Dec 312008
 

A funny thing [almost] happened on the way to the forum …

rome080044

I’ve been in Italy for Christmas. No news, no TV, no interweb, just having a well earned break, soaking up Ancient Roman culture (and modern Chianti). Almost no geology. There was just a bit of confusion I had to settle with the tour guide between two of the local building stones, travertine or ‘tufa’ and igneous tuff or ‘tufo’. Other than that it was a complete break. Well, as much a complete break that a geologist can have – I was the one studying the plinths and marble floors and walls rather than the artwork in the Villa Borghese. But, hey-ho, each to his own.

I was, however, disappointed to miss the Italian earthquake on the 23rd, I was just a little too far south to be in the felt zone.

gkxn0 Image: EMSC

In other news, it is gratifying to have been selected (along with 99 others) amongst the 100 Best Blogs for Earth Science Scholars. I hope that in 2009 I can continuing blogging well and often enough to do this justice.

Which brings me on to first, wishing you all a happy new year and, second, to my new year resolution. I have learned that rash promises can seriously damage one’s lifestyle (alcohol free Januarys can seem like a good idea in late December but not so clever a couple of weeks later). Others, elsewhere in the geoblogosphere, have committed to publishing papers, chairing conference sessions and the like. I’m taking my inspiration from a Liverpudlian poet, Roger McGough – aim low in life, and miss.

Dec 142008
 

Still avoiding that marking.

This meme via Geotripper.

iceland guysir

Things I have done in bold [with commentary]

1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier [Iceland]
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland [Iceland]
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta. [ish - I've seen the K/T boundary on the Isle of Wight but it is an unconformity]
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage [Ireland]
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia) [Thor's cave, Peak District]
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile. [Several including Blackbank opencast]
8. Explore a subsurface mine. [Several including coal, lead and gold mines, most recent Ecton Copper Mine]
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there’s some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere. [Lisan Fm, Masada, Israel]
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada. [Granite Tors, Devon]
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland. [St David's Head Sill, Pembrokeshire]
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (check out The Dynamic Earth – The Story of Plate Tectonics – an excellent website). [Chile]
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. [There is one planted outside our department building at Keele, in memory of the founding Professor of Geology, F. Wolverson Cope]
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones) [only in the lab.]
18. A field of glacial erratics [Cheshire - a field with glacial erratics]
19. A caldera [Santorini]
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high [Natal, Brazil]
21. A fjord [Norway]
22. A recently formed fault scarp [Turkey]
23. A megabreccia [Gwna Melange, Anglesey]
24. An actively accreting river delta [Lake District, Cumbria]
25. A natural bridge
26. A large sinkhole [Gaping Ghyll, Yorkshire]
27. A glacial outwash plain [Iceland Sandur plains]
28. A sea stack [several]
29. A house-sized glacial erratic
30. An underground lake or river
31. The continental divide [Colorado]
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals [We have a display of them at Keele]
33. Petrified trees [several, including Lulworth Fossil Forest]
34. Lava tubes [Iceland]
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back.
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe.
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth’s fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil’s Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley – 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land’s End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.
55. The Giant’s Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic “horn”.
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the “father” of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley
69. The San Andreas fault
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil) [Trilobite, now in National Museum of Wales]
85. Find gold, however small the flake [Guanaco gold mine, Chile]
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand.
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century [Hale-Bopp]
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane [Typhoon, Japan]
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash

Dec 132008
 

Marking avoidance displacement activity time.

This meme from Clastic Detritus

Have done the following in bold.

1. Started my own blog [er, yes]
2. Slept under the stars [Atacama desert]
3. Played in a band [no, and with my musical ability, never will]
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world [and never will]
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo [see #3]
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris [several times, including honeymoon]
13. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch [photography]
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning [field course, dodgy cool box]
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables [broad beans, onions, garlic, rocket]
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train [including one in Crewe sidings]
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch-hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping [field trips ain't what they used to be - I blame facebook]
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run [nor a six]
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors [went to Leicester last week where my Dad was born if that counts.]
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language [ish - enough Italian & Portuguese to get beers & food]
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing [just once, hated it]
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David [just once, loved it]
41. Sung karaoke [see #3]
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt [but have seen the eponymous ones in Iceland]
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa [South Africa, Egypt]
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight [Tenby]
46. Been transported in an ambulance [ran into a lamppost]
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person [but hope to by the end of the month]
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling [Red Sea]
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud [volcanic mud, Santorini]
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching [no, but dolphins]
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter [no, but as a kid wanted to be a helicopter pilot]
69. Saved a favourite childhood toy [steam engine]
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviare [over-rated, like lobster]
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life [unless #64 counts]
90. Sat on a jury [may be urban myth but UK if you are listed as a Doctor on the electoral register, you don't get called]
91. Met someone famous [depends on what you mean by famous]
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake [but in the Dead Sea]
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Ridden an elephant

Dec 102008
 

I’m not one particularly given to blog stat pron, but today I had my 10,000th page hit, which I think is a bit of a milestone for this humble blog. The WordPress blog stat graph makes for some interesting viewing.

blogstats

Although I ‘claimed’ my blog back in August 2006 when I was starting something else, the Hypo-theses blog started properly in February 2007. Having acquired the internet ‘handle’ of hypocentre I thought that hypo-theses made a witty title that could be looked at on two different levels – suppositions & proposals as well as hypo’s dissertations on a particular topic.

I was (and still am occasionally) a contributor to Geology Rocks, a British geology internet forum. In February 2007 the forum host introduced blogs to the site and I started pontificating. I duplicated the material on the WordPress platform hoping for a more general audience. This proved to be the case and the blog has been WordPress only since April of this year.

The stats graph shows that I was generating about one to two hits a day until February of this year when two things happened. One was the Market Rasen earthquake, and by posting a seismogram I generated tens of hits from the UK. The second was the entry to the geoblogosphere with inclusion on Chris’ allgeo google reader feed. The jump in background level of page hits is quite noticeable at this time.

The earthquakes in Sichuan, China and Selfoss, Iceland, and Southern Greece all caused traffic spikes.

Of the non-earthquake related posts, the one on importing undergraduate geological maps into Google Earth has proven to be most popular.

Coming to the end of 2008 I appear to be an established denizen of the geoblogosphere with my random musings (along with several others) being regarded worthy of incorporation by the Regator blog aggregator. So 10,000 thank yous for stopping by, and, if you have been, thank you for reading.

Dec 092008
 

Following DrugMonkey‘s (and all the usual suspects) meme of reposting first lines of each month’s first blog entries here is the year according to hypocentre.

January. (No post … only resumed after a blogging hiatus ended in February)

February. Boy’s Toys

Anyone who knows me, knows I’m into gadgets.

March. Do Geologists Have A Death Wish?

Two incidents though do spring to mind from my younger, more reckless days.

April. Pembrokeshire Geology

As most of the geoblogosphere has been posting images from their spring field excursions I suppose I’d better post some of mine.

May. Back to (Field) School

Last weekend I attended a field based meeting on Innovation in Fieldwork Teaching in geographical, Earth and environmental sciences down in deepest Devon.

June. Geology in Art – Glen Tilt

Despite the vast potential of the field I’ve been having a few problems with this, largely because I’m a cultural Philistine and have a limited grounding in art and literature, but also because John has requested that we try to dig up as much background as possible on the origin of the work and possible influences on the artist.

Map, Glen Tilt, Tayside by John Clerk of Eldin

July. Before ‘Intelligent Design’ was Intelligent Design

Before I start this post I think I need to point out that I don’t believe in ‘Intelligent Design’ creationism.

Bateman\'s geological gallery at Biddulph Grange

August. One Geology / Google Earth Mash-up

Thanks to Alessia Maggi over at Sismordia – Seismology at Concordia for the heads-up that the OneGeology map portal [Note currently IE6/7; Firefox 2 (not 3) only] can export geology maps to Google Earth.

September. Cut to the Chase

The good news is that I’ve been given a grant to compile a geological trail for Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, UK.

Satnalls Hills Quarry

October. Geology and Beer

It was Dave Schumaker’s post over at Geology News on the use of Eocene yeast extracted from the gut of a weevil trapped in amber to make beer that has inspired my to write a post on the two subjects closest to my heart (well, at least my liver) – geology and beer.

November. Do you know your crozzle from your hussle?

I’ve been working on my latest geotrail and doing some reading in old geological memoirs

December. Keele Hall’d

A fine winter’s day on Keele University campus.

Keele Hall

All in all, quite a diverse year.