Geographile

Early commuting

2012-01-12T11:23:00.001-08:00

Early commuting
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

Early commuting

River Otter 301V7933-3.jpg

2012-01-11T09:57:00.001-08:00

River Otter 301V7933-3.jpg
Originally uploaded by BobLewis.

River Otter 301V7933-3.jpg

over the Palace of Fine Arts

2012-01-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

As much as I hate having to schlep across San Francisco to get there, the Palace of Fine Arts and its lagoon are among my favorite places in the area. It's just lovely, and has neat history, and I've been visiting it most of my life. I'll be sad when the Exploratorium moves to the waterfront at the Embarcadero, just because fewer people will incidentally be exposed to the Palace of Fine Arts.

Here's a neat video from the air, from a little bitty airship, so you can see how lovely it is.

I only went out for a walk.....

2012-01-07T14:14:00.001-08:00

I only went out for a walk.....
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

I only went out for a walk.....

San Francisco is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

2012-01-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

Instead, I just live very near there.

Stephen Fry likes it, in part because it's near so many beautiful places:

That's one of my favorite things about Northern California in general: It's a short drive to the High Sierra, some of the most beautiful parts of California's coast, to farmlands, to really great urban advantages, to the Golden Gate Bridge, to science museums and art, because there is open space and nature everywhere -- visionaries began preserving it here more than a century ago -- and because we have the climate to enjoy it year-round. (That is true for most places depending on what climate you like; with my tendency to get really sick in hot humidity, I can't bear those climates in the summer.)

I don't want to live in San Francisco though. I have before, but now, I want a yard for my dog, and I want not to have my house actually touching other houses (it's just a fire danger worry, house fires there can displace a few families), and San Francisco proper gets a bit cold and windy for me off and on all year, what with water on three sides. And I'm a gimp, and SF has a lot of uphill and downhill.

But it's a nice place to visit, and I'm glad I get to do that a lot. I discover new things there on a regular basis, though I've been visiting for nearly 50 years, and I'm glad I get to raise my child so near such a treasure.

patpat*

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

The Very Special Book Project

2011-12-31T10:37:00.001-08:00

owenIMAG1115
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

Here are some amazing cloud pictures, then I will tell you about my new project:

Kelvin–Helmholtz instability in clouds. Aren't those gorgeous? They're just unworldly. And I love the Van Gogh association.

Years ago, the director of the incredible little child-respecting school where I was teaching gave me a copy of the book, "The Sense of Wonder," by Rachel Carson. The book wasn't really finished when Carson died, and is sort of journally, and I love it. My copy was published by The Nature Company, which also died a few years back, and had beautiful pictures. In 1996, my apartment flooded slightly in one of Sacramento's "we've really got to upgrade our storm drains" neighborhood floods, and everything on the bottom couple of shelves of my bookcases was ruined, including that book. I actually rescued it, dried it out, and saved it, but it's not very readable, sort of warped and puffy.

More recently, I found a copy at a library book sale, but like every other recent version I've seen, the pictures are so-so compared to the Nature Company's edition.

So for Christmas this year, my mother-in-law Pat, Casey's mom, gave me a homemade version, with photos taken from my own flickr stream as well as, with permission, work from a couple of photographer friends of mine, Joe Decker and Lisa Ellis.

It's just lovely, and a treasure, and so incredibly thoughtful. Pat pointed out to me a couple of days ago that she had loose-bound the book, rather than had it permanently bound, so that I could continue it with our adventures in nature with Owen. Wow, I hadn't thought of that. But now I have been thinking:

I'm going to continue to use Geographile for geography posts as often as I am able, but I'm going to start a specific project of recording our adventures with Owen. I'll post them here (with photos), link it from our family blog, and print out versions as well to bind into our Sense of Wonder book. I'll keep that up as much as we can, over the years, with no hard goal -- once a week, once a month, whatever I can manage -- until it feels done.

I can give it to Owen when it's time, whenever that ends up being. Maybe he'll want to continue it himself.

better safe than sorry

2011-12-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

Dolores Park from the J Church

2011-11-27T14:49:00.001-08:00

Dolores Park from the J Church
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

Dolores Park from the J Church

fracking walken

2011-11-25T10:05:00.001-08:00

American Gasland
Originally uploaded by Marcellus Protest.

My friend Rakesh says that in View to a Kill, which I find hilarious because of the way they play fast and furious with science in terms of seismology and relevant San Francisco Bay Area geography, Christopher Walken tries to destroy the Silicon Valley (then, not long past being "Santa Clara Valley"), with fracking.

I laughed. But it's only meaningful once you've seen the movie.

catching up

2011-11-23T08:16:00.000-08:00

I want to use this blog well, but the reality is that I have a badly flaring chronic illness, an active infant approaching toddlerhood, have spent the autumn moving and unpacking, and just can't keep up with thoughtful, well-written posts. Thus, I've decided that instead of putting things aside for sharing "when I can write about them better," I'm just going to give up and share.

So here, at 6 am today, while my husband and I were hanging out with a very happy, awake infant, we were also laughing at this video. Mind you, it started with serious ooohs and aaahs at the wonder and science of melting brine turning into some sort of weird frozen stalactites projecting from the ice sheets of the Antarctic into the cold water below, then it just became a riot of giggles at the timelapse shots of starfish trying to escape the "Day after Tomorrow" scenario. It's worth a watch.

Urban Dawn

2011-11-18T19:36:00.001-08:00

Urban Dawn
Originally uploaded by Today is a good day.

wow, I wonder if these are offset for time at all, or whether there's any risk of terrorism, near airports. I guess not -- if you're close enough to be a problem, you'd see the plane, no? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=flights+overhead

On the radio now

2011-11-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

Posting a quickie from my car at the side of the road. Author Neil Ferguson is currently talking on Talk of the Nation about the rose of the West in the past six centuries and reasons for it, on Http://Npr.org. If you miss it live, check the archives, probably at http://totn.npr.org. Fascinating. Have a listen.

People think of Fremont as a cookie cutter suburb

2011-10-15T10:47:00.001-07:00

People think of Fremont as a cookie cutter suburb
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

People think of Fremont as a cookie cutter suburb

Sense of wonder

2011-10-10T10:16:00.001-07:00

Red maple, falling trees
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

There is a book by Rachel Carson called A Sense of Wonder*, which I received as a gift from a woman I taught with and for, many years ago, my first Christmas with her.

The edition she gave me was published by the lovely and now defunct Nature Company, and had lovely color photos, and came in a box.

I'd read the book over and over, pulled deeply into Carson's descriptions of the time she spent with her young grand-nephew, whom she partially raised, their hours out spent looking for the tiny "Christmas Trees" they imagined the animals used, the seedlings that were the squirrels' trees, the saplings of the young deer; how she took him out night to see the stars on the rocky beaches of Maine, or look for nocturnal tidepool animals, frustrating well-meaning friends who didn't think she should have the child out past a reasonable bedtime.

In 1997, my apartment flooded during one of Sacramento's heavy winter rainstorms. The old storm drains with their narrow terra cotta pipes couldn't handle the rate of rainfall, and a few inches of rain came into my apartment, enough to soak the bottom shelves of the bookcases, to wick up the walls, and because, one particular storm, I was out of town at the time, to allow black mold to grow up the walls, as well. One of the victims was my copy of A Sense of Wonder.

Since then, I've found a copy at the Friends of the Castro Valley Library bookstore. I gasped in delight to find it, and though I had no money with me, the volunteers let me take it home anyway. I surprised them by coming back a few days later with the two dollars they were asking (and a donation of several boxes of good books for them to sell, as we were moving), grateful for their gift.

But this one is ... lacking. Not only are the photos in black and white, they weren't necessarily meant to be, so they aren't nearly as evocative as black and white can be, it is merely an expediency of printing in an earlier age. And again because the book is an earlier publishing, it's a bit faded .... it doesn't work as well. I sit and try to read the words, and I can read them, they're wonderful, but I want the lovely pictures too.

So I'm pondering typing the whole thing out, just for me, and either illuminating it with tiny watercolor details, or using my own photos to make a pdf, and print and bind a copy, just for me, for my own reading, my own coffee table. (I'd illuminate it Sark-style, except that my arthritis thinks it's a bad idea for me to write with a pen for very long at a time.)

Where is this going? I think I'm aiming this way, too:
1) This sort of thing, the sense of wonder that Rachel Carson felt so deeply, and shared with her nephew and the world, is perhaps the biggest chunk of why I love geography. Learning about the earth helps me to become emotionally intimate with it, and vice versa, and that matters to me.
2) I need to stop thinking about the "right" ways to use this blog, geographically, and share more about my own experience of geography.

A Sense of Wonder wasn't finished by the time Rachel Carson, who remains in my pantheon of saints, passed away. It was lovingly assembled from her notes. I am so grateful to the people who thought it was valuable enough for that.

*And googling that: How did I not know about the film? Why did no one tell me?

Toward Ukiah Valley

2011-07-29T18:57:00.001-07:00

Toward Ukiah Valley
Originally uploaded by pkingDesign.

This illustrates California, for me -- like plein aire paintings. I know that some people think of it as beaches, or Hollywood, or redwoods, but green or golden hills, oak savanna or woodland, rolling into the distance, that's California.

In other news, I'm revisiting how to use this blog, and I think I'm going to try for a themed day (even if I have to frontload) about sense of place, one about conservation, and then fill in the rest sort of randomly. I'm still happy to entertain guest blogging, but I want pieces to fit my sense of geographilia.

I'm way busy now with the new kid, and we're moving to a new house (which will decrease my workload, the yard's much easier to deal with) so I'm debating whether to really put hard energy into this with the hope of "monetizing" it a bit -- google adwords? switch to wordpress and add ads? I have no idea, and it might not even be worthwhile -- or just to accept that I'm busier and scattered these days, and do it catch as catch can. I would appreciate feedback, ideas, opinions, or other discussion about that (or about California and what illustrates "California" to you).

the truest sense of awesome

2011-06-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

Today's tornado crosses the Connecticut River in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The tornado caused moderate damage and no deaths, nothing like the spate that's plagued the midwest, but still, nothing to scoff at.

The clearest version of this video - long, no titles - I've encountered is in Facebook, but that's not embeddable here. If you'd like to look, check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2063834605138

correction: four deaths

look at what liquefaction can do

2011-03-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

Isn't that amazing? Look at the water gooshing up, and the swaying dirt. Holy cow. I'd rather be in open space, even liquefying open space, in a big quake, than in the middle of a city, or *sigh* within the first few blocks of a Japanese coastal town, but still, that just makes the bottoms of my feet crawl to watch.

In the San Francisco bay area, we keep talking about building on marshes. Look at that ground! You are going to have a hard time convincing me to live on that.

I have a big Japanquake post in notepad on my desktop, just waiting for some more anchor tags and rounding out with citations, and I will finish it today. This doesn't really fit in there, though, so I'm sticking it here now. The baby is due this weekend (but might come a little late) so I'm a tad bit distracted.

look at the dot

2011-03-05T11:59:00.001-08:00

Baby's due in a week.

This is all I can think of to write, right now:

Also: I typed "look at the dog" for this title at first, and when I was opening this page, "geographile.dogspot.com". Yes, I have dogs, but this is out of hand. I can't imagine I'll survive long as a parent with brain intact.

(Blame Kimberly for the animation, she's the one who imposed it on me.)

they became casualties of their own privilege

2011-02-21T07:36:00.001-08:00

Clearcut
Originally uploaded by thekirbster.

This is happening in so many ways, right now, as it's happened throughout history. But with seven billion people, healing is harder than it once was.

You would think the rich might care, if not from empathy, then from reading history. Ultimately gross inequality can be fatal to civilization. In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning anthropologist Jared Diamond writes about how governing elites throughout history isolate and delude themselves until it is too late. He reminds us that the change people inflict on their environment is one of the main factors in the decline of earlier societies. For example: the Mayan natives on the Yucatan peninsula who suffered as their forest disappeared, their soil eroded, and their water supply deteriorated. Chronic warfare further exhausted dwindling resources. Although Mayan kings could see their forests vanishing and their hills eroding, they were able to insulate themselves from the rest of society. By extracting wealth from commoners, they could remain well-fed while everyone else was slowly starving. Realizing too late that they could not reverse their deteriorating environment, they became casualties of their own privilege. Any society contains a built-in blueprint for failure, Diamond warns, if elites insulate themselves from the consequences of their decisions, separated from the common life of the country.

- Bill Moyers

Nacreous Clouds

2011-02-11T13:38:00.000-08:00

First guest post!
Or, perhaps, a reblog, but I asked her if I could link it as a guest post.

(bigger image for gorgeous colors)

Last year, I posted a few pictures of this dazzling phenomenon I observed in the sky.

A year later, thanks to the Collins Weather Wild Guide, I have learned that what I saw were nacreous clouds, a form of iridescence.

Something I already knew: Nacreous clouds are rare, and I was very lucky to observe them.

Thanks to my longtime friend Chu_Hi on Livejournal, who wrote all of this, and took this photos from one of the giant planes in which she spends much of her waking hours. This is her photo, please don't use it without her permission.

As much as it's been hard for me to keep up with this blog all year, for no good reason, it might get harder soon as we have a baby joining our family for good in mid-March, and I'm going to be spending available time parenting for the next 18 years or so. I'm going to continue to try to maintain at least my current level of blogging, but if you're willing to toss a guest-blog post at me now and then, let me know -- geographile at gmail.com -- and we can talk.

Winter Storm kicks midwest ass and moves on

2011-02-02T16:20:00.000-08:00

And Dan, at Wild Wild Weather, discusses this relative to the massive Typhoon currently traveling over the top of Queensland after ripping off a few roofs along the way.

Much of Queensland's doom this summer (as it's still summer there) has been related to La Nina/ENSO, but how much worse is it because of climate change? We can't know exactly with regard to any storm or even series of storms, but globally, the weather is extreme this year, and that matches climate change predictions very well. Dan's got more information on that throughout his blog, one of my favorites in the field.

Breaking stereotypes but just a little

2011-01-21T09:39:00.000-08:00

http://xkcd.com/

Note that when you go to the original page, and do the traditional xkcd mouseover for minor punchline in the alt text, you get the tidbit that Uzbekistan is one of only two doubly landlocked countries. Before I look it up, I have to figure out what the other one is.

Now I want to get a blank map, with only coast lines, not borders, and fill it in like this. I can put about 2/3 of Africa and nearly all of South America. Eastern Europe and what my husband calls "Soviet Blockistan," or the parts of Asia and Europe that were formerly Soviet Union countries, are a lot harder.

The frontier is everywhere.

2011-01-11T09:37:00.000-08:00

I want to come back in some-odd thousands of years and look back, just to see where we've come, and find out what this chunk of time means in the grand scheme of things.

I'm dreaming of a white Boxing Day

2010-12-27T13:31:00.001-08:00

First: Go check out Dan's explanation of the meteorology that drove the blizzard. I'll wait. (My post is pure fluff.)

Okay, back? Here we go:

The timelapse video of the world filling with snow is fabulous. Poor little clcok!

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

Yesterday's blizzard on the northeast coast of the United States hit hard, snarling the subways and traffic, and giving people either a night stuck on a train or in a station or airport, or else a day indoors staying warm..

A satellite camera took a great shot as it moved on, leaving people to shovel out and make snow angels.

(photo: NASA Goddard)

What was your Boxing Day Blizzard 2010 like? (I'm in the San Francisco bay area. Here, it was just cool and wet.)

rompin' in a winter wonderland!

2010-12-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

Oooh, this video now contains geographilic information, so I can post it! Yay!

Bailey's human says:

I shot this video on VHS-C in my backyard, near Ward, Colorado (8,700' elevation) during a blizzard in the late 1990's; a local weatherman said it was the most measureable snow (if memory serves, it was 54" in 48 hours) from the least amount of moisture ever.

On the Earth Day of Christmas ....

2010-12-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

For a proper Christmas celebration this year, check out last year's Twelve Days of Earth Science from
Highly Allochthonous. It's beautifully silly and fun, and I wish I'd thought of it - and might just copy the idea. :D

Basking Shark, Red Sea

2010-12-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

Now I feel like I really must go kayaking in the Red Sea.

time-lapse solstice eclipse

2010-12-21T12:14:00.000-08:00

My writing fu just seems stuck lately, what with planning for impending baby, some health issues, and .... well, I have no other excuses. But here's neat time-lapse video of last night's eclipse!

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse from William Castleman on Vimeo.

I have a bookmark file full of things to write about, and rather than go on hiatus, I think I'll toss them up as I'm able. I apologize.

- Mary

Google Earth skydiving

2010-12-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

I wonder if my acrophobia would kick in.

NYC historical photos - but from whom?

2010-12-05T10:15:00.001-08:00

Aerial view of midtown Manhattan looking west from the East River
July 1944

I hope the original credits/copyright appear in the comments soon, here and/or in response to the flickr photo you can get to if you click through.

Here's another unattributed photo that I haven't found a source for. Would love to know, as I'm sure not all of these are in the public domain or creative commons. So many good photos like that are out there in the wild.

One of my favorite things about Flickr is that I can explore the creative commons photos there, and both use them and give credit where it is due.

our brightly colored slimy neighbors of the deepish

2010-12-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

From the National Science Foundation

Sea slug species Elysia chlorotica feeding on Vaucheria litorea, a yellow-green algae. E. chlorotica sequesters chloroplasts from the algae into specialized cells lining the digestive diverticulum, and the chloroplasts are photosynthetically functional for 9 to 11 months. Nuclear-encoded, algal chloroplast genes necessary to the function of the sequestered chloroplasts have been horizontally transferred and integrated into the slug genome. (Date of Image: 2009)

Nudibranchs are SO COOL.

They poop poison if they don't ingest it as defense. They dress up as poisonous critters.

And many people don't even know they exist.

Click through for image credit,
all are some form of creative commons licensed or otherwise allowed appropriate to this venue.

Winter in Star City

2010-12-02T10:53:00.001-08:00

StarCity view (at -25 C)
Originally uploaded by europeanspaceagency.

Star City, Kazakhstan
November 2010
Temperature -25C

Saving the Coral Reef One Stitch at a Time

2010-11-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

Saving the Coral Reef One Stitch at a Time - This gorgeous video isn't embeddable, but please go look. I'm currently not crocheting because my rheumatoid arthritis is acting up, but I would really love to know what your crafting work is, if you craft, and if there's a way you connect it to your love for the earth, or protecting the planet and its ecosphere.

Aurora Borealis from Tromsø, Norway

2010-11-20T18:05:00.000-08:00

Aurora Borealis timelapse HD - Tromsø 2010 from Tor Even Mathisen on Vimeo.

The rate of timelapse if evident when the shots include moving clouds. In fact, where the clouds are thicker, the effect is glowing and magical.

little cat feet

2010-11-20T17:37:00.001-08:00

San Francisco's fog is a lively, fluid, beautiful thing that keeps our midsummer beautifully moderate.

Summer in San Francisco from Michael Winokur on Vimeo.

Michael Winokur has put together a video showing our fog illuminated by lights, by sun, from above, from below, and (my favorite thing ever), as it pours like cream over the ridges of the Peninsula and Marin Headlands.

I found this via Sutro Tower (no, really - the Bay Bridge also tweets, I love the internet) on Twitter.

shimmering emerald curtains

2010-11-18T15:16:00.001-08:00

I've never seen the Aurora Borealis, just the Aurora Australis - and it looks exactly like this, just from below:

(European Space Agency pic)

I saw it from -32.7ish latitude in South Australia -- quite far north, for an aurora.

It was one of the most magical experiences of my life, and though I'd love to see another aurora, I'll take what I can get.

reduce reuse recycle

2010-11-11T16:25:00.001-08:00

Ann Arbor, Michigan
Originally uploaded by NathanAndrewWinters.

These are amazing statistics.

I have bags that I keep in the house, and bags that I keep in the car, and even one hanging from my purse, but somehow, too often I end up at the store with only one bag. When we don't have enough, I use paper bags, because we use those for other things around the house, then I can compost or recycle them.

Night Lights

2010-11-10T11:40:00.001-08:00

Night Lights
Originally uploaded by europeanspaceagency.

I'm very curious about the illuminated yellow ring here. Could that possibly be illuminated water vapor in the atmosphere, or is it more likely to be an optical effect from the window or camera, or even an artifact? It doesn't seem to be the latter, but I know little about how the various elements in this sort of photography combine. And it seems too even and too far south to have anything to do with auroras, but I could be wrong there, too.

Thin crescent moon and Mars setting behind Sugarloaf Mountain

2010-11-07T21:54:00.003-08:00

Thin crescent moon and Mars setting behind Sugarloaf Mountain
Originally uploaded by Unstrung Photo

Lovely video taken tonight. I don't know which Sugarloaf Mountain this is, but the photographer is from eastern Tennessee.

Do you know what's ridiculous about this map?

2010-11-02T20:50:00.002-07:00

California to Hawaii

Driving directions to Honolulu, HI
14 days 22 hours
I-5 N
3,748 mi

California
1. Head west on Terrace Ave toward Tivy Valley Rd 266 ft
2. Terrace Ave turns slightly left and becomes Tivy Valley Rd 0.5 mi
3. Turn right at N Piedra Rd 3.8 mi
4. Turn right at CA-180 W/E Kings Canyon Rd Continue to follow CA-180 W 19.7 mi
5. Take exit 57A to merge onto CA-99 N toward Sacramento 132 mi
6. Continue onto CA-12 E 1.0 mi
7. Continue onto CA-99 N 31.7 mi
8. Take the exit toward San Francisco/I-80 W/I-5 W/CA-99 W 1.2 mi
9. Merge onto CA-99 N/Interstate 305 W 1.3 mi
10. Take the exit onto I-5 N toward Redding
Passing through Oregon
Entering Washington 757 mi
11. Take exit 169 for NE 45th St 0.3 mi
12. Slight left at 7th Ave NE 262 ft
13. Take the 1st left onto NE 45th St 0.7 mi
14. Turn left at Wallingford Ave N 0.9 mi
15. Turn right at N 34th St 292 ft
16. Take the 1st left onto Densmore Ave N 436 ft
17. Turn right at N Northlake Way 285 ft
18. Kayak across the Pacific Ocean
Entering Hawaii
2,756 mi
19. Continue straight 0.1 mi
20. Turn left at Kuilima Dr 0.5 mi
21. Take the 3rd right onto HI-83 W 12.4 mi
22. Continue straight onto HI-99 S/Kamehameha Hwy 6.5 mi
23. Slight left at HI-80 S/Kamehameha Hwy
Continue to follow Kamehameha Hwy2.1 mi
24. Take the ramp onto I-H-2 S 8.1 mi
25. Merge onto I-H-1 E 4.7 mi
26. Take exit 13B toward Halawa Hts. Stadium 0.3 mi
27. Merge onto I-H-201 E 4.1 mi
28. Merge onto I-H-1 E 2.3 mi
29. Take exit 21A for Hawai 61 toward Pali Hwy 0.2 mi
30. Keep right at the fork, follow signs for HI-61 S/Downtown and merge onto HI-61 S/Pali Hwy
Continue to follow Pali Hwy 0.4 mi
31. Continue onto Bishop St 0.2 mi
32. Turn left at S King St 0.3 mi
33. Turn left at Likelike St 446 ft

Honolulu, HI

It's just silly. Why would you waste time and gas driving to Puget Sound only to have to kayak that much farther to Honolulu? Kayaks are available for rental all along Monterey Bay, which is nice and central within California, as well as north and south along the entire coast.

Sheesh.

first rickroll in space

2010-10-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

I love video of uncontrolled helium balloon descents.

I had to look this up because I am a nerd.

2010-10-20T17:27:00.001-07:00

Bridge abstract
Originally uploaded by raindog.

A friend of mine on Facebook asked whether it's true that, as she heard on today's Giants/Phillies broadcast, it's true that there's enough wire in the Golden Gate Bridge to go around the earth three times.

So I looked:

The Bridge's official site says:
Total length of galvanized steel wire used in both main cables: 80,000 mi = 129,000 km

Matt at geography.about.com says:
The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles (40,075.16 kilometers).

Thus: Yes.

In other news. I've been slacking way off here, and I don't want to. I might ask friends to write guest posts, and I might just frontload like crazy out of my Delicio.us tags, or I might continue to make excuses. We eagerly await the birth of what is bound to be a very smart and cute baby, which is leaving me in a dreamy haze.

I will try, though, to make this blog more readable and comment-friendly.

-Mary

NASA GOES-13 Full Disk view of Earth September 24, 2010

2010-09-25T11:24:00.001-07:00

NASA GOES-13 Full Disk view of Earth September 24, 2010
Originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

How can I not want to work to protect this? Its shield is so fragile, and the space underneath that shield is getting so messy.

NASA GOES-13 Full Disk view of Earth September 24, 2010

NASA/NOAA GOES 13 satellite image showing earth on September 24, 2010 17:45 UTC.

Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project

US Map

2010-09-09T17:14:00.001-07:00

US Map
Originally uploaded by Andrew Goldsmith.

so that's what tornado sirens sound like

2010-09-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

This is from a couple of hours ago, as a tornado moved across Dallas, and everyone with a camera found a place to video from.

Christchurch earthquake pictures

2010-09-03T18:11:00.001-07:00

Christchurch earthquake
Originally uploaded by johnstewartnz.

(way down at the bottom are quake preparedness commentary and a video)

(Look at that vertical displacement!)
(edit: A couple of f riends have since reminded me that "displacement" is a specific geologic term with regard to quakes. This offset might not be ground displacement as much as separation due to liquefaction or localized sinking.)

(above photos by digitalsadhu

(above photos by John Stewart

(above photos by Brendan Gloistein

After I looked at these, I reminded my husband that we haven't replaced the attachment hardware for our bookshelves, so we'll do that this weekend.

We also need to re-inventory our quake kit and find out what we need to replace. My favorite list of supplies is sfgate.com.

Folks from Christchurch respond to last night's big quake:

The panicky woman couldn't have known then (and many folks don't know, in general) that the quake wasn't really big enough for a tsunami, especially given as it was centered under land. They're usually from bigger quakes centered under water, with specific seismological conditions. But when the ground has bounced you out of bed in the wee hours of a winter's morning, that's probably not your first thought.

there's a lot going on down there

2010-09-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

It's not exactly as good as being on the ISS, but it's still amazing:

Timelapse of Earth from low orbit. The lights below, the aurorae, just lovely. I want to lie in the cupola and stare.

Earl: Now, in AQUAVISION

2010-09-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

Oh, how neat is this? The blue shows water vapor, or as the caption states:

Aquavision False color image from GOES-E Satellite taken on September 2, 2010 0000 UTC.

RGB[IR4, IR2, WV] composite. In the image Category 4 Hurricane Earl moves northwest towards a frontal system draped across the North America that had deformed in to a straight wall. The blue water vapor outflow of Hurricane Earl swoops down to the SW, while the overall flow of the frontal system moves water vapor from the tropical system near Baha California up towards Greenland.

Image credits: EUMETSAT / NEODASS / DSRS / NASA / processing by Mike Malaksa

A beer company chimes in on saving the Colorado

2010-09-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

And I find this just as a friend from New Mexico tells me of some rather horrible water conservation mayhem in her neck of the woods, so I'm going to get on top of some research -- oooh, content. This blog might have content!

(Note: On a scale of NSFWness, this is a 3 on a 1-10 scale, where 1 is Mister Rogers.)

Hurricane Earl from Space

2010-09-02T11:05:00.001-07:00

Hurricane Earl from Space
Originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

Hurricane Earl takes up a huge chunk of planet. Regardless of whether the eye makes landfall -- and it still seems likely that the track will curve to the north then east, and miss land -- this is going to make one heck of a stormy Labor Day Weekend on the east coast of North America.

Crescent Moon

2010-08-26T11:45:00.001-07:00

Crescent Moon
Originally uploaded by lrargerich.

‎"The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church." — Ferdinand Magellan

Cotopaxi volcano

2010-08-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

What a lovely Milky Way, just rotating right over the top of it!

(Found via Lane Hartwell, a local photographer.)

Earth from the ISS, cloud shadows

2010-08-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

"From space I saw Earth,
indescribably beautiful
and with the scars of national boundaries gone."
Muhammad Ahmad Faris, astronaut

Ah, India

2010-07-31T11:30:00.001-07:00

Bangalore to Mysore distance by road is about 140 kilometers. The approximate driving time is 3 hours, including a short brake in between.

orographic terminology

2010-07-29T17:17:00.001-07:00

My friend Joe asks a specific cloud question:

Joe: Okay, an earth sciencey sort of question for you. In greenland I often saw cloud formations that sort of formed a belt half way up a cliff, e.g.,

Roughly speaking, my question is "does that have a cool name?" and "what's up with that?" Okay, that's two questions. :)

Can you explain? Is there a name for that kind of cloud position/type?

(I did tell him why the cloud formed there - but beyond that, I know not.)

Joe's going back to Greenland in a few days to take more pictures. Check out the rest of his Above the Arctic Circle work, -- he's good at making geography visible.

Maybe I need a geotat theme blog

2010-07-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

Another geotat off tumblr.

In Santa Cruz, once, I saw someone with California on his entire right arm, Lake Tahoe at the elbow, etc. Seeing it move was weird, especially as there aren't any fault that make the state move just like that. ;)

And if you like tattoos, you should definitely check out Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium!

way slow lightning

2010-07-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

Watch the timestamp move. The whole video is slowed down to 1/300 speed.

It's interesting to watch the big bolts form, and disappear, but I am in love with all the tiny baby bolts.

I love this tattoo so much I could pop

2010-07-24T14:08:00.001-07:00

The caption on the tumblr page says,
"pangaea. hoping it will stretch into it’s current positions as I get older and fatter."

Oh yeah. :D

(Note: This is not ink on me. I found it tumblrward.)

that weird green stuff

2010-07-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

How cool is this?
As I explore my Yosemite astro-timelapses, I realize my Canon 5dM2 was picking up faint aurora borealis the whole time! (from @YosemiteSteve on twitter)

What an awesome treat, and it looks hard to have noticed in the moment.

2009's Atlantic/Caribbean tropical storms, all at once

2010-07-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

NASA and NOAA have put together a four-minute time-lapse animation of the 2009 hurricane season:

I find myself trying to peer beyond the bottom right corner, to see what's going on between the Caribbean and Africa.

At least as interesting as watching the tropical depressions form and move, though, are the way clouds form over Central America. I'd like to watch a time lapse of Panamanian skies from the ground below, based on this.

Galilean thermometer in the sun

2010-07-17T22:49:00.001-07:00

Galilean thermometer in the sun
Originally uploaded by battyden

My friend Den posted this pretty danged awesome time-lapse video of a Galilean thermometer slowly warming up and moving in the sun.

I have no idea how these work. Are you willing to explain to me, or shall I look it up? ;)

the sky is falling

2010-07-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here's some fascinating video from Yosemite Park, showing and discussing the process of rock falls:

Geologists discuss the rock falls, and their effect on park visitors, and there's some great video from a park visitor.

The video's a granite-lover's dream, with obligatory spectacular views of Yosemite as well.

I'm feeling less inclined to scramble in the talus looking for pikas than I might once have been.

Does the information in this video affect how you would use Yosemite, or whether you would visit the park or similar areas?

it's like alabaster

2010-07-10T11:59:00.001-07:00

NEM ACREDITO QUE TIREI ESSA FOTO
Originally uploaded by JOSÉ LOPES.

What a lovely photo of our moon. When I was little, I thought the daytime moon was translucent, like the little alabaster elephant lantern my grandmother had on a table in the hallway.

death by clam?

2010-06-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

That's a horrible and fascinating phrase.

I have no idea when this short National Geographic web exclusive on Hulu.com will last, but it's here now:

I'm a big fan of molluscs, I find them endlessly fascinating. (I also find them occasionally tasty. I'm about 99% vegetarian, but small bivalves rock my culinary world.)

I didn't really know much about giant clams. I guess I assumed that they lived in the deep sea (they don't), and that they were a lot like large versions of normal clam species. But they have nifty skin not unlike a squid's (less shiftingly chromatophoric*), and I had no idea about their relationship with algae!

Also, let it be said that the diver at the end of this clip is a doofus. Don't go messing with sea animals or coral reefs, Doofus Diver.

*It's amazing what blogger labels as incorrectly spelled. What, that's not a word?

I am surrounded by bad influences

2010-06-28T16:20:00.001-07:00

cern_aerial
Originally uploaded by riowight.

My husband and his friend Andy discuss CERN placement:

Andy: I wonder why it's specifically on the French-Swiss border.
Casey: Probably more to do with geography than politics
Casey: CERN is a pragmatic bunch.
Andy: I mean, won't that sloow the particles down? They have to whip out their little particle passports and go through particle customs twice per loop.
Casey: Sorry, didn't see the joke coming, you must have sent it faster than the cluons could reach me.

Around the world

2010-06-25T13:05:00.001-07:00

Found via Design is Mine, a gorgeous collection of globular glory.

flickr friday : around the world.
Originally uploaded by indierocket.

I spent hundreds of hours in my childhood poring over globes. I loved the relief globes best, ours at home was worn over the Alps and Andes and Himalaya and Rockies where I'd run the tip of my index finger over the ridges time and time again. I'm currently smitten with a globe I saw in a catalog a couple of years ago that has your basic political map on it until the light inside is turned on, when it becomes a star map. Our local plastic-epoxy-and-stuff store, mostly used by sign-makers and fiberglass-molders, sells inflatable globes that are only so much vinyl and poppable, disposable stuff, and what would I do with one? But I want one.

I think my favorite globe-fact, over my life, has been that if the relief on my favorite kind of globe were true scale, I wouldn't be able to feel them.

Get under the pool table, dude

2010-06-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

It goes dark, but listen to the end, or almost to the end. I'm not sure I'd be as copacetic.

Solstice is serious business

2010-06-20T00:52:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, at a friend's Solstice celebration, I caught a shot of my dear friends Kimberly and Sue trying so hard not to giggle during a quiet moment that they were nearly crying.

How could they explain that from their angle, they could see a cat trying to find a use for the sand in the bottom of the straw man at the center of the ritual?

The cat, apparently, had missed the memo about rituals being serious business.

Multitouch Mapping Exhibit at Oakland Museum of California

2010-06-17T22:36:00.001-07:00

Multiotuch Mapping Exhibit at Oakland Museum of California
Originally uploaded by ideum

The Oakland Museum of California has been one of my favorite places since I first visited in the eighties. It's always been a relatively simple, lovely, open museum, with a California focus. The top floor had art from California artists, sculpture and furniture and huge, gold-framed oils showing Yosemite waterfalls in the 1800s. The second floor was a rather overwhelming but comprehensive walk through California history.

The bottom floor, my favorite, was all about the California natural history, the river otters and acorn woodpeckers and bivalves in the bay mud.

There was a gigantic relief map, and a huge whirling globe (in my icon!), and outside a koi pond with a big acrylic sculpture in it.

The green central (roof?) area sometimes hosted musical events, small festivals, wine-tastings. The lecture halls had a regular schedule of California-relevant educational events. The cafe was lovely, inexpensive for fairly good food, with a window above the pond, looking out into the peace.

Then it closed for awhile, for a deep remodeling. At first I was fussed that I couldn't attend, then I sort of forgot about it. When it half-reopened (the natural history section is due to open next year), I sort of forgot to go back.

Looking around for maps on Flickr tonight (I am a special kind of nerd) I found this little video about Ideum's interactive historic map display at the museum. OMG. The internet is indeed for (map) porn. I'm checking my schedule for the next week or so to find out when I should go to the newly reopened Oakland Museum of California.

smart, but not always well-spoken

2010-06-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

The Raging Grannies have an opinion

2010-06-09T19:52:00.001-07:00

Okay okay one more! But I promise content just as soon as I finish dinner dishes.

srsly

2010-06-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

1999 ad.

Now I need to get working on content. Too much fluff and image-linking lately.

Ah, Kansas

2010-06-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

(Yes, I know this is from the Onion. But still, Kansas. And Texas. Nuff said.)

Irony

2010-06-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

(via MoveOn on Twitter)

geocake!

2010-06-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

Oh, the things we find on Tumblr!

Geocake!

I'm back from vacation in Alaska and will write some bloggy stuff about it very soon, as soon as I rest.

That might be as soon as the SF Bay Area gets over this uncharacteristic combo of heat and humidity.

South What?

2010-05-15T12:04:00.001-07:00

This oil leak is almost exhausting to think about

2010-05-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

Oil and gas stream from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico:

Of course, this is wreaking havoc on animals and ecosystems in the area. Tuna have no eyelids, you know? They can't protect themselves from the oil. Dolphins and birds are becoming hurt, many are dying.

There are many ways to help, including advocating for an end to offshore drilling, for alternative energy sources, and by working to help clean up beaches and marshes, and to take care of animals.

Here's one:

layers on blended layers

2010-05-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

I've had this picture of my friend Heather's yarn up in a tab for hours because I keep coming back to stare at it. It reminds me so much of the layers of the Earth.

Geography Girl

2010-05-02T13:40:00.001-07:00

Geography Girl
Originally uploaded by brentdanley.

I love that this geography picture keeps getting new notes appended. It reminds me of my urge to decorate a family room in maps, with globes and orreries and and old navigation tools everywhere.

Now all I need is my own family room, with a house to put it in.

(Click through to the photo on flickr to add your location to her maps.)

World back-up

2010-05-01T19:02:00.001-07:00

World back-up
Originally uploaded by Daniel Montesinos.

Randomly found while looking for old California maps. I have nothing to say about this (except that I'd spend my life having detail added).

earth-shattering kabooms!

2010-04-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

Brian Romans, from Clastic Detritus, pointed out on twitter that in recent Icelandic volcano footage, one can see amazing shock waves propagating through the ash cloud after explosions.

Wow! The air vibrates beautifully. Have a look. It happens several times in this video.

Wikipedia says, incidentally, that

The name Eyjafjallajökull is made up of the words eyja (genitive plural of ey, meaning eyot or island), fjalla (genitive plural of fjall, whose nominative plural is fjöll, meaning fells or mountains) and jökull (meaning glacier, cognate with the -icle in icicle). A literal translation would thus be the "island-fells glacier" or the "island-mountains glacier". The name Eyjafjöll describes the southern side of the volcanic massif together with the small mountains which form the foot of the volcano. The village and museum of Skógar are also part of the region undir Eyjafjöllum (meaning "under the Eyjafjalls").

So it's Eyjafjöll that's erupting? It's complicated.

so much left to explore

2010-04-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

(as usual, there's more to the comic if you click through and mouseover for the alt text.)

our tiny world

2010-04-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity and pleasure today to listen to a live-streamed lecture from Professor Brian Cox, at Manchester University, about the LHC, exploring space, and curiosity-driven science.

He talked about the LHC, and the math involved in research of subatomic particles, quarks, Higgs, a little about electromagnetism. He pointed out Earth in one of my favorite solar system photographs.

He reminded his listeners that it's important to know why we're doing what we're doing, and that for him, like for Sagan, one must start with the beauty and wonder, then get into the details as part of that. Richard Feynman was another scientist who held that mastery, who was delighted at the world, the universe, and for whom science was an expression of that delight.

Prof. Cox wound down his lecture with this, from Carl Sagan, who was responding to a photograph taken from Voyager, as it looked back on the solar system it had just traveled through:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

I was going to put together an Earth Day post today, and I might still -- it's a busy day, I wasn't prepared ahead of time.

But I think that Sagan had it all, right there. The rest is just detail, it's about how to do it. That's what I'll get into later.

I'm so glad someone did this

2010-04-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

from @banger1977 on twitter:

happy tinkling lava

2010-04-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

It's flash, so I can't embed it, but just *listen* to the cooling lava tinkle like broken glass as it falls off the face of the flow:
Awesome volcano video, not so pleased about non-embeddable flash, but heck, it's a Canon ad, no?

This (radar?) image from April 15 looks ominous:

Playing with the Devil

2010-04-15T22:18:00.001-07:00

Playing with the Devil
Originally uploaded by skarpi.

Yahoo has very cleverly made a "yahoo editors' picks" account on flickr to organize pictures in galleries.

These are their favorites for the Iceland volcano:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yahooeditorspicks/galleries/72157623855495574

Goodness gracious

2010-04-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

Dan Satterfield linked on his facebook page this news video of the meteor that lit up the midwest last night:

The Christian Science Monitor (which has a great photo of the fireball) says

A large flash of light at about 10 p.m. Wednesday night – described as a fireball in the sky by eyewitnesses from Wisconsin to Missouri – was most likely a meteor from the ongoing Gamma Virginids meteor shower.
It is unknown whether the meteor in Wisconsin, which was seen flying eastward at an altitude of 6,000 to 12,000 feet, hit the ground or burned up in the atmosphere.

There's more at that link.

Updates on the European ash situation

2010-04-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

From AlJazeera, an information-filled and relatively accurate story (text story at that link) about the effects of Eyjafjallajokull's eruption:

The BBC has more too, on their site, including this important tidbit: "The UK's air traffic control service (Nats) said no flights would be allowed in UK airspace until at least 0700 BST on Friday amid fears of engine damage."

Today's ashcloud from space:

Because the clouds make it hard to see a visible-light photo, the Norwegian meteorological office released this one

(I'm a tad embarrassed to ask: What wavelength is this? not infrared.)

The glow from the ground:

Eyjafjallajokull volcano still erupts dramatically

2010-04-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

My initial reaction was actually (in text, to a friend), "omg omg omg omfg geology."

Right now, several airports in Europe (specifically Norway and the UK) are closed because of ash.

Boston.com's "The Big Picture," one of the best photoblogs on the web, collected pictures of the volcano and its effects today. Some aren't the usual fare, some are especially dramatic, but I think one that most caught my eye was #11 - people in snow gear, standing on dirty snow with ski poles stuck in it, watching flowing lava from a few feet away.

(And for the sake of fun: KCBS said, on twitter: "Why we're just calling it 'a volcano in Iceland'. Try saying this: Mt. Eyjafjallajökull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl)" Wikipedia provides the IPA [ˈɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœkʏtl̥]) and an audio clip to unconfuse things.)

Addendum: My friend Ailbhe, in the thick of things, clarifies the current airport closure and flight diversion issues -- "UK, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, north Finland, Belgium, north France, the Netherlands in parts" -- and provides a link to a good reason: Volcanic ash destroys airplane engines catastrophically.

Fascinating Northridge quake coverage

2010-04-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

I did spot one major technical/factual mistake, though.

(Have I posted this before, years ago? I should look. But it's a cold, rainy morning, and the dog is asleep on me, and that sounds like a lot of work for today.)

time-lapse lava flow and rock-making in hawaii

2010-04-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Earth is a living thing, truly.

Whoa, earthquake

2010-04-05T09:46:00.001-07:00

(Clicking through, of course, gets you to the alt-text for the comic, which you can mouseover for more info, and/or humor.)

7.2 quake in Baja California today

2010-04-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

What scientists are guessing so far:

The fault that triggered the quake was probably located on one of the many faults south of the San Andreas fault, [seismologist Lucy] Jones said. The fault is probably about 40 to 50 miles long, and probably shook for 20 to 30 seconds. The worst shaking would have occurred closest to the fault, said [seismologist Lucy] Jones .

She said scientists would not have enough information to identify the fault until geologists survey the area.

The quake occurred at the junction between two tectonic plates, the Pacific and the North American, that grind against each other through Baja California and California. The quake is probably on a strike-slip fault, which splices through the ground vertically and causes land to move horizontally.

A house collapses in on itself in Mexicali.

A telephone pole pulls wires down in Mexicali

Cars drive over a slightly buckled road in Mexicali

Commercial buildings crumble slightly in Mexicali

A picnic area shifts dramatically

In Ensenada, a twitterer's laptop sits open in front of gaping wall cracks. (Note Tweetdeck open, perhaps following the news.)

And in El Centro, California, a family's deck lies in their back yard. I thought we had better construction standards than that!

Animation: Dust (or smoke? probably dust) rises from the Mexicali area following the quake

More news is coming in, of course, the "did you feel it?" map is still changing. The quake was only 10 km deep, and I have no doubt we'll hear about more damage than is known so far. As quakes usually are, this one will be another learning experience.

Science communicators are climate heroes

2010-04-03T20:03:00.001-07:00

USGS Science in Action
Originally uploaded by U.S. Geological Survey.

The general public really needs a good bridge between sometimes complicated science and what we are able to assemble into a useful picture. Clear, simple, fact-rich science communication is essential, good science communicators are priceless anymore.

That's why Dan Satterfield is one of my favorite science communicators. He's direct, smart, and really gets to the point, understanding what his readers need filled in. His most recent blog post really makes that clear to me. Dan goes step by step through not only the reasons why climate change is now scientific reality (with some amazement at the TV weather people who dismiss it as myth), but he also insists its the TV meteorologist's obligation to sort it out for the watchers, for the folks at home whose only exposure to real scientists and balanced science throughout the day might be what they get from their trusty TV weatherguy.

Dan's also just plain good folks. But he's good folks with a sharp mind, and the kind of understanding of his audience (both for his blog, and on TV in Alabama) that teaches rather than preaches, that informs rather than lambasts, that gets the point across in the way we need right now.

He's the kind of science communicator that we can point at as part of the solution to the problem. When you hear people saying, "If only we could communicate science to the masses," point them to Dan's blog, and say, "You mean, like that?"

frazil ice in Yosemite National Park

2010-04-02T11:11:00.001-07:00

Steven Bumgardner, who produces Yosemite Nature Notes for the National Park Service, shot some video of "frazil ice" on the Merced River in the park this week, as a cold early spring storm moved across California.

I'd never heard of frazil ice before. Now, because I must look things up compulsively, I'm learning about it. Wikipedia says, "Frazil ice is a collection of loose, randomly oriented needle-shaped ice crystals in water. It resembles slush...," which probably explains why I'm imagining margaritas. And Hajo Eicken at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, says

The word frazil means fine spicules or blobs, which gracefully describes the morphology of the crystal. Sea ice growth always begins with frazil ice production, the only true dendritic ice growth phase. Active convection aids sensible heat transport at the ocean surface, thereby super cooling the water and allowing dendritic growth of ice crystals.

This is so cool. Spicules and blobs. Scientific terminology rocks. ("Dendritic," of course, means it's like branches of a tree, like drainage in a river delta, or the shape of a neuron.)

The waterfalls of Yosemite must be delightful just now.

The shaping of the Great Lakes, in an hour

2010-03-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

The History Channel's new series, "How the Earth was Made," is mostly just scientific enough for me today, as I'm fighting a low fever, and wanted to stare at something educational without spraining too many neurons. Today I sat down with Hulu and watched an episode about the creation of the Great Lakes.

I knew some of it, such as the glacial history, but hadn't known about the igneous origins of the floor beneath Superior and Ontario. The series is presented in steps, giving evidence for theories (with a bit of the History Channel's typical "but that's not all" and "there's more they didn't know," and "but still, mystery remained" drama), then before each ad, recapping the bits. I appreciated those, it helped me knit the story in stages before going on to the next chapter in the story.

As it turns out, I had no idea how fast Niagara Falls was receding. Do you know? What would you guess? Watch the show and see. I was a tad stunned.

(If the Hulu.com video expires, you can find the video for sale at the History Channel website, with a few clips and full episodes still available.)

Do I corrupt my friends or do they corrupt me?

2010-03-23T03:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Andy sent me this IM conversation with our friend Paul:

Paul: what is the tensile strength of ROCK AND ROLL quick I need to build this city on it
Andy: The tensile strength of ROCK AND ROLL isn't relevant. Unless you planned to build this city out of it.
Andy: Since you want to build the city *on* Rock and Roll, you'd want to know it's ductility.
Andy: The ductility determines how big the buildings can be without risking sinkage. also, in earthquake zones, low-ductility Rock and Roll would lead to liquifaction, damaging entire regions of the city.

I might be weird, but my friends might be weirder.

Simple Pleasures

2010-03-22T17:35:00.001-07:00

I just had one of my best bird experiences ever.

I've been paying attention to birds since I was pretty young, but I rarely go out and seek the rare ones. I tend to marvel at what's nearby.

I'm very happy that I got to see a Long-tailed Jaeger once, when it was lost in Mono County, and I was very excited when my husband (decidedly not "a birder") identified a Heerman's Gull along a path a bit west of Monterey Bay Aquarium. But mostly, I revel in the air-coasting of Turkey Vultures, and the way the American Robins fill my yard every March, and the markings of the hundreds of Cedar Waxwings in our local trees (they have a wheezy, tuneless song that is irrelevant given their gorgeous fancy clothes).

I like birds for learning about what they do. I like being able to spot a Western Scrub-jay without glasses on (my glasses, not the jay's) from the way its short swooping glides bring it down from a tree, and I like knowing that we have Black Phoebes because we're near a stream, and they eat bugs (they're at the local dog park for the same reason: flies love those trash cans!), and I like knowing that though the Cooper's Hawks in the neighborhood might be after our chickens, the Red-shouldered Hawks would prefer our pocket gophers. Our garden is grateful for Red-shouldered Hawks.

Today's event was both wonderful for its commonness and what it told me about basic bird behavior, and exhilarating for its sheer wonderfulness.

I was out in the driveway collecting mail, and as usual, our rooster jumped up onto the chicken pen's gate to let me know he was Still The Man. He crowed, and I said "Hi, Rooster," then over my head, in the tulip magnolia tree, a male Anna's Hummingbird began his squeaky territorial chirping. It's fully spring here, so the hummingbirds are nesting, and Anna's Hummingbirds are the kings of the "Gerroff my LAWN!" attitude. (I remember reading an article years ago in Smithsonian magazine describing the hummingbird migration in Arizona. One ranger at a state park told a visitor that if hummingbirds were the size of ravens, it would be unsafe to go outside. When a visitor exclaimed about the belligerent males, "They're so sweet, and so tiny!" he replied, "Yes ma'am, they are tiny.") I noted to myself that the rooster and the hummingbird (also a rooster, in his tiny way) were doing the exact same thing, crowing at the entire world to say that they were indeed The Man.

I couldn't see the hummingbird (no glasses on, and he was in a tree with hummingbird-sized leaves and blossoms), but when he flew over to another tree and began to chirp there, he was obvious. The sun was behind me, and as he moved slightly on his stick-end, he flashed with an almost inorganic magenta, the refractive feathers on his head and gorget throwing photons back at me. And then in a flash, he went up, up, and vanished. I kept my eyes on him as long as I could, but he was, it seemed, nearing escape velocity.

Anna's hummingbirds have the most amazing behavior. Sometimes they swoop down in huge, steep parabolas, making a sort of … ding? bing? musical pop? at the bottom of the dive. They'll fly up, out of sight, then down. I've seen them do this before, from slightly to the side, watched them form the parabola shape. But this time it wasn't quite overhead, I craned my neck up, staring directly at the sky, and the bird quickly became a dot, then disappeared. I knew he had to be diving in a moment, but where?

Then bam! or rather BING! Right over my face! The bugger had dived at my head as I stared and I never saw him. They are very, very fast. From the sound's direction and volume and the sudden bzzt! of wings, I estimate that the vertex of his dive was 2 to 3 feet over my head, and that's close enough.

My heart pounded, I clasped my hands to my chest and said, "Oh BOY!" The little hummingbird was up again, and gone.

It's quite easy to make me happy, really.

Hummingbird Diving In Action from Science News on Vimeo
Photo on top from Alan Vernon.

Imagine being terrified of tiny tremors, for good reason

2010-03-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

The recent 5.6 earthquake in Cuba brought down a house in Haiti, and killed two people (at least, so far).

In a country as shaky with aftershocks as Haiti has been, and recent torrential rains making life miserable for people who live under tarps, and still live in gullies (as they have for a long time), imagine if every time the earth shook just a little, you feared for your life. The people under tarps are wetter, but perhaps safer.

Geographile

Early commuting

River Otter 301V7933-3.jpg

over the Palace of Fine Arts

I only went out for a walk.....

San Francisco is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

*pat*pat*

The Very Special Book Project

better safe than sorry

Dolores Park from the J Church

fracking walken

catching up

Urban Dawn

On the radio now

People think of Fremont as a cookie cutter suburb

Sense of wonder

Toward Ukiah Valley

the truest sense of awesome

look at what liquefaction can do

look at the dot

they became casualties of their own privilege

Nacreous Clouds

Winter Storm kicks midwest ass and moves on

Breaking stereotypes but just a little

The frontier is everywhere.

I'm dreaming of a white Boxing Day

rompin' in a winter wonderland!

On the Earth Day of Christmas ....

Basking Shark, Red Sea

time-lapse solstice eclipse

Google Earth skydiving

NYC historical photos - but from whom?

our brightly colored slimy neighbors of the deepish

Winter in Star City

Saving the Coral Reef One Stitch at a Time

Aurora Borealis from Tromsø, Norway

little cat feet

shimmering emerald curtains

reduce reuse recycle

Night Lights

Thin crescent moon and Mars setting behind Sugarloaf Mountain

Do you know what's ridiculous about this map?

first rickroll in space

I had to look this up because I am a nerd.

NASA GOES-13 Full Disk view of Earth September 24, 2010

US Map

so that's what tornado sirens sound like

Christchurch earthquake pictures

there's a lot going on down there

Earl: Now, in AQUAVISION

A beer company chimes in on saving the Colorado

Hurricane Earl from Space

Crescent Moon

Cotopaxi volcano

Earth from the ISS, cloud shadows

Ah, India

orographic terminology

Maybe I need a geotat theme blog

way slow lightning

I love this tattoo so much I could pop

that weird green stuff

2009's Atlantic/Caribbean tropical storms, all at once

Galilean thermometer in the sun

the sky is falling

it's like alabaster

death by clam?

I am surrounded by bad influences

Around the world

Get under the pool table, dude

Solstice is serious business

Multitouch Mapping Exhibit at Oakland Museum of California

smart, but not always well-spoken

The Raging Grannies have an opinion

srsly

Ah, Kansas

Irony

geocake!

South What?

This oil leak is almost exhausting to think about

layers on blended layers

patpat*