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24 December 2016
A wondrous transformation
It’s bonfire season here in the Fort Valley. I live in a forest, and that forest is full of dead and downed wood. Motivated by a desire to (a) reduce forest fire risk and (b) clear out some of the area under the trees for unobstructed recreation, I gather it up and periodically burn it off in batches. We time these blazes to the weather – before or after after …
23 November 2016
A conversation with Zack Labe
Yesterday, I mentioned climate change visualizer extraordinaire Zack Labe. As delineated then, he’s a PhD student at U.C. – Irvine in the Earth Systems Science department. He’s producing some really excellent #dataviz on climate change. Today, I’d like to share a short exchange I had with Zack about his work. 1) Please give Mountain Beltway readers a sense of your background, leading up to what you’re working on …
22 November 2016
We are in unprecedented territory with global sea ice
The amount of sea ice on planet Earth is much, much lower than ever recorded at this time of year. Will this anomaly turn out to be a relatively minor “weather” event? Or is this what a sea ice tipping point looks like?
8 December 2015
Considering the Spechty Kopf diamictite
I have known for a long time about a diamictite in the latest Devonian part of the Appalachian stratigraphic sequence, since it is exposed in the lowermost part of the section (western end of the outcrop) at Sideling Hill, Maryland. When I led field trips there, I talked students through the multiple possible origins for diamictites (sedimentary rocks that are poorly sorted, with significantly “outsized” clasts “floating” in a finer-grained …
9 November 2015
The final days of sub-400 ppm carbon dioxide
This is probably the last week our planet’s atmosphere will have less than 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide. When are we going to stop letting this heat-trapping waste gas pile up in our home?
6 January 2014
Stop conflating weather and climate
Please. Please. Please. Please stop conflating weather and climate. It is cold today, yes, and that’s a big deal. But it doesn’t influence any scientific conclusion about climate change, one way or the other. Today’s cold temperatures are a weather event. It’s distinctive, but short-lived. Climate is a long-term trend: many years of weather events. It’s not something you can point to on a single day, and say “ha!” Climate …
22 October 2013
Atlantic, by Simon Winchester
I finished Simon Winchester’s book Atlantic the other day. I consumed the audiobook version (this is one major positive aspect to my long commute: plenty of listening time), which was pleasantly read by Winchester himself. He’s got a good accent and a nice way of speaking – I recommend that medium. Atlantic is a book about the Atlantic Ocean. It’s set up to cover the vast sweep of Atlantic history, …
19 February 2013
Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver
I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel Flight Behavior over the weekend. It’s certainly cut from the same cloth as Kingsolver’s other work. If you liked Prodigal Summer and her many Arizona novels, you’ll probably like this one, too. Similarities include: beautiful writing, a focus on the relationships women have to their families, friends, and strangers, and the powerful insights we can gain by associating with nature. What sets it …
18 January 2013
Friday fold: “Chasing Ice”
Callan watches the new documentary “Chasing Ice” about James Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey project, and spots a lovely Z-fold during the largest glacial calving event ever recorded.
11 December 2012
Why Geology Matters, by Doug MacDougall
Callan reviews a new book by Doug Macdougall: “Why Geology Matters.”
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.