Advertisement

You are browsing the archive for history Archives - Page 3 of 8 - Mountain Beltway.

8 November 2016

Funzie

Funzie Bay in eastern Fetlar, Shetland, is the place with a stretched-pebble metaconglomerate that triggered the development of the Flinn Diagram. Join Callan on a pilgrimage of structural geology to this special place.

Read More >>

2 Comments/Trackbacks >>


3 September 2016

Viewing the Sea Point migmatite through the lens of GigaPan

It was five years ago when I first visited Sea Point, the outcrop on the coast of the Cape Peninsula where the Cape Granite (~540 Ma) intrudes the (meta-)sedimentary rocks of the Malmesbury Group. The outcrop is (a) beautiful and evocative, and (b) of historical importance, as Charles Darwin visited it while on the voyage of the Beagle, contemplating and confirming Lyell’s assertions of the validity of plutonism as he …

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


25 April 2016

The Floating Egg, by Roger Osborne

A quick report today on a delightful book – The Floating Egg: Episodes in the Making of Geology, by Roger Osborne. It’s a collection of pieces, some only a few sentences long, others full essays, and still others short stories that fictionalize real life events. The range of styles is extensive, but what unites them all is geology in coastal Yorkshire, England. It’s a fascinating tour. The title may seem …

Read More >>

2 Comments/Trackbacks >>


2 March 2016

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, by Andrea Wulf

This is the second Andrea Wulf book I’ve read in the past month. It’s a biography of a great naturalist and popularizer of science and travel writing, who at the same time is largely forgotten in the modern English speaking world. Alexander von Humboldt’s intellectual impact is vast, Wulf argues, leading to everything from Darwin’s wanderlust (and thus, to the observations that led to the idea of descent with modification …

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


26 February 2016

Friday fold: Siccar Point video from BGS

The British Geological Survey just came out with a new video on Siccar Point, featuring some excellent drone video of the site (in very good weather!). In addition to the unconformity, one of the things you will appreciate about the video is an excellent end-on view of a plunging synform exposed just above waterline: You’ll get a much better sense of its shape by enjoying the motion of the drone’s …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


21 February 2016

Founding Gardeners, by Andrea Wulf

I just finished this book, about the botanical and agricultural predilections of United States ‘founding fathers’ George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. Three of these farmed and gardened in Virginia, one in Massachusetts. Some were federalists, others republicans who championed the rights of the states. Some were slave owners, others not. All saw gardening as foundational to a sustainable democracy. This history examines the revolutionary war and …

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


6 February 2016

The Story of Western Science, by Susan Wise Bauer

I have a great book to recommend today – a book that takes a “Great Books” approach to tracking the advance of western science through history. The book is called, straightforwardly, The Story of Western Science. Its author is Susan Wise Bauer, who writes with a confident erudition and a clear, solid style. She surveys key works in the literature that illustrate the development of scientific thought – all of …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


4 February 2016

The Highlands Controversy, by David Oldroyd

While I’ve spent quality time in Ireland on previous trips, I’ve never been to Scotland. To me, it is terra incognita, and I am eager to explore it this summer.  It was with delight then, that I delved into David Oldroyd’s The Highlands Controversy, which at once tickled many parts of my brain: the structural geology part, the history of geology part, and the part that gets giddy with anticipation …

Read More >>

7 Comments/Trackbacks >>


27 January 2016

Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier

I’ve been doing some reading lately to get some foundational ideas established in my mind for my upcoming summer trip to Europe. This trip has three goals: (1) to gather key digital imagery (GigaPans, 360° photospheres, video) for curriculum to teach geoscience concepts and give students everywhere with particularly instructive geology in Iceland, Ireland, the UK, France, and Spain, (2) to scout out locations and logistics for a Summer 2017 …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


2 November 2015

Norman Bowen’s papers

I got a special treat the week before last – one of my students this semester works at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC. During our unit on igneous rocks, he was prompted by the “Bowen’s reaction series” discussion to let me know that Norman Bowen’s notebooks were still extant at the Carnegie. He invited me down to check them out, and I readily accepted. Here’s …

Read More >>

2 Comments/Trackbacks >>