It’s time for our yearly update talk on field work and data compilation for the Tertiary geology and paleontology of the central Gravelly Range project in southwestern Montana. The Madison Ranger District in Ennis, Montana (5 Forest Service Road) will be hosting my talk on Monday, April 2nd at 10am in the Madison Ranger District conference room….
The Climate Change Factor in Extreme Weather Events
An op-ed in today’s New York Times, How We Know It Was Climate Change, is well worth reading. The author of the op-ed, N.S. Diffenbaugh, lays out the rationale for a link between climate change and extreme weather events. Diffenbaugh’s op-ed is based on a journal article written by himself and others that was published…
Cuban Geology – An Updated Resource List
Within the last few weeks I’ve had several requests for available resources on Cuban geology. The requests, of course, have come from individuals outside of the U.S.A. Guess that they sense opportunities for working with and understanding Cuba’s geology that we are backing away from. In any case, I’ve sent the requests on to Manuel…
Irish Geo Travels – Northern Ireland
Traveling to Ireland has been something I’ve wanted to do. So, when the opportunity came up to go to Scotland, I couldn’t leave the general area without seeing at least some of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I only made it as far south as Dublin, but I guess on a positive…
A Second Warning – Forcing Earth’s Ecosystems Beyond Their Breaking Point
Twenty-five years after the Union of Concerned Scientists and over 1700 independent scientists published their “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity”, a new group of scientists (bolstered by 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries) have again issued a warning that humanity has not made significant progress in mitigating environmental challenges. The recently published viewpoint of these…
Siccar Point: A Day In The Field At Hutton’s Unconformity
Siccar Point is unquestionably one of the most important geological sites in the understanding of geological time. It was here in 1778 that James Hutton, John Playfair, and James Hall contemplated the immensity of time needed to produce vertically oriented rocks overlain by gently-dipping rocks. The concept of geological time is so fundamental to the…
Central California Tectonics Field Trip
I took part in a central California tectonics field trip a few weeks ago that the Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG) sponsored. Tanya Atwater and Art Sylvester, professors emeriti at the University of California Santa Barbara, Department of Earth Sciences, led the field trip. During the field trip, we made numerous stops between Los Angeles…
Hiking to Glacier National Park’s Grinnell Glacier
A few days ago I did the hike to Grinnell Glacier, one of the iconic glaciers in Glacier National Park. The glacier lies within the Swiftcurrent drainage area, in the northeastern part of the park. The hike, at least the way I did it, is about 11.6 miles round trip. It is possible to catch…
Tertiary Geology and Paleontology in the Gravelly Range, Southwestern Montana
A part of my recent geological field work includes working on high elevation Tertiary strata in the Gravelly Range, southwestern Montana. The Gravelly Range is located in southwest Montana, about 10 miles southwest of Ennis, Montana. For some background on this area and what my field work is about, see an older blog that I…
Canadian Rockies – Alberta Badlands Geology Guidebook
The Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG) published their first geology field trip guidebook in late 2016 and it is now available for sale to the general public. This guideboook is a collection of geology road logs, associated geological information, and local cultural history of areas within the Canadian Rockies and the Alberta Badlands. The following…
Montana Writers Advocate For Protection of Our Public Lands
I love living in Montana, but some days are just better than other days. This is one of those “better” days. This morning I checked my media feeds to learn that more than forty Montana writers have come together to write about their support for protecting our public lands and to also endorse Montana’s Special…
Dinosaur Mummy found in Alberta’s Oil Sands
A nodosaur, approximately 112-110 million years old, was found in the Alberta oil sands March 21, 2011. The dinosaur is basically a mummy, with fossilized skin and gut contents intact. Luckily, the heavy-equipment operator and his supervisor knew that what was being unearthed at Suncor’s Millennium Mine that amazing day in March was unusual. It…
Guatemalan volcanic eruption drone video
Scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge used a drone to video an eruption of one of Guatemala’s active stratovolcanoes, Volcan de Fuego. The volcano is part of the Central America volcano arc and is one of three large stratovolcanoes close to Guatemala’s former capital, Antigua. The drone flew 3,700 m over Volcan de Fuego to…
Steelhead Fishing Along the Western Idaho Suture Zone
I took a break from writing a paper on Tertiary volcanic tuffs in southwestern Montana a few days ago to go on our yearly steelhead fishing trip on the South Fork of the Clearwater River in Idaho. Steelhead are amazing fish in that they are ocean-going rainbow trout that spend two years in the ocean,…
One Of The Largest Icebergs On Record In The Making
A very large crack is forming in the Larsen C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. The crack is up to 1,500 feet wide and will most likely generate one of the largest icebergs on record. Only 6.4 miles of ice are keeping the ice sheet from calving off an iceberg that is basically the size of…