A few items for your perusal…

1. Simon Winchester wrote an article that made a lot of geologists cringe; then he wrote another that dug the hole deeper. If you haven’t been following the conversation on Twitter, then you can play catch up. Some of us geobloggery types are submitting a letter to the Newsweek editor and one of the authors Winchester cites (while misspelling her name) is writing to the Daily Beast. If you see some holes in Winchester’s claims, feel free to let the editors of those respective publications know. Update: Christie Rowe published a guest column in Scientific American‘s blog on this topic.
2. If you read this blog and you live in the DC metropolitan area, you might be interested in following DC Geology Events, a “bulletin board” blog with announcements about seminars and field trips in the area.
3. David B. Williams, author of Stories in Stone, asked me to use Mountain Beltway to ask you all:

I am starting work on a project about rock cairns, those wonderful piles of rocks that mark trails. One thing that interests me is how different types of rocks form different types of cairns. Are some better than others? How do rounded stones work versus angular ones. How does rock type influence the angle of repose? What about different weathering processes and their affect on stone qualities?

My question then is this: Any suggestion of someone to contact that might be able to offer a some thoughts on what might be called the geology of cairns?

If you have any feedback for David, drop him a note.

That’s it for today’s grab bag. Enjoy your weekend.