So, the project to photograph a rock every day for 2010 has finally come to an successful completion. The original idea, foolishly conceived around a camp fire in a Bedouin encampment on the edge of the Sahara desert in Morocco last New Year, became Rock365. It never really was a chore, but there were times around the Dog Days of August that I did wonder if I’d have the energy to finish it. The closer I got to the end, the more paranoid I became about not missing a day. Only once did I forget during daylight hours but my better half’s photographic lights saved the day.

It generally took about half an hour for each photo. The majority of hand specimens were shot using natural daylight, a 100mm macro lens and my Canon 5D camera with up to 30 second exposure time to get a decent depth of field. For cut surfaces I found that smearing hand gel over the surfaces gave a better depth of colour and wasn’t absorbed or evaporate as fast as water did. Some images have had their colours tweaked a bit (like the image above) but I think it works better as an image – it looks like a thin section but actually is just a macro. Images were mostly processed using Aperture. Each image was uploaded to my posterous site, my flickr account and added to my Rock365 google map.

Geotagging the images probably to the most time. Trying to track down mines and quarries was one of the biggest challenges, particularly from specimens from Keele University’s excellent rock and mineral collection which I had to resort to when I ran out of my own specimens. For this I found the resources of Mindat invaluable, with just not only mineral and location information but also occasionally latitude/longitude co-ordinates of the mines. I’ve tried to be a accurate as possible with the locations, but some of them had to be an educated guess. The unknown ones I just put at Keele.

Only twice have I been really stuck, when travelling and had to resort to photographing the stone floors of Gatwick and Casablanca airports with my iPhone. Two days in Birmingham also proved challenging as most of the buildings were brick or concrete/glass. The last ten days, spent on the island of Madeira had to focus on basalt as that is all of which the island is composed.

It helped having mini-themes to concentrate on, such as erratics, staffordshire building stones, mantle rocks and meteorites. This strategy does help you keep ticking over.

I suppose my favorite images have to be the metamorphic and igneous rocks. It was in these areas, along with geophysics, that I specialised in for my geology degree thirty years ago, and they still hold a particular fascination. Note that fossils don’t feature much. I have always maintained that the only good fossil is a strain marker!

Anyway, if you have been following the project, thank you. It has, in retrospect, been fun to do. Yesterday was the first day in over a year that I haven’t taken a single photograph. This was deliberate, to make the break and move on, but it did feel a very strange thing to do. I’ll try and return to ‘proper blogging’ on this site as it has been a bit neglected of late as I have had a lot to do with work and the Rock365 posterous posts took precedence.

Have a happy, prosperous and peaceful 2011 and I’ll leave you with the complete Rock365 google map. Note that there are two ‘pages’ of locations on the map so about half the world coverage is actually on ‘page two’.

View Rock365 in a larger map

Why Blog?

There are probably as many motivations for geoblogging as there are geoblogs. The collective of the geoblogosphere is, of course, no such thing. We just happen to blog on a similar scientific topic. There is, I’m please to say, a good degree of camaraderie among those who geoblog and I’ve virtually met some people that one day I hope to meet in the flesh and share a cold (or warm) beer with. But does the geoblogosphere, what ever that is, need promoting and is it too nebulous to actually be promotable?

I blog for my own amusement. There are no ads on this site and I make no money from blogging. I started because I have always liked playing with shiny new technology and to try to cure myself of a bad case of writer’s block. I have always found it difficult to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and forcing myself to write more I hope(d) will make it an easier process in the future. Since I blog for fun, actually having someone read these ramblings is actually a bonus. I don’t really care if nobody reads this. Ok, I’d be slightly miffed, and one of the first things I do when logging on to wordpress is look at the stats, but I don’t actually think that my little corner (or cupboard under the stairs) of the geoblogosphere actually needs promoting. I don’t blog to impact society or real geology. I blog in hope that someone one day might stumble across one of my musings via a google search and find the contents helpful or interesting. It is ironic that more people read this whimsy than the (rare) scientific ‘real geology’ papers that I write. (At the time of writing I note that my recent post on coal bed methane ranks #8 on a google search of that topic).

Promotion of the Geoblogosphere

There are parts of the geoblogosphere, far more worthy than my humble scribblings, that do need promoting. Public understanding of science is a very good thing. There is a hell of a lot of stupid out there and any well-informed geological post is one small whack with a geological pick at that monolith of general ignorance. A single, apropos geological blog post turning up in an ignoramus’s google search can only be a step forward. In this respect, by lodging itself in google’s indexes, the geoblogosphere promotes itself. I’m not a great one myself for using blog aggregators like Geoblogosphere News or Regator, although this blog is featured in both. I have to say that blog collectives largely pass me by. I’ve only really noticed ScienceBlogs on their recent implosion. Of course a couple of blogs that I regularly read use(d) the platform, but I follow the messengers, not the medium. Would a GeoscienceBlogs blogs collective help promote the geoblogosphere? I doubt it.

The thing that has promoted this blog more than anything else has been RSS feed readers in general and Chris Rowan’s allgeo newsfeed in particular. My readership on the previous incarnation of this blog rocketed when Chris added it to his feed. RSS feeds mean that I, and everyone else, don’t have to trawl through a list of favorite blogs, any new posts will just turn up in my feed. The allgeo feed has also introduced me to a whole host of other blogs that I probably wouldn’t have found myself and interesting topics I would have never picked up a journal to read. RSS feeds also take the pressure off a bit of having to come up with a stream of posts to maintain a readership. It is now easy to take a blogging sabbatical and the articles will just pop into the feed on the author’s return.

On casualty, however, of my RSS feed use is my blogroll. Before RSS I had the incentive to maintain my blogroll as I used it myself to visit my favorite blogs but now that it isn’t necessary. Blogrolls are pain to maintain at the best of times, and at the moment with Pepsigate over at Sb, my blogroll would be highly dynamic. There is also the risk of offending someone by not including them and a comprehensive list will now take up a whole lot of sidebar. I suspect that very few people click through blogroll links and a central compendium like Geoblogosphere News is probably the way to go. Despite this, I do try to spread as much link love as reasonable, which is probably the best form of cross-promotion – along with twitter tweets of shortened links.

Impact on Society and Real Geology

Just because I blog for fun, doesn’t mean that I, or any one else can’t make an impact on society. There are two current geoblog themes that have great potential for impact on society. The first is Dave Petley’s remote monitoring of the dam breach at Attabad, which appears to be the main means by which technical information is getting to the general affected population. The other is Garry Hayes’ crusade to stop lawyers in California allegedly starting a lucrative litigation gravy train by sneaking a defenestration of serpentine’s status as state rock into a bill on compost. I do hope Garry succeeds, but even if he and others don’t they will have contributed to society in increasing public understanding and awareness of geology.

Impact on real geology, whatever that is, is much harder to quantify. I’m a strong believer of the peer review processes but with internet publishing I suspect that the differentiation between blogging and journal articles is going to get blurred over the next few years. Research blogging on journal articles is already potentially impinging on the traditional ‘comment and reply’ of paper journals. Blogging does, however allow the journal article author to expand on a theme, present their information to a non technical audience and interact in a much quicker way than traditionally. The palaeontological community in particular appears to be getting its act together particularly in this respect (see Dave Hone’s Archosaur Musings as an example but there are many others).

Private Business or Public Affairs

As previously noted, there are as many motivations for blogging as there are blogs. I have no problem with ‘corporate blogs’ as long as they are clearly labelled. The geoblogosphere is greatly enriched by the likes of geological surveys and societies. The likes of Lee Allison’s Arizona Geology consistently punches above its weight but generally I think that many organisations are missing a trick. Compare the USGS with blogs and podcasts to the blog bereft UK version, the British Geological Survey that is hardly known outside of academia. A well-written and informative blog can only help raise the profile of an organisation and in the days of tightening budgets, it doen’t cost much and a bit of link love from the geoblogosphere goes a long way.

Whither the Geoblogosphere?

So, indeed, whither the geoblogosphere? In general, we are slowly building a compendium of knowledge that courtesy of search engines will, in the long run help in the public understanding of our science and educate the great unwashed. This can only benefit society. But where technology will take us in the next ten years and what will become of the geoblogosphere is probably anybody’s guess.

It takes about half an hour on average to do this every day. After I’ve found the specimen, photographed it, adjusted it in aperture, there is often the task of trying to find out where the sample came from so that I can geolocate the samples. I have to say that mindat has been invaluable with details not only of the minerals themselves but also a comprehensive catalogue of mines and their locations.

I then e-mail the image and a short description to my posterous blog – it is so much easier than having to do a wordpress post here. I then upload a copy to my flickr account, insert the description and tag it. Finally, I then go to google maps, try as best I can to locate the mine and then update my google map with the description, a link back to the posterous blog post and a thumbnail image from flickr. I then go back to flickr to geolocate the image there.

Here are the second one hundred images (you can find the first one hundred here).

The current google map is shown below:

View Rock365 in a larger map

Only 165 days to go …

I’ve not been putting the images here on this blog (other than in the sidebar widget down on the right) for two reasons. The first is that I thought that they might clutter up this blog and get in the way of the other posts. The second is that by using posterous I can post images via a simple e-mail which might be easier for me when I’m away in the field.

If you haven’t been subscribing to my posterous blog (either directly or via Chris’ allgeo feed) then this is what you have been missing …

The images can also be found on flickr or on google maps.

View Rock365 in a larger map

Only 265 days to go …

View Hypo-theses in a larger map

View Hypo-theses in a larger map

Hat-tip to Chris for the idea and thanks to him for adding my new blog URL to his allgeo feed.

You can see Chris’s map here.

You call follow Chris on twitter at @allochthonous and yours truly at @hypocentre.

I’ve blogged briefly about this structure before here in my list of places that all geologists should visit in the UK. It is the quite spectacular Variscan fault propagation fold and Broadhaven, Pembrokeshire, Wales.

As the thrust in the middle of the section propagates up through this sequence of Upper Carboniferous sandstones and mudstones it folds them ahead of the thrust tip. Eventually, the thrust cuts through the fold, separating the hangingwall anticline from the footwall syncline.

I’ve already previewed our MIS:TIQUE project, attempting to use gigapan technology to help provide alternative geological learning experiences for mobility impaired students. I am giving a presentation on this topic at Keele University’s annual teaching innovation day on Friday so I’ve been working on the data that was collected over the Easter vacation.

One of the main reasons in getting my own domain and hosting this blog myself was the previous inability to insert gigapans and the like into blog posts when using wordpress.com – with a hosted version of wordpress this is now possible.
A full screen version can be found here.

This is one of the two gigapans than I have shot of this structure. This was shot hand held with my Canon 5D and stitched using Canon stitching software. I was experimenting a bit with this one just to see what it would turn out like with automatic focus and exposure. I think it turns out quite well and is sharper than the one I took with the Canon G10 on fixed focus and exposure and using the gigapan robotic mount which you can find here.

I also experimented by uploading all of the images from both cameras into photosynth, and again I’m quite pleased with the results which can be seen below.

The full photosynth can be found here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All in all, quite a diverse year.

In following up a comment on Kim’s blog via e-mail I was asked “who are you?”.

This set me thinking about why I have been blogging anonymously, and do I still want to keep it that way.

When I started this blog, I used it as a stress release mechanism. Fuelled by a couple of fluid inclusions in amorphous silica (of the Chilean red variety) I would let fly at random targets. Global warming was one of them. It was fun playing devil’s advocate.

But blogging that way was not compatible with having an official lecturing position in a university, and while I still don’t have much of a career to damage, I wanted my rantings to remain anonymous.

Fifty odd blog posts and a few years on, things have changed. I have attained a place on the holy grail of the geoblogosphere, an entry on the allgeo google feed. I get 20-30 hits a day even if I don’t post anything. My posts have (I hope) become generally less rant like and more scientific and interesting. I want to discuss things that are related to my research and me. There is now probably more than enough information in my collected blog musings for somebody semi-proficient with a search engine to find out who I am anyway.

So does having a real world identity add gravitas and credibility to a blog? I have a huge admiration of the ‘real’ bloggers, Dave, Kim, Chris, Ron, Callan, Erik, Andrew et al. (my sincere apologies if you have been left out) and I feel it is time to join you.

That is not to say that I have any problems with those who want to stay anonymous. I suspect that those bloggers of a female persuasion might attract more unwanted attention than a male would and different people blog for different reasons. My reasons and blogging have changed and so I’m coming out.

So who am I? I’m Ian Stimpson, and I’ve been lecturing in geophysics and structural geology at Keele University, Staffordshire (about halfway between Manchester and Birmingham) in the UK for over twenty years.

There, I’ve done it, I’ve come out. I suspect in some respects I’ll have to be more careful about what I post in future, the rants will be more mild but in other respects in more posts I hope I can be a bit more free in what I what do say. However, all the opinions in my posts, past, present and future will continue to be all mine and not those of my employer.

In case you are wondering, I’ve removed the (three) global warming rants, not that I don’t stand by what I said at the time, but I (and the evidence) have moved on (although I still have reservations about the process of global warming politics) and I feel that they no longer have a place on this blog. They are probably in some search engine cache anyway if you really want to find them.

By the way, I’ve adopted a new anonymous identity elsewhere in case I feel like a really good rant!