Geoawesomeness got my attention today by featuring a You Tube video done by Vox folks a few months ago. The Vox video points out that basically all world maps are wrong in how projections of land masses are variously shown. Aleks Buczkowski from Geoawesomeness gave a lead-in to the Vox video in his posting on it by…
Winter Trekking Through Yellowstone’s Thermal and Glacial Features
Some winter days in Yellowstone National Park are so amazing with clear blue skies and sparkling snow that they just take your breathe away. Luckily enough, I just experienced several of these kinds of days which I packed full of cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and animal watching. One of the groomed trails that held a…
Cenozoic Sequence Stratigraphy of Southwestern Montana
Much of my research has been focused on Cenozoic sequence stratigraphy of continental basin-fill in southwestern Montana. This approach to the stratigraphy of continental deposits has facilitated correlation of stratigraphic units both within and among the various basins of this area. I recently gave a talk about my work in this area at Montana Tech…
Global Earthquakes 2001 to 2015: NOAA Science on a Sphere Animation
NOAA’s SOS data center has a new earthquake data set animation for events that occurred from 2001 through 2015. The Science on a Sphere’s animation shown above is described on their web site as: This animation shows every recorded earthquake in sequence as they occurred from January 1, 2001, through December 31, 2015, at a…
Odyssey to the Anthropocene
I came across a good posting on Carbon Brief that gives a succinct historical background for designating the new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, and thought I’d pass it on. As defined by the English Oxford Living Dictionaries, the Anthropocene is: Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human…
Tertiary Paleovalleys in the Laramie Mountains, Wyoming
The Laramie Mountains are part of the central Rocky Mountains in southeastern Wyoming. Archean and Proterozoic rocks form the bulk of the mountain range due to late Cretaceous–early Eocene (Laramide) basement-involved uplift. Hogbacks made of Paleozoic to Mesozoic age rocks flank much of the Precambrian cored mountain areas. But what sets the Laramie Mountains apart from the…
The Field Season Is Going Strong in Southwestern Montana
My field season is in full swing. I recently spent time with students from the Webb Schools in Claremont, CA, during their annual sojourn to southwestern Montana. We prospected a few Tertiary localities, with the students making some good fossil mammal and fossil invertebrate finds. We were also extremely lucky to have a southwest Montana…
The Yellowstone Volcanics
Volcanic stratigraphy is hard to ignore when touring through the Teton to Yellowstone National Parks (YNP) area. Three major volcanic eruption cycles occurred during the last 2.1 million years and resulted in hundreds of feet of volcanic rock. The eruption cycles make a good basis for separating the volcanic rock units and consequently there are…
North Carolina Sandhills and Weymouth Woods
My first trek into the Carolina Sandhills began with a visit a couple days ago to Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Weymouth Woods is a great place not only to hike through part of the Sandhills, but to also see the longleaf pine forest that readily grows on the sands….
Machu Picchu – The Geological Landscape
Much has been written about Machu Picchu since its rediscovery in 1911 by Hiram Bingham and his expedition crew. And although I was truly amazed at the ruins of Machu Picchu when I hiked around it a few months ago, I was mesmerized by the area geology as soon as I got off the train…
Peru’s Sacred Valley- Andean Culture With Some Geologic Context
Most people traverse Peru’s Sacred Valley quickly on their way from Cusco to Machu Picchu. But this stretch of countryside is an area well worth staying around in for awhile, both for getting to know Andean culture and understanding some of its history. The Sacred Valley is considered the heartland of the Inca Empire (1438…
Wildlands Wildfire – Getting Ready for the Fire Season at the McCall, Idaho Smokejumper Base
The McCall Smokejumper Base, in west-central Idaho, has 70 wildland firefighters on staff. McCall’s Smokejumper program was established in 1943, and since then has continually provided fire management personnel to wildland fires throughout the nation. As noted on the McCall Smokejumper website: “Today, the McCall Smokejumper Unit is an interagency resource providing highly trained, experienced…
Cusco, Peru – Markets, Ruins, and a Geologic Puzzle
During the 14th century, the Inca ruler Inca Pachacuteq (Tito Cusi Inca Yupanqui) transformed the central Andean area of present-day Cusco, Peru into a major urban center. The city became the capital of the Inca empire, containing religious and administrative areas that were surrounded by fertile agricultural expanses. In the 16th century, the Spanish conquered…
Spiralling Global Temperatures
This is one of the best visualizations for global temperature change that I’ve seen. It’s created by Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading. As noted by Ed Hawkins: “The animated spiral presents global temperature change in a visually appealing and straightforward way. The pace of…
Lima, Peru’s Historic Centre – A UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Earth-Shattering Events That Helped Shape It
Lima, Peru is fast becoming a preeminent food hotspot with traditional Peruvian foods and various fusion cuisines that I found extremely delicious. And of course it is also internationally known for extraordinarily magnificent museums such as the Museo Larco with its collection of pre-Columbian art. Lima, the capital city of Peru, has a population of almost…