I’m in El Paso, Texas, today (and tomorrow and Saturday), collaborating on a massive brainstorming session for a new NSF-funded initiative called InTeGrate, which is all about Interdisciplinary Teaching of Geoscience for a Sustainable Future. As leader Cathy Manduca said today when she opened our session, “We’re here to save the world!” And we’re going to do that by improving geoscience literacy (including at two-year colleges, which is why I’m here) and increase the capacity of society to meet geoscience workforce needs.

We’re meeting in the lovely quarters of the Geological Sciences Department of the University of Texas at El Paso, which is partially situated in the old library building on campus. This means we have very well appointed rooms to meet in, like this one:

But you don’t want to look at photos of a bunch of geologists meeting around a table and talking. You want to see some folds, right? Well, there is good news. I saw a couple of nice folds here already — here’s a sample in the courtyard of the building (yes, they have a courtyard!!):

And here’s another in a display cabinet on the second floor:

Sweet differential weathering there, eh?

Anyhow, back to the meeting. I’ve got work to do, saving the world…