Geologic Column Copyright 2011 I have had many people write me asking me what to do with regards to the nuclear reactor mess in Japan. By the time you read this, you probably will know more than I am telling you in this article. First of all, we are watching a slow motion train wreck brought [...]
NO COPYRIGHT 2009 Distribute Freely Please Let me be the first to tell you what is actually happening with the climate. A retired USGS Geologist and all around brilliant guy, Dr. Peter Ward (from Jackson Hole, WY) has just published this week a VERY impressive paper (I was lucky enough to review it prior to publication) [...]
Living down wind of one of the largest volcanos on the planet has it's advantages and it's disadvantages. Certainly the Yellowstone ecosystem is one of the last bastions of what North America used to be like. Even though the park service messed with the ecology back around 1900 in a mostly disasterous fashion, life finds a [...]
As we look up at the night sky, we see familiar patterns in the stars and the friendly face of our moon. As a species, mankind has paid very close attention to the sky, often attributing great stories and legends to what we see. A recent discussion I had on the internet had an interesting link [...]
I never though I would see it come to this. The scientific method has been thrown out the window for media bluster with politics in mind and a startling consensus is reached before any real research has even begun. You see, the scientific method requires certain assumptions that produces a theory but the problem is that any theory is only as [...]
Copyright 2006 More cries of Global Warming in the News. One of our Ex-Vice Presidents is even on the band wagon tooting his horn. There is no question that we are enjoying warm/ dry summer temperatures that relate to the latest cycle of drought that mother nature has provided us. I seems that this year's drought is a continuation of [...]
Earth scientists study any aspect that warrants close attention. Young ambitious graduate students will study almost anything. As a grad student, I looked in detail at a two foot thick bed of 400 million year old lagoonaly derived limestone that covered about 100 square miles of south eastern Indiana, others were doing different tasks their professors dutifully assigned them. One of [...]
I wrote this back in 2004 Time to sell the snowmobile! One of the really big and controversial topics of the modern age is global warming. As an earth scientist, I have been following the subject since its first appearance on the national news scene around 12 years ago. Such discussions seem to be trendy [...]
copyright 2008 Now we've done it. We've gone and changed things too much. A group of geologists now think that mankind has modified the earth so much in the last 200 years that they have just formally published a paper designating a NEW geologic EPOCH! Let me explain and bear with me a bit on the [...]
The good thing about living near the geographic center of the continent (Belle Fourche, SD) is that we don't have to worry much about Tsunami waves. This does not however diminish the significance of the recent disaster in the Indian Ocean. When I first heard about the event, national news media were reporting a magnitude 8.9 [...]
