April 9, 2020
Howard Pass an extreme, inviting place
Howard Pass, a rock-stubbled tundra plateau in the western Brooks Range, is one of the lowest points in the mountains that arc across northern Alaska. It is a broad gateway between the great drainages of the Colville and Noatak rivers. Scientists who have visited the lonely spot say Howard Pass is noteworthy for two reasons — it features some of Alaska’s most extreme weather and, curiously, the area has an abundance of archaeological sites.
April 8, 2020
Virtual field trips continued: Fighting your four walls with more walls
If you’re beginning to feel like the walls are closing in, you’re not alone. I know that pictures of wide open spaces on a screen can only do so much to relieve feelings of being boxed in. In fact, they could even backfire by making you yearn all the more for wide horizons. So I’m trying a different tack this week…
Virtual field trip: East Arm Morant River, St. Thomas Parish, Jamaica (pics & video)
Exploration a slot canyon with a camera between your teeth. Philip Prince takes us on a virtual tour in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.
April 7, 2020
Interesting reverse faults in a simple extensional sandbox model
The different mechanical properties of the layers are apparent in the dip angles of the normal faults in the model. The master fault on the left side of the model (black line) is less steep in the weak microbeads, an expression of how their failure behavior differs from the stronger layers above and below.
April 3, 2020
Lessons from bones, dusty and stinky
In her studies, Misarti and her colleagues found that walrus in the distant past ate a larger variety of food than they do today. Walrus eat clams almost exclusively these days, but in the past their diets may have included more fish, seabirds and even seals.
April 1, 2020
Fill your field of view with views from the field
We all need a break, and it’s really hard to get one. So for the third week in a row I am diving back into the 12 years of AGU Blogosphere archives in search of field trips. Here are five more to enjoy.
March 25, 2020
Cracked mountaintops Part 2: Sinking summits?
Some upper Devonian sandstone mountains in the Virginia Valley and Ridge show evidence of deep-seated landsliding, resulting in the formation of a downthrown block (graben) along the summit ridge.
March 24, 2020
It’s an even greater time to take a virtual field trip
We have more than 400 virtual field trips stockpiled in our blogs archive going back to 2008. Here are a few of our first reports from the field.
March 23, 2020
Village grave led to virus breakthrough
One-hundred-two years ago, a strain of influenza virus spread across the globe, eventually reaching Brevig Mission in Alaska. Five days after the flu hit the Seward Peninsula, 72 of the 80 villagers in Brevig Mission were dead. Through a series of events suited to a detective novel, researchers made a connection between Brevig Mission and the flu virus that helped prevent another outbreak of the 1918 flu, one of the worst epidemics ever experienced.
March 20, 2020
Cracked mountaintops of the Virginia Valley and Ridge
A newly-released LiDAR data set reveals impressive ridge-top cracks associated with large rock slides in the Virginia Valley and Ridge. While the cracks are easily visible with LiDAR hillshade imagery, they appear to be covered by normal forest vegetation and would probably look like elongated depressions in the forest.
