return of the apples

Some of you may remember this post from last year. An illustration of an apple tree that was supposed to in some way represent a flow chart of scientific method. Well, joy of joys and surprise of surprises, I received the following diagram to illustrate the importance of Newton's "discovery" relative to our current understanding of the operation of the Solar System!
I like it for the following reasons:
a) it includes an apple tree, but this time it is relevant
b) there is a squirrel running up the apple tree
c) the apples are more or less apple shaped

Yay!


As an aside, but also involving student drawings... how great is this dinosaur???

Quotes from essays on supercontinents

Thankfully (I think) these are not all from one paper. Not included are the ones that rambled about steam from climate change influencing continents and imagery describing boxes of cheezits out onto a table being similar to plate tectonics...

"The reason our continents are the way they are is because an asteroid hasn't hit us. This is just my idea, but a asteroid has destroyed the earlier super continents, what makes our regular continents so different. It is said that one day Greenland will hit Iceland if I remember correctly."

"While seafloors are expanding, abyssal plains are contracting into the earth's mantle because of gravity."

"The erosion processes that took place along the plate boundaries of the continents had made them drift away from one another by the force of the sun and gravity."

"Some scientists think that land masses break up and orbit the globe before getting back together again..."

"The supercontinent cycles has been theorized to have been going on for 40 billion years."

"Since the hypothesis states that when these super continents were formed and broken up by heat underneath them, then isn't that what's going to happen? When of if the ice melted, the surface would become much hotter, and the core would seem as if it were hotter because the ice was gone to cool the top. With all of this heat coming from both directions, would greatly weaken all of the rock underneath and on top of the continents, then maybe the drifting would occur..."

This one frightened and confused me, so it's a long quote - read at your own risk!

"So how did the supercontinent really separate? I believe over the years of construction and destruction of the world then was what we call weathering and erosion today. The colder it got the moisture of the ground changed due to water. Volcanoes played the heat factor and we all know if you take a lot of water to wet the ground it creates mud, and then if then subject the mud to extreme heat it creates cracks in the ground and in my opinion that's kind of what happened just a bigger boom effect. The cracks were so severe it separated the ground and that's how we gotten the smaller continents. Once the Earth's moisture stabilized the continents merged back into the bigger continent known as Pangea. However, it happened again but the last time the Earth's atmosphere never stabilized so the huge continent stayed separated, and the world has been changing ever since..."

Trilobite Cookies!

It's been a looooooong time since I last made these little guys - and besides that I discovered how crappy my oven really is today, I also remember how much labour goes into the cute and delicious bugs below. They are basically a shortbread cookie (with "creative" fork marks) and a dark chocolate face (all the mystery is blown now).


Some of you may remember me having made these for Gronch before. Their eyes were definitely smaller then. I used Reese's Pieces this time, and they look pretty "googly" - also the pack of Pieces didn't have enough for the batch of cookies, so I had to resort to fragments of nuts for the remaining eyes. Oh well. They're still pretty cute!

Sleeping Gourd

Awesome custom order from Etsy that allowed me to get back into my creative brain. Fun!

knitting, what's that?

It's about time I posted some knitting on this blog - but to be perfectly honest, the knitting has been pretty lagging lately. I started this blanket... oh, about a year ago. With a couple of productive spurts this fall, it now resembles a square, and now I'm trying to push on to get a border (the blue wools around the edge there) accomplished - and then... I have to figure out a lining/backing of sorts. But oh well, here's the start!


Oh yes, and in a fit of procrastination, I'm now on "ravelry" which is likely to result in even more procrastination. 'Tis the season!

actual size

On my return from eating my way through American thanksgiving, I spied the sticker in the rear view window of this Cooper Mini...

Caught!

Oh Pillsbury, is there nothing you cannot do? We were surprised to find Pillsbury brand Samosas "heat and eat" in the freezer section yesterday. Granted, this was the freezer section of A-1 Indian Grocery... but still, Pillsbury? Samosas?



Today I was surprised to find that Felix the Cat sells Cadillacs. I get the 50's style connotation, but it still seems like an odd product choice to me. I'd most definitely be buying the Pillsbury brand samosas before I'd go here!

is it a bug?

I put down my reservation payment. Now it's just a waiting game...
APTERA

winding down

This semester has been unusually draining, and this weekend capped off the last of the "for credit" field trips I had planned. For something different, but to go to an old favourite - I decided to try out an afternoon/evening trip to Red Rock Canyon so that we could take a gander at constellation spotting. It was a beautiful day, nice temperature, and I borrowed my Rock Buddy's fabulous green laser pointer for pointing out stuff far away in the night sky.


To my sheer delight, the amphitheater at Red Rock blocked out the big shiny moon for hours and we had an amazing view. Armed with binoculars (thanks daddy!) we were actually able to see, shockingly clearly, the Andromeda Galaxy (also known as M31), the Orion Nebula (aka M42), and two of Jupiter's moons (though they were only pin pricks). I assembled a collage of sorts to show my students what we had been looking at:

The Great Southern California Shakeout

Today marked a state-wide earthquake drill - and all week the Geology Club hosted the "GeOlympics" to promote earthquake awareness on campus. The GeOlympics included a "guess the weight of the rock" contest, "volcanic bomb toss", "strong man lift", and "seismic scavenger hunt". They also sold reusable grocery bags, magnets, and other things for fundraising.

Some of them at their table (totally reminiscent of my days in Miller Club, *sigh*)

Bomb toss - check out the perfect football shaped rock!

Demonstrating duck & cover - but they should be holding on to something!!!

Today, in addition to handing out the Earthquake Preparedness Guide, they also sold their Earthquake Disaster Kits - which were pretty awesome, I must say.

Strong man lift!

The depressing world of teaching today

*SIGH*

Albedo: great thick walls/snow earth located by albedo
--- the tip of mineral that is flat and can stack easy
--- the minerals that contain several species to the material
--- is when glaciers melt. Slowly.

Luster: minerals that tend to pass through the surface
--- some kind of minerals that are found in the desert

Clastic: the way something move through or around the Earth. That has to do with the surface
--- is when minerals in a sedimentary rock are not touching

Loess: a stream that is deflating of water

Porphyritic: in which gravity obtains pressure to the object

Q: What is a mineral? What is it made of? What is a rock?
A: Mineral is transported to the preexisting luster. It is made out of material and chemical. A rock is a building block...
A:...A rock is a solid that doesn't occur naturally and is made up of quartz.
A: A mineral is any natural organic resource. It is made out of heat. A rock is a mineral.

Q: What are the three agents of metamorphism? What is the role of each?
A: Solid - a thick layer of the earth's surface. Fluid - liquid passes through the sedimentary. Mafic - Fe and Mg iron rocks.

Q: How much (approximately) of the earth's water is freshwater? Where is most of it located? Where is most of the USABLE freshwater located?
A: 90% of the water on earth is freshwater. The most freshwater is located at Alaska. The most usable freshwater is located at California.
A: Most of the freshwater on Earth is somewhat fresh due to a lot of the freshwater underground. A lot of usable freshwater can be used if cleaned and filtered properly. Using water from the ocean is not considered freshwater b/c it has salt and other things in the ocean.
A: There is a 30% of freshwater on earth. The most freshwater is located in the oceans...

Q: Name and describe a desert feature that is a) formed by deposition and b) formed by erosion.
A: A rock pattern is a changed by deposition and erosion. In deposition the pattern is cloby [sic], these pattern is all over the place. In erosion the pattern changes to somewhat of a up and down or sideways pattern.

I WISH I WAS MAKING THIS UP

More bottle house

Two more photos of the bottle house at Calico - we couldn't go inside, but I tried to get shots through the windows to show that the whole bottle was used in the walls!!!

Adventuring the Calico Mountains

A couple of my favourite photos from this weekend in the desert (it actually rained - can you believe it???) - it started as a field trip to Calico ghost town, and finished as an offroading adventure in the Calico mountains.

A gorgeous day and a gorgeous place to go looking for petroglyphs

Goat?

I've seen all kinds of broken glass shards in the desert among other trash - but I must say I've never seen any sign of milk being consumed until now.

Very fold-y folds!

A rainbow of rocks under rain clouds.

The bottle house at Calico - it's actually whole entire bottles cemented together!

A very long day

It was beautiful day yesterday and the Geology of Kern County class went on a field trip to collect some neat rocks, see some pretty views, check out some awesome geologic structures.



Here I am sitting on a giant blob of magnetite on top of a mountain. Yup, it's allllllll magnetite.


And then we got back to the school, and had to zip into action to get ready on the float for the homecoming game that evening... a very loooooooong day!

Homecoming 2008

This year the homecoming theme was "Red Carpet Renegades" - which I guess meant "Hollywood" (our mascot is the Renegade).

The new Geology Club felt that participation in homecoming by building a float would be a great way to try to win some prize money. I agreed, and we won "Best in Spirit" (partly because I think we were the only ones to use the entirety of the theme - both Hollywood AND Bakersfield College)! Our float was built entirely out of recycled materials (we had no budget) - and our message was:

Our idea was to build Grauman's Chinese Theater, we used tin cans for the roof shingles, cardboard for mostly everything else and built a turbine out of water bottles in the Hollywood Hills. The palm tree was build out of cardboard and green plastic bottles and bags. In addition, the Hollywood starlets wore dresses they made out of plastic bags and magazines, and the paparazzi wore ties made of the same materials.


The Engineers Club waited more or less to the last minute this year, and for some reason were fixated on building a Gladiator-themed float...

The Agriculture Club had a very clever play on Hollywood with their "Hoggywood" float, and won a prize also.

The Intercultural Students played off the theme by doing "Around the World in 80 Days", but they waited to late, and their backdrop that showed the theme didn't get completed.
Now the Geology Club has some money in the bank to do something with! Woohoo for prize money!

A day in the life...

(The "Golden Chariot")

Today I headed up to Red Rock Canyon to join LA County paleontologists on a prospecting journey and pick their brains for Kern County geology/paleontology info. It was great! Of course I found far more granite in a "granite-free" zone than bone fragments. I guess feldspars just jump out at me more.

Lignite layers in a wash (big wash walls!!!) containing itty bitty lake fossils, walls are undergoing biological weathering.

Rodent bitey marks on a bone fragment (see the little parallel grooves near the top of the bone shard?)

Angular unconformity and a hoodoo waiting to happen. Tilted layers of sands and ash, capped with nearly horizontal limestone.

Gnatalie = a dinosaur WHEEE!

Yeah! Here I was hoping for a Nobel Prize to help me with getting my green card papers, but surely having a dinosaur named after me is just as good, right?

The timing really couldn't be any better for this Utah find.

Experience?

To limit my "rant" on the US voting situation this fall, there is one particular anti-Obama argument that is really irking me. That is "he lacks experience".

I have two thoughts that I would like to address this with:

1. If you look at the combo Prez/VP "teams" that will be in competition this November, there is no doubt in my mind that the Obama team has more cumulative "experience" than just about anyone paired with Palin, be they the experienced McCain or otherwise.
2. If no one gave anyone with potential who was lacking in experience a chance, then where would we be? How does one get experience? When you graduate and look for a great job in your field, do you not want your hard work, ideas, enthusiasm and motivation to be recognized and for your dream employer to give you a chance? My current employer hired me on virtually no experience, and (not to sound egotistical) in under 4 years I've made a noticeable impact here. I would hope that those who judge Obama's lack of experience do so with an open mind and their own futures in mind, and not simply the blind regurgitation of the grey-haired "good ol' boys" that seem to always be running the show.
   

Overkill

Yes, this massive trailer is carrying ONLY a dresser. Yes, that dresser should easily fit inside the hummer that is pulling it. That hummer with flames painted on the side.

And yes, I took this photo with my cell phone while driving (I figured it was worth it).

Grrr. Arrrgh. (that's dino sounds to you)

Possums & Angular Unconformities

A relatively overcast day for a field trip - but the cool breeze and the humidity were a welcome change in my opinion. This field trip went to Morro Bay and Montana de Oro and explored plate tectonics, fog, the rock cycle, possums, structures and erosion. It was a blast - as usual!

Here's a brilliant angular unconformity, rather like Hutton's famous Scottish outcrop (only this one is conveniently in California). The shot also shows an erosional sea cave (and fog - of which there was plenty).

Some mascots were acquired on this trip. Darn, why can I not resist puppets? The mama/baby (velcroed together) possum duo found their way onto my hand before lunch, and hung out all day learning geology and teaching strike and dip. In this particular photo mama possum is pondering the potential enemy of sea anemones. I'm certain that you readers will help me name them.

How to train for a triathlon in under 2 weeks

1. Sign up for the shortest route possible in the prettiest possible area with the smallest pool of competitors.
2. Convince yourself that holding back a paddling puppy in your neighbour's pool while drinking a beer is close enough to "training".
3. Ignore that part of the race (the run) that you hate most and pretend that it won't be included (and selectively do not train for it outside of playing basketball)
4. Sprain your achilles playing basketball.
5. Pack tape in your "transition zone kit" for your achilles - "just in case" - look at it during your transitions.
6. Ride your bike to work every day to make yourself feel better about this idiot move (almost 6 mi round trip - that's practically exercise, right?) and because you bike to work every day anyway
7. Remind yourself that you hiked Mt Whitney with no preparation and survived, forget about how much it hurt and how big of an idiot move that was.
8. RSVP for two parties the night before, forgetting that you will in fact not be in town at that time, explain to the hosts that you cannot go because you are doing a triathlon, make a weird face at them when they ask "how is your training going?"
9. Get new tires on your road bike, admire how pretty they are, continue riding your commuter bike to work because that's the one with the paniers full of work on it, admire the tires on the road bike hanging on the wall again.
10. Win first in your age group.


Hmmm - I guess doing triathlons is kinda like riding a bike, once you get the hang of it you don't forget how. Oh, and it's also riding a bike...

The Great Mould Experiment

What am I doing here???

Building an empire

Some of you may know that the last year was pretty hellish for me work-wise. This was largely because my classes were so full, they were double-size. Luckily for me, my begging for the school to hire a 2nd geologist (thus doubling my "department") resulted in my actually getting a partner in crime starting this fall.

With renewed enthusiasm and energy, I got to work to promote geology, no longer fearing stadium-sized classes bogging me down if I were to actively recruit - as I would have someone to pawn them off on. Below is my Geology board in the outdoor hallway behind my lab. It includes awesome photos from some of my awesome field trips, a map with the trips' locations, a list of currently available courses and when they are offered, and a series of descriptions of job opportunities in the more common fields of geology.


Then, once the new guy was hired, I asked if he'd help me put together a geology cabinet based upon the geologic map that I had put together for Kern County. He immediately thought of putting a stairway across the cabinet, with samples from various units on the map arranged according to the law of superposition... the ideas kept flowing, and below is our effort. Sooner, hopefully rather than later, a bulletin board should appear on the wall above it where we can post announcements, Geology Club activities (yes, that's new), and have an interactive biweekly contest based on the display...

What's YOUR definition of "biodegradable"?

And the fine print reads "*except as defined by the states of California & New York" - how do these states define "biodegradable" I wonder?

Merriam-Webster defines "biodegradable" as:
: capable of being broken down especially into innocuous products by the action of living things (as microorganisms)

As it turns out, this company does not require their product to follow the Merriam-Webster definition or the California/New York definition of biodegradable to be labeled as such.

I guess I can be happy that the state I live in expects items labeled "biodegradable" to mean that they will eventually become compost. My neighbour who bought these will be returning them, as they are made of... surprise: plastic. Look out biobags, here she comes!

I'm a cat nerd. I'm sorry.