Geological Quote of the Week - What is that?

In this Geological Quote I was reading through a book on chaos theory and geology and I just found this line funny.

"With the help of a technical device called a return map which we shall not attempt to describe..."

i.e., yea, we don't know what it is either.

Goodings, D., 1991, Chaos in a time series, in Middleton, G.V., Ed., Nonlinear dynamics, choas and fractals with applications to geological systems,Short Course Notes, V. 9: Toronto, Ontario, Geological Association of Canada, p. 35-46.

You can find all of my other Geological Quotes by clicking here.

CBS Sunday Morning - Sinkholes

An interesting report on the ever increasing problem of sinkholes, both geologically and man-made.

And here is the link for those who can't see the video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57582888/sinkholes-the-hole-truth/

Geology of the National Parks in Pictures - Wupatki

The next up on my tour of the National Parks in pictures:

Wupatki National Monument

My standard picture of the front sign.

Distant view of the Wupatki pueblo

Closer view of the Wupatki Pueblo

Distant view of the Citadel Pueblo

Closer, a little more abstract view of the Citadel Pueblo

Veronica being fancy, unfortunately the background got washed out.

You can see the rest of the National Park Pictures at my website.

Geological State Symbols Across the US - #4 Arkansas

The next state up is Arkansas. Here are the stats:

                                                                                        Year Established
State Mineral: Quartz Crystal                                                  1967
State Rock: Bauxite                                                                  1967
State Gemstone: Diamond                                                       1967

State Mineral: Quartz Crystal 

Quartz is one of the most abundant minerals in the crust of the Earth and easily one of the simplest minerals. It's chemical composition is SiO2 (silicon dioxide) and is a 7 on the Mohs Hardness Scale. Not only is it stable on the Earth's surface, it's harness means that it hangs around for a long time. This is the reason that the vast majority of sand is composed of quartz.

Quartz can be found in many different colors from purple (amethyst), to grey (smokey quartz), to white (milky quartz) but Quartz Crystal is often referred to the clear variety that has a crystal habit (pictured right), although any color of quartz can occur in a crystal habit. Quartz does not have any cleavage, meaning that when it breaks it doesn't form along perfect surfaces. Instead the Quartz Crystals grow, often by hydrothermal waters that are rich in dissolved silicon dioxide. As the waters flow over the crystals the silicon dioxide is deposited on the surface of the crystal, kind of like a stalactite in a cave.

Arkansas is known for the town of Hot Springs which has these hydrothermally heated pools flowing to the surface. These hydrothermal waters have produced some of the finest varieties of Quartz Crystals on the planet. There are many "dig your own quartz crystal" mines located in the areas around Hot Springs in the Ouachita Mountains, which allow people to dig for these crystals themselves. The Ouachita Mountains was considered to be a mystical location by the Native Americans and the Quartz Crystals were believed to have a sacred and spiritual significance, which is a belief of many holistic practitioners today.


State Rock: Bauxite

Unlike quartz and diamond, bauxite is by far the least known of the three Arkansas state symbols. Bauxite well known for being the primary ore of aluminum, of which the majority of the aluminum in the world is from bauxite. The primary minerals of bauxite are gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (AlO(OH)), and diaspore (AlO(OH)). To extract the aluminum, the bauxite is crushed into a powder and the aluminum is leached out via several chemical procedures.

The obvious use of aluminum is as a metal, but it can also be used for abrasives (one of the byproducts of the leaching process has a hardness of 9), in cements, and as proppants (discussed below). Currently the United States is not even in the top ten for bauxite producers and it is only produced in a handful of localities in the United States (Arkansas, Georgia, and Alabama). But that was not always the case. In Arkansas bauxite first saw production in 1899, and increased in production until 1923 when Arkansas produced half of the world's supply at 500,000 tons that year. The peak of production was in 1943 when 6,000,000 long tons were produced but it has had a steady decline ever since. Currently the Arkansas bauxite is mined for production of proppants, which are high density spherical grains used by the oil and gas industry in fracking.

State Gemstone: Diamond

One of the most famous gemstones, the diamond also is one of the hardest minerals on earth (it is actually the third hardest after two extremely rare minerals called Wurtzite Boron Nitride and Lonsdaleite (Newscientist.com)). Made up entirely of carbon, like its cousin graphite (also made up entirely of carbon), the arrangement of the carbon atoms and the strength of the bonds are what give the two minerals completely different properties. Diamonds are most often found in structures called kimberlites or lamproites. Kimberlites are magmatic rocks that are formed deep within the Earth's surface. The high pressure converts the carbon into diamonds and the structures make their way to the surface as buoyant globs of rock. Due to being formed at such high pressure, diamonds are inherently unstable on the Earth's surface, however they degrade at such a slow rate that it isn't much of an issue to jewelry.

Several kimberlites/lamproites are known in Arkansas, with the largest being located in Crater of Diamonds State Park, where visitors are allowed to mine for diamonds and keep what they find. The largest diamond found in Arkansas is called "The Uncle Sam" which was 40.42 carats before it was cut and was discovered in 1924 (figured right).


References:
http://www.soskids.ar.gov/pdfs-09/Arkansas_State_Symbols.pdf
http://www.arkansas.com/things-to-do/crystal-hunting/
http://www.bluemooncrystals.com/Crystal_Mining.html
http://rockhoundingar.com/feepay.php
http://www.soskids.ar.gov/5-8-history-state-symbols.html
http://geology.com/minerals/bauxite.shtml
http://www.geology.arkansas.gov/pdf/pamphlets/Bauxite.pdf 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16610-diamond-no-longer-natures-hardest-material.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120123094523.htm
http://www.geology.ar.gov/pdf/pamphlets/AGES%20BROCHURE-DIAMONDS%2011-13-07.pdf
http://m.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/media/detail/?mediaID=6544


Previous States:
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona

Geology of the National Parks in Pictures - Sunset Crater

The next up on my tour of the National Parks in pictures:

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

View of Sunset Crater with the sign.

Lava flows in the surrounding area.

Another view of Sunset Crater.

View off in the distance of another volcano on the plains.

Panoramic view of the cinder cone fissure which ends with Sunset Crater off to the right.

You can see the rest of the National Park Pictures at my website.

Geological Quote of the Week - Bird Frisbee

This quote is from a book about evolutionary convergence.

"Continuing work has shown that the resolution of oilbirds' echolocation is rather crude, at least when it comes to avoiding discs deliberately suspended in their flight path."

This just makes me of scientists throwing disks at birds and watching them crash.


Morris, S.C., 2003, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.


And as always you can check out my other Geological Quotes at my website HERE.

Geology of the National Parks in Pictures - Walnut Canyon

The next up on my tour of the National Parks in pictures:

Walnut Canyon National Monument

View of the cliff dwelling from the entrance. They are made where the softer shales have eroded away.

You can see the bedding of the sandstone and shale a little better from this angle.

View over the valley.

Walking along the remains of the cliff dwellings.

View inside one of the houses.

A more complete wall on the other side of the meander.

And the walk back up begins.

View of some nice cross bedding from the entrance.

View down one of the meanders of the river. The cliff dwellings are on the meander to the right.

You can see the rest of the National Park Pictures at my website.

CBS Sunday Morning - Professional Paleontologists are Starting Early

So here was a nice story on CBS Sunday Morning this past Sunday about a kid who wanted to be a professional paleontologist so bad that he applied for the position of curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science when Kirk Johnson left. The position was stolen from the poor kid by Scott Sampson but there was a happy ending in it all.

The video can also be found at http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50143923n

Geological Quote of the Week - Writing

Although not from the geology literature, and not even from the a scientific journal, I feel this quote applies to anyone who has written a book or a journal article (just replace "book" with "Journal Article", or something similar).

"'I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was to write them.'

'It's work enough to read them, sometimes,' I returned."

Dickens, C. 1850. David Copperfield. p.891

And as always you can check out my other Geological Quotes at my website HERE.

Geology of the National Parks in Pictures - Grand Canyon

The next up on my tour of the National Parks in pictures:

Grand Canyon National Park

 The entrance sign. (A favorite thing of mine to photograph)

 This is our first view of the canyon. We went during the middle of March. Not a good time to go apparently.

 But it did eventually clear up. This is a similar location as the previous picture on a subsequent day.

 Some elk by our hotel room.

 View by the main hotel area of the park.

 Different filter on almost the same picture to highlight some of the colors.

 Me trying to get to the edge for a picture without wanting to slide off.

 Panoramic of the canyon.

 I liked the clouds in this shot.

 Along the rim they have these markers designating the passage of geologic time. I walked all the way back to the beginning to get the first one.

 I thought this was a cool little train station in the middle of the hotel area of the park.

Another panoramic of the canyon.

You can see the rest of the National Park Pictures at my website.

What are ... Varves?

The next entry in my What are Wednesdays series is to discuss varves (First entry here). I ran into this problem when I was teaching Petrology where the students either A) Didn't know what a varve was, or B) Didn't understand how it formed.

Varves from the Green River Formation used as framing in the Geology building at the University of Utah

Varves, as pictured above, are sedimentary features that alternate in color from light to dark, often in thin bands. Some of the most famous varves are found from the Green River Formation of Wyoming and surrounding regions. The Sutton Geology building here at the University of Utah uses a lot of the Green River Formation both for framing materials but also as wall decorations so it was fairly easy to get a picture of some nice varves.

Varves are formed in end glacial lakes. The lakes has a seasonality, where they freeze every winter and are defrosted every summer. What happens is that during the summer sediment run off from the melting glacial is allowed to settle on the bottom of the lake. This produces the light colors which is rich in quartz sand and other sand and silt grains. You can often find drop stones in this layer as well (like that seen in the lower left corner) where a larger grain gets stuck in ice. The ice chunk floats out into the lake and then melts, dropping the larger grains.

During the winter the lake freezes over. The freezing of the lake limits all sediment from entering the lake so no more large sediment grains are deposited on the lake bottom. What does happen though, is that the freezing of the lake kills much of the biological activity that is occurring in the lake and settles the currents in the lake. The settling of the currents allows for finer grained materials and the organic material to settle to the bottom. These are the darker layers.

So each year of a varve is represented by one couplet of bands: 1 light for summer and 1 dark for winter.

That is all I have to say on varves. If you have any questions feel free to ask and if there are any topics you would like me to present on What are Wednesdays let me know.

CBS Sunday Morning - Hunting for Meteorites

A nice piece was played this morning on CBS Sunday Morning discussing the Russian Meteor of yesterday and linking it to the meteorite hunting that goes on in Antarctica. They mention that the meteorite hunting was little known, but I thought it was common knowledge. I guess that is part of the problem of being so in to geology that I don't realize what other people don't know.

 

Or go here if the video doesn't seem to be working:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57569765/meteorites-hunting-missiles-from-outer-space/

 

(but it does take a minute or 2 to load).

Geology in the News - Russian Meteorite Impact

A meteorite impacted in Chelyabinsk, Russia today (9:20 am local time) and caused massive damage via sonic booms shattering windows. This left about 1,000 people injured. Below are some of the videos and news reports on the topic. The meteor was about 10 tons as it entered the atmosphere and was traveling between 33,000-45,000 mph. Most of the meteor was destroyed upon entering the atmosphere. It is estimated that 1-5% of the original mass have struck ground (in essence going from a meteor to a meteorite). This also has no correlation to the passing asteroid expected later today.

This is the only one I have found showing the sonic boom.

Some news stories about the impact

 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2013/02/15/new-details-about-russian-meteor/#.UR5mF1qDQ1I

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/15/world/europe/russia-meteor-shower/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21468116

http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/15-02-2013/123799-meteorite_russia-0/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279020/Russian-meteorite-Moment-meteorite-exploded-doctors-treat-500-people-injured.html


Also if you were interested in why dash cams seem to be so prevalent in Russia:

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/why-are-there-so-many-russian-dash-cam-videos-on-the-internet-2013019/

Geology of the National Parks in Pictures - Arches

The next up on my tour of the National Parks in pictures:

Arches National Park

The main entrance.

 View across park of the park that is close to the main drive in.

 Some balancing rocks.

 More balancing rocks.

 Myself, my wife, and daughter in front of some rocks.

 Directly in the middle of the photograph was one of the premier arches in the park but it was too much of a hike to get there so we took photos from across the little canyon.

 Another of the arches in the park.

View of me in front of a double arch.

Mental note: Next time I go I need to get more pictures of the actual arches.

You can see the rest of the National Park Pictures at my website.

Geological Quote of the Week - Shocking

The background on this quote is that the authors were trying to get a group of fish to swim in a school using electrical shocks.

By thus time it was clear that the punishment of the mild electric shock was causing an association to be established. The association made by the fishes at this time was definite and distinct but not at all of the nature anticipated. At this time the reaction was for either or both fish to rush at the other and to bite at its fellow. These fish lack jaw teeth and are evidently unable to inflict any considerable injury. They can exhaust one another, however, by such attacks. Thus by the time about fifty shocks had been administered, one of the fish was rather badly beaten and doubtless would have died if the experiment had been continued.
 

Besides being rather cruel, I thought it was hilarious that the side effect of the shocks would turn the fish against each other instead of making them swim together. Turns out the fish assumed the other fish was the one causing the shocks, hence the attacks.

Breder, C.M., Jr., & Halpern, F., 1946, Innate and Acquired Behavior Affecting the Aggregation of Fishes: Physiological Zoology, v. 19, p. 154-190.


And as always you can check out my other Geological Quotes at my website HERE.