity contrasts while seismic picks up acoustic impedance contrasts at material interfaces. Here is a good primer on GPR and pictures of Bryn Mawr students conducting a basic “marine” GPR study.

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Writing this post forced me to pull up documentation on these various tools and it was very instructive simply looking at what I did then with what I know now. It also reminded me how much fun and physical and intellectual pain came with each of these experiences. This is how you learn and come to understand how much is required to collect scientific data.  Try it all, I say. Don’t ever give up a chance to learn how to use a tool, even if you will never use a non-telescoping basin wrench or a gas chromatograph again in your life.

Get in on Callan Bentley’s new geo-meme! It involves highlighting the places that Albert Dickas visited and listed in his book 101 American Geo-Sites You“ve Gotta See.

It appears Dickas needs to see more of Wisconsin. And I need to see more of the country. Truth be told, I’ve been on so many road and field trips across these United States, the places are forever burned into my memory but not their names, so may have to go through the old field notebooks and guides to update this meme later.

1. Wetumpka Crater, Alabama
2. Exit Glacier, Alaska
3. Antelope Canyon, Arizona
4. Meteor Crater, Arizona
5. Monument Valley, Arizona
6. Prairie Creek Pipe, Arkansas
7. Wallace Creek, California
8. Racetrack Playa, California
9. Devils Postpile, California
10. Rancho La Brea, California
11. El Capitan, California
12. Boulder Flatirons, Colorado
13. Interstate 70 Roadcut, Colorado (yeah, which one, as Silver Fox asks?)
14. Florissant Fossil Beds, Colorado
15. Dinosaur Trackway, Connecticut
16. Wilmington Blue Rocks, Delaware
17. Devil“s Millhopper, Florida
18. Stone Mountain, Georgia
19. Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii
20. Borah Peak, Idaho
21. Menan Buttes, Idaho
22. Great Rift, Idaho
23. Valmeyer Anticline, Illinois (driven across it more times than I can count)
24. Hanging Rock Klint, Indiana
25. Fort Dodge Gypsum, Iowa
26. Monument Rocks, Kansas
27. Ohio Black Shale, Kentucky
28. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky
29. Four Corners Roadcut, Kentucky
30. Avery Island, Louisiana (there’s something to see there besides salt dome and the production of hot sauce?)
31. Schoodic Point, Maine
32. Calvert Cliffs, Maryland
33. Purgatory Chasm, Massachusetts
34. Nonesuch Potholes, Michigan
35. Quincy Mine, Michigan
36. Grand River Ledges, Michigan
37. Sioux Quartzite, Minnesota
38. Thomson Dikes, Minnesota
39. Soudan Mine, Minnesota
40. Petrified Forest, Mississippi
41. Elephant Rocks, Missouri
42. Grassy Mountain Nonconformity, Missouri
43. Chief Mountain, Montana
44. Madison Slide, Montana
45. Butte Pluton, Montana
46. Quad Creek Quartzite, Montana
47. Ashfall Fossil Beds, Nebraska
48. Scotts Bluff, Nebraska
49. Crow Creek Marlstone, Nebraska
50. Sand Mountain, Nevada
51. Great Unconformity, Nevada (saw this in Grand Canyon, AZ)
52. Flume Gorge, New Hampshire
53. Palisades Sill, New Jersey
54. White Sands, New Mexico
55. Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
56. Shiprock Peak, New Mexico
57. State Line Outcrop, New Mexico
58. American Falls, New York
59. Taconic Unconformity, New York
60. Gilboa Forest, New York
61. Pilot Mountain, North Carolina
62. South Killdeer Mountain, North Dakota
63. Hueston Woods, Ohio
64. Big Rock, Ohio
65. Kelleys Island, Ohio
66. Interstate 35 Roadcut, Oklahoma
67. Mount Mazama, Oregon
68. Lava River Cave, Oregon
69. Drake“s Folly, Pennsylvania
70. Hickory Run, Pennsylvania
71. Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania
72. Beavertail Point, Rhode Island
73. Crowburg Basin, South Carolina
74. Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
75. Mammoth Site, South Dakota
76. Pinnacles Overlook, South Dakota
77. Reelfoot Scarp, Tennessee
78. Enchanted Rock, Texas
79. Capitan Reef, Texas
80. Paluxy River Tracks, Texas
81. Upheaval Dome, Utah
82. Checkerboard Mesa, Utah
83. San Juan Goosenecks, Utah
84. Salina Canyon Unconformity, Utah
85. Bingham Stock, Utah
86. Whipstock Hill, Vermont
87. Great Falls, Virginia
88. Natural Bridge, Virginia
89. Millbrig Ashfall, Virginia
90. Catoctin Greenstone, Virginia
91. Mount St. Helens, Washington
92. Dry Falls, Washington
93. Seneca Rocks, West Virginia
94. Roche-A-Cri Mound, Wisconsin
95. Van Hise Rock, Wisconsin
96. Amnicon Falls, Wisconsin
97. Green River, Wyoming
98. Devils Tower, Wyoming
99. Fossil Butte, Wyoming
100. Steamboat Geyser, Wyoming
101. Specimen Ridge, Wyoming

I scored 27/101. [insert sad trombone music here]  Time to make my list and send it on to Albert Dickas.

Brett Anderson was let go from The Times-Picayune when braying donkeys continue to pass for food writers and collect paychecks elsewhere. Because New Orleans isn’t a mecca of food or anything.

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Three articles to consider. Put them together and draw your own conclusions.

1) The Gambit: After the cuts at The Times-Picayune

… Others who were tendered chances to stay were offered new assignments. Longtime political columnist Stephanie Grace and Cindy Chang, who helmed the paper’s recent eight-part investigation into Louisiana prisons, were both offered general reporter slots. Ramon Antonio Vargas, a Northshore crime-and-courts reporter, was offered to stay on ” covering sports. Reporter James Varney was offered a job as political columnist. Overall, those in the sports and features departments fared better than their co-workers on the news beats or in the paper’s bureaus, some of which were decimated.

2) The Lens: Changes at The Times-Picayune lay bare the roots of a national trend

… The decline of newspapers is rooted decades earlier in FCC changes in media ownership policies and the economic models that seek to generate maximum profit from news.  In the name of deregulation and under the guise of greater competition, changes in media ownership policies allowed one company to own more and more media outlets and control a greater share of regional markets across the U.S.  In the continued search for profit, they increase their income by acquiring more and more media outlets and reducing their expenses by producing cheaper, less costly content (e.g., a news story that reports merely what was said at a press briefing rather than one that investigates the truth of those claims), reducing production frequency, laying off journalists and closing entire papers.

And, as Jeffrey said in response to this article, “Perhaps the most animating cause behind the rise of the ‘blogosphere’ over the past decade has been the reaction of the readership to this dumbing down of the news by conglomerates like Newhouse.  The internet has afforded individual consumers of the news an opportunity to vent their frustrations with clearly identifiable gaps in coverage left by the Newhouse model.”

3) Salon: Dead newspapers kill democracy dead

“One role the postwar, professional, objective daily newspaper played was to referee the political fights, to decide, through coverage decisions or omission or outright editorializing, which positions were mainstream and which weren’t … But in a newspaperless society, it turns out, it is quite easy for politicians and parties to get away with a lot. Not just outright corruption, not secretive backroom deals, but actual public legislative actions that would have seemed outrageous a generation ago.”

Just like government, we deserve the newspaper we get. As a part of the process and the market, if we don’t demand much, we don’t get much. Godpseed to those axed from The Times-Picayune. I really hope you start your own paper or join forces with the other now-better news outlets in town. The rest of America: Watch and learn. The Newhouse model is coming for your city paper next.