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10 September 2013
Interlude in Pittsburgh
I grew up just outside of Washington, DC, within an easy metro ride of the Smithsonian museums, so I consider myself a bit spoiled. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate other museums when I see them, and this weekend when I was down in Pittsburgh, I got to see the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. In terms of collections and curation, it’s pretty darn impressive. It must be nice to have a rich patron!
16 July 2012
Hooper Garnet Mine
Recently, I finally trekked across NY state to the Adirondacks and visited the Gore Mountain area, home of several garnet mines. Now, these aren’t like the garnets I was showing in my Bancroft photos. These are HUGE. Garnets as big as your fist. The two best places to find them are at the Gore Mountain Garnet Mine (which charges an entrance fee and by the pound for what you take out), and the Hooper Mine, which is no longer in operation BUT is also free. Being grad students, my friends and I went for the free option. (The garnets at Gore mountain are, admittedly, bigger, but there is a limit to how much rock even I am willing to drive back across the state.)
26 June 2012
Blown away by Bancroft: Part IV
On the last morning of our Bancroft field trip this past April, we continued our journey through the metamorphic faces diagram with a stop at an outcrop north of Bancroft on ON-28, in the amphibolite facies.
18 June 2012
Blown away by Bancroft: Part III
On the second afternoon of our trip, we finally began moving out of the greenschist facies into the amphibolite facies – higher pressures, higher temperatures and a different set of minerals.
12 June 2012
Blown away by Bancroft: Part II
On the second day of our Bancroft trip, we started out in the greenschist facies and moved on into the amphibolite facies of the metamorphic pressure-temperature diagram. And, of course, took lots of photos!
6 June 2012
Blown away by Bancroft: Part I
Back in April, I finally had a chance to accompany the petrology classes from UB and SUNY Fredonia on UB’s annual trip to Bancroft, Ontario. I’ve been trying to go on this trip for years, and I’m glad I got to before I graduated, because, WOW. Bancroft is chock full of some pretty amazing things (especially if you’re into petrology, mineralogy, structure, glaciology, and pretty much everything else – it’s known as the ‘Mineral Capital of Canada’, for one!)
18 April 2012
Mineralogy Etymology
It seems like everyone enjoyed the post on the etymology of volcanology vocab, and I did mention something about mineralogy, so…here it is! I’ve mostly pulled up minerals that I deal with in volcanology. (This is just a quick collection – hopefully I’ll get around to posting more once I’m done with my latest round of grad school craziness. Oh, committee meetings…)
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.
5 August 2011
Purple everywhere! Samples from the Harding Pegmatite
All right, I’m finally getting to this post (cross-country driving trips aren’t good for keeping up with posting, apparently). My last post about the Harding Pegmatite Mine near Dixon, New Mexico had some lovely photos of the mine, but not so many of the rocks and minerals close-up. The samples I have are a little far from home (seeing as I’ve dragged them to the East coast from New Mexico), but they’re still as impressive as they were at the mine!
27 July 2011
Harding Pegmatite Mine, New Mexico
Last weekend I went on a rock-hunting trip with a group of engineers who live in my apartment complex, and on the advice of a local rafting guide (from another trip) we visited the Harding Pegmatite Mine near Dixon. The mine is no longer active (except for visits), and was donated to the University of New Mexico for educational and collecting use – and it’s pretty famous for the variety of minerals that can be found there.
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.