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22 February 2012
“Magnificent column of smoke” (Accretionary Wedge #43 Entry)
My choice of favorite geologic illustration, for Accretionary Wedge # 43, comes from a book that geobloggers (and others) have written about in the past: Sir William Hamilton’s Campi Phlegraei, Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies. I won’t repeat all the background about Hamilton, who was a British natural historian who observed eruptions of Mount Vesuvius in the 1760s and 1770s. Campi Phlegraei, a three-part work, contained wonderful descriptions of the volcanoes and eruptions of Naples and Sicily, including the 1779 eruption of Mount Vesuvius (discussed and illustrated in a supplement to the first two volumes).
25 January 2012
Rocks in the kitchen (Accretionary Wedge #42 Entry)
Ian Saginor of Volcanoclast is hosting the next Accretionary Wedge, and it should be a neat one: we’re supposed to explore the geology of the indoors – specifically, countertops. Here’s the challenge:
Have you seen a great countertop out there? Sure, everyone says it’s “granite”, but you know better. Take a picture, post it on your own blog or send it to me and I’ll post it for you. Do you think you know what it is or how it was formed? Feel free to include your own interpretation and I’m sure others will enjoy joining in the discussion. Ron Schott suggested that we expand the entries by including any decorative stone material that has been separated by humans from it’s source. This includes buildings, statues, etc. There’s a lot of really unusual stuff out there, so make sure to find a good one.
21 December 2011
Accretionary Wedge #41: Geology in progress
Ron Schott is hosting Accretionary Wedge #41, and he’s asking us to do a little reminiscing:
Right, then. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to relate the story of the most memorable or significant geological event that you’ve directly experienced.
What we seek for AccretionaryWedge #41 is an account of a geologic event that you experienced firsthand. It could be an earthquake, a landslide, a flood, a volcanic eruption, etc. (but don’t feel compelled to stick to the biggies – weathering, anyone?) – some geologic process that you were able to directly observe and experience.
31 October 2011
Happy Halloween!
After all, what better medium for a volcanologist than something that glows such a lovely orange?
30 September 2011
Back to school: Accretionary Wedge #38
Anne over at Highly Allocthonous wants to get us thinking back-to-school thoughts in this month’s Accretionary Wedge, and as a (grad) student, I’ll tackle the question aimed current geology students:
If you are a current or future student… what do you want to know about life and careers in the geosciences? Are there things you aren’t getting to learn or do in classes that you think are important? What sort of experiences do you want to get out of school and how do you think school can or should help you prepare for a career?
One of my biggest questions – and one that I think a lot of my peers share – concerns a deficiency that is built into the very academic system we “grow up” in. It’s our propensity for taking a graduate student, or someone with a newly-minted graduate degree, who up until this point may have been concentrating solely on learning geology, and plunking them into a classroom with little to no training on how to teach geology.
26 August 2011
Sexy Geology: Accretionary Wedge #37
Lockwood at Outside the Interzone wants to know what gets a geologist all shook up. (Hint: it’s not just earthquakes.)
Several hours of hiking on an exotic tropical island + one active cinder/spatter cone + standing on the exact spot where a fissure eruption started, that’s what!
17 July 2011
Left behind: Accretionary Wedge #36
In July’s Accretionary Wedge at geosciblog, we’re asked what we’ve regretted leaving behind in the field. There have always been outcrops where I’ve wished I had picked up one more sample, taken one more photo, made one more measurement – that’s probably true of any geologist. But the thing that I regret leaving behind the most is small, easily replaceable, and has only sentimental value: My first hand lens.
26 May 2011
Weird Geology: Accretionary Wedge #34
This month’s Accretionary Wedge, hosted at En Tequila es Veridad, wants us to talk about “Weird Geology”:
Let’s face facts, people. Geology can be strange. Outrageous. Bizarre. I’m sure you’ve all run into formations and landscapes and concepts that have left you scratching your head. Maybe they got less weird later. Maybe they stayed strange. But however transient or permanent that weirdness was, it got weird. So tell us about it. Hit us with the strangest stuff you’ve got.
One location where I definitely encountered some weird geology is a field trip stop I was at several years ago in Big Bend National Park, Texas
5 March 2011
Pink and blue: Accretionary Wedge #32
Ann’s Musings on Geology is hosting this month’s Accretionary wedge, and she’s looking for a little color for Carnivale:
The theme will be “Throw me your ‘favorite geologic picture’ mister”Lets have the floats (submissions) ready on March 4th so it can roll on March 8. Carnival time is all about having a good time and having some fun so lets get some colorful, fun pictures submitted. Laissez les bons temp rouler!! (Let the good times roll!)
25 January 2011
(Edible) rheomorphic tuff: Accretionary Wedge #30
Following up from my post on rheomorphic flow in volcanic tuffs, it’s geology bake sale time! For my submission to this month’s Accretionary Wedge, hosted at Mountain Beltway, I’m trying to draw a few parallels between a confection more commonly known as “zebra cake” and deformation in pyroclastic deposits. To do a quick recap, rheomorphic flow occurs when parts of a pyroclastic deposit – either during or after deposition – become viscous enough to flow like a syrup. If there is flow banding in the deposit, it can become deformed and folded back on itself to form some visually striking patterns (such as in this piece of rhyolite from Mono-Inyo craters in California). So let’s bake a flow-banded pyroclastic deposit!
28 October 2010
Spooky Deskcrop – Accretionary Wedge #28
The latest Accretionary Wedge is being hosted at Research at a Snail’s Pace by Matt Kuchta…and the theme is deskcrops (spooky if possible, for Halloween!) My favorite deskcrop is one that I acquired fairly recently on Montserrat, from the February 2010 dome collapse deposits of the Soufriere Hills volcano.
17 May 2010
Geo-image Accretionary Wedge
My geo-photo of choice is a bit of interplay between the forces of geology and biology: an ohi’a shoot growing from a crack of a lava flow on the flank of Mauna Ulu, on the Big Island of Hawaii. The photo is significant to me for a number of reasons: This was my second trip to Hawaii, but the first time I’d had a chance to learn the techniques of …
23 April 2010
Accretionary Wedge #24: My geologic hero
In considering who I would write about as my geologic hero, I of course had to consider my undergraduate advisor, who I’ve written about before. (You all know him from this blog, if you’ve been keeping up with the adventures of William & Mary’s Geology Department.) But that would essentially be a rehash of something I’ve already talked about. Although Chuck was (and still is) an immense influence on my …
31 October 2009
Accretionary Wedge #21: Earth Science Outreach
Happy Halloween! I hope you all are having a fun day of candy-and-costume-filled spookiness. And speaking of playing different roles, Earth scientists wear one hat in particular that’s very important: the Outreach Hat! That’s why the subject of this month’s Accretionary Wedge was Earth Science Outreach. This October has been a big month for Earth science: we’ve had Earth Science Week (a yearly event), a national Geological Society of America …
30 October 2009
Last call for Accretionary Wedge entries….
The Headless Horseman wants you to know that posting* is very important. *Yes, I did just make a horseback riding joke. I am a geek in many ways. Mwahahaha!
24 October 2009
Accretionary Wedge #21 – Deadline extended!
In recognition of the fact that I’m still “recovering” from GSA, and that quite a few geobloggers are probably doing the same thing, I’m going to extend the Accretionary Wedge deadline to Friday, October 30. (And yes, this does give me an excuse to throw some Halloween stuff in there…) The original announcement can be found here – this month’s theme is Earth Science outreach. I noticed that a few …
11 October 2009
Catching up
Wow, it would be nice to have more time to blog…unfortunately, three math-heavy courses this semester are not leaving me with much time to work on my own research, much less any other writing. So here’s a bulleted update of a few things: Earth Science Week is this week! I’ve got my toolkit, although lack of free time mostly means that I’ll be putting up posters instead of sponsoring an …
5 July 2009
A geology geek to the core (Accretionary Wedge #18)
Sitting here in Zion National Park, one of the last spots I visited on my first geology field course, I feel like I’m coming full circle to some of the reasons that I’m still doing geology. (I also feel like I could receive wifi through my teeth. Twenty plus wifi points? Really?) Anyway, it’s a perfect chance for me to answer Volcanista’s question: So July’s topic is about your inspiration …
26 February 2009
You need to go here! (and here, and here….Accretionary Wedge #16)
In this month’s Accretionary Wedge (which I am late for, having been distracted by seismic modeling in MATLAB yet again…), Geotripper asks: What are the places and events that you think should all geologists should see and experience before they die? What are the places you know and love that best exemplify geological principles and processes? Now, I write about volcanoes a lot. But I wouldn’t write about them if …
6 December 2008
The Fish Lake Plateau: “A most eligible summer camping-place” (Accretionary Wedge #14/15)
I haven’t done a whole lot of research yet, but I always enjoy a good chance to get out in the field. For my undergraduate thesis, this meant spending a few weeks in south-central Utah, on the High Plateaus. The work was part of the 2006 NSF Fish Lake Research Experience for Undergraduates, a joint effort between the College of William & Mary and Coastal Carolina University. The project was …
