Oi!, Discovery Earth, No!

 geology  9 Responses »
Jan 282009
 

I’m sorry, but in my humble opinion Discovery Earth has got it sadly wrong. They recently published their ten most spectacular places on Earth. OK, so anyone publishing their top ten of anything is heading for a fall (and I’m about to do it myself, so who am I to talk?) but I have to say one of their choices does puzzle me. Here is their top ten …

  • The Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland
  • Wadi Al-Hitan (Valley of the Whales), Egypt
  • Lake Baikal, Siberia
  • Komodo National Park, Indonesia
  • Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA
  • Ilulissat Icefjord, Denmark
  • Wulingyuan, China
  • Surtsey, Iceland
  • Central Amazon, Brazil
  • Great Barrier Reef, Australia

UNESCO World Heritage Sites all. My problem is with the first one, The Giant’s Causeway. OK, having now alienated all my Northern Irish readers let me try to explain. Geologically significant, yes; superb place to visit, undoubtedly; but one of the top ten most spectacular places on Earth? Do me a favour, it’s a pile of basalt. In fact, two of the three Discovery Earth truly geological sites are heaps of basalt (Surtsey being the other).

If you are going to make heaps of basalt the most spectacular places on Earth, what about Devil’s Tower, Wyoming*, or even Jökulsárgljúfur National Park in Iceland (which also includes Dettifoss, Europe’s most powerful waterfall). Both have far more spectacular columnar jointing. (* OK, this one is phonolite, but you get my drift).

Hawaii is a world heritage site, surely that is more spectacular than the Giant’s Causeway?

iceland011Columnar Jointing, Jökulsárgljúfur National Park.

Their problem comes, I feel, from limiting themselves to UNESCO World Heritage Sites. I suspect that in a wish to be ‘geographically correct’ to their viewers they felt obliged to include a site in the UK.

The trouble is that the UK only has two natural sites, The Giant’s Causeway in Antrim and the Jurassic Coast in southern England. Whilst both of them are extremely pleasant to visit in their own right, neither of them are what I would call really spectacular. Two other natural sites come under the UK but one is Henderson Island in the south Pacific and the other is the Gough and Inaccessible Islands in the South Atlantic so they don’t really count. The vast majority are cultural sites. Compare this to the US, where 60% of their heritage sites are natural rather than cultural (admittedly with less of a cultural heritage than the UK).

The UK does have some truly spectacular (and culturally important) geological sites. It’s just that they haven’t been designated World Heritage Sites. Perhaps the campaign should start here to get them recognised.

In a future post, I’ll try and come up with 10 UK geological sites that are more ‘spectacular’ than the Giant’s Causeway. If anyone has any candidates please leave your suggestions in the comments.

I need a new laptop

 gadgets  1 Response »
Jan 222009
 

I’m suffering sticky key syndrome after spilling a glass of the red stuff over my keyboard. I came across this little beauty by way of The Inquisitr. Would make a fine replacement lappy and very useful for the field. I want!

hgd6000

Some specs for the General Dynamics Itronix GD6000 from their website…

# FULLY-RUGGED NOTEBOOK RELIABILITY — This vehicle-rugged notebook meets the fully-rugged MIL-STD 810F standards for temperature range, vibration resistance, dust ingress protection and humidity. It can also survive punishing 30” drops and comes standard with a spill-resistant keyboard (with a published 400 ml 10-minute soak spill test ) and a shock mounted display.
# ULTRA-VIEWABLE TOUCHSCREEN DISPLAY with DYNAVUE® — The GD6000 has the industry’s best 13.3” outdoor viewable touchscreen display featuring our award winning, innovative DynaVue® touchscreen display technology that dramatically increases outdoor viewability in all ambient conditions including direct sunlight.
# POWERFUL PERFORMANCE TO MEET TODAY’S PROCESSING INTENSIVE NEEDS — The GD6000 with the latest Intel® 2.53 GHz T9400 Core™2 Duo processor, an 1066 MHz Front Side Bus, 6MB L2 cache, up to 4GB DDR3 memory and the Intel GM45 Express Chipset is designed to keep field-deployed, mission-critical workers productive and online throughout your deployment life cycle.
# ULTIMATE IN WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY — With up to four integrated wireless devices—WI-FI (“WLAN”), Cellular Data (“WWAN”), Embedded GPS, and Bluetooth in the same device the GD6000 is designed to provide highly reliable connectivity across the spectrum of wireless networks; optimized for expansive radio frequency coverage, it features internal antennas, a magnesium case for RF shielding, and extensive RF noise filtering.
# GD6000 NotebookERGONOMIC — Designed to be the easiest vehicle notebook to carry and use; the GD6000 with its fresh industrial ergonomic design is the thinnest and lightest in its class with this level of durability. Adjustable front keyboard lighting and an optional white keyboard provide efficiency and security for working at night.

Doesn’t mention if the spill test was rioja though.

Did the earth moo-ve for you?

 Earthquakes  2 Responses »
Jan 152009
 

Cows are rubbish at detecting earthquakes thereby kiboshing the chances of advanced bovine earthquake prediction arrays.

Researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences had fitted “advanced GPS sensors and animal monitoring devices” to eight cattle. They noted that during Sweden’s December 16 earthquake last year “only two of the eight cows bearing the monitoring equipment stood up during or a minute before the tremors began” despite being only five kilometres from the epicentre. “Two other cows were already standing, while another two were lying down before, during, and after the quake. One cow actually sat down at the exact second that the earth began shaking, and the eighth cow’s equipment malfunctioned”.

By way of The Register

Visited Countries Meme

 memes  4 Responses »
Jan 092009
 

By way of Looking for Detachment, The Ethical Palaeonologist, Clastic Detritus, Highly Allochthonous, and ReBecca’s Blog, the countries and states I’ve visited:

visited 24 states (10.6%)

Favourite country: Chile
Favourite city: La Paz, Bolivia


visited 5 states (10%)

Whilst the world map is ‘genuine’, the US map is a bit of a cheat. I spent a month in Colorado, but Utah was a quick trip over the border to the Dinosaur National Monument quarry visitors’ centre, where as Alaska, Illinois, and Missouri are airport related.

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