Bitch Like A Geologist

My sister and I have been bantering about famous geologists…because, well, there aren’t a whole lot. I myself can’t even name one. Karyn linked me to the Wikipedia article entitled “List of Geologists” - and one name on the side caught my interest.

A gentleman by the name of David A. Johnston was pictured just like many other geologists I’ve known - jeans and hiking boots, big smile, sideburns - all the while sitting in a camping chair, by a van. That sounds like about 3/4 of the people I’m aquainted with, right?

Reading on, I found out that he was one of the 57 casualties of the Mount Saint Helens volcanic eruption in 1980. And for some reason, this is really hitting me hard. A man who cared so much for his science that he risked and gave his life for it? That’s some pretty heavy stuff there, oh loyal readers.

Some background on my newfound hero: He was born in 1949, and got his undergrad degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1971. He studied volcanoes for a living, and did his doctoral dissertation on the Augustine Volcano in lower Cook Inlet, Alaska. He completed that in 1978. Most of his future research would focus on the fundamental role of volatiles in volcanic processes, and he was hired by the U.S. Geological Survey that same year to work on monitoring volcanic emissions in Alaska and the Cascades.

Side note - monitoring tests the volcanic emissions’ gas content to determine if there is a change in the geochemistry, and thusly, to attempt to predict an eruption.

When word spread of a potential eruption in the Cascades, Johnston was one of the first on the scene. On May 18, 1980, he would be the first to report the eruption: “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!”

Those would be his last words. Johnston died in the eruption that day at age 30.

He would be the only USGS geologist to accurately predict the nature of the eruption. Friends and colleagues described him as an outstanding scientist, “dedicated and hardworking, with meticulous organization and observation followed by careful evaluation and interpretation. At the same time, Dave was unaffectedly genuine, with ain infectious curiosity and enthusiasm. But perhaps his most essential quality was the ability to dissipate cynicism; he looked for, saw, and thereby encouraged the best in all of us. Dave would have expected us to carry on without him, learning all we could from the Mount St. Helens catastrophe.” (Lipman and Mullineaux, 1982)

Reading over Dr. Johnston’s story, this really got me thinking. (What else is new?) I wonder if someday I would be that bold. If I were in the same position, what would my reaction be? Would I be ecstatic to see that my research had come to fruition? Would I cower in the corner and wait for my impending death? I don’t know. But what I can say is that without the courage and tenacity of scientists such as him, we wouldn’t know half of what we know.

So thank you, Dave Johnston. Thank you for your research, your findings, and for sacrificing yourself for what you loved.

More information:
USGS obituary
Wikipedia article on Dave Johnston

More Recent Cool Shit In Geology!

Ice Age geology revealed at Ground Zero

This is actually something I know a little about! According to the article, crews working on the World Trade Center site have dug down pretty deep and uncovered glacial bedrock features caused 20,000 years ago - for example, a 40-foot pothole.

In order to start construction, the firm that’s working has to remove layers and layers of soil (which should be interesting in and of themselves!), and in doing so have exposed a ton of beautiful geology. Unfortunately for us, most of it has to be filled in, blasted, or otherwise destroyed in order to make way for Tower 4 of the new World Trade Center.

I can expand on this a little - in my junior year Mineralogy class (which MSU is re-running this year, awesome!), we took a trip to NYC to visit the American Museum of Natural History and check out their extensive mineral collection. We took a side trip after that, in the rain, to check out some of the geology in Central Park. There are some great exposed outcrops there, mostly of the Cambrian-age Manhattan Formation. These are fantastic crenulated schists and gneisses, and you can see glacial features like polished surfaces, striations, and grooves carved by dragging of rocks by the ice sheet. Though most of them have been removed, you can still find glacial erratics - rocks that were taken from other areas and dropped by the ice sheet as it melted - lying around.

These surfaces are also really great to see weathering rates, where the quartz-rich layers weather much slower than the others - quartz is harder, and therefore it takes longer to weather than its mica/feldspar counterparts. For more information, or to maybe take a geology field trip to New York City yourself, check out the USGS page! It’s quite informational.

I’ve been lax with posting in the BLAG lately, so I thought I’d update with a bit of cool geology news!

Article #1: Can rubber ducks help track a melting glacier?

According to Reuters, US scientists are releasing 90 rubber ducks into the Jakobshavn Glacier just off of Greenland in order to track the flow of water as it melts off of the glacier. The scientists are putting these duckies into moulins, or holes in the glacier, in order to watch them melt out. Along with the ducks, a football-sized probe was placed with a GPS transmitter and other instruments that will hopefully find more out about the inside of the glacier.

The theory is that as the glacial ice melts, it will transport the rubber ducks towards land, but they don’t exactly know where. The ducks are labelled in three seperate languages with the words “science experiment” and “reward,” as well as an e-mail address to contact in case they are found. So far none have turned up, but that’s okay - it can take some time. The places they’re predicting that they’ll turn up are relatively remote.

Article #2: Experts ’solve’ mystery of Stonehenge

Two British archaeologists have offered their own theory for the history of Stonehenge: claiming that it was essentially a kind of medieval Lourdes, a center for healing. Their claims come mostly from the fact that the rocks that make up the double inner circle, spotted dolomite, or “bluestones.” These are rather rare rocks, and they have been treasured for their so-called “healing properties.”

They would have either been floated down on rafts or dragged from Pembrokeshire, Wales, to southern England. People believed so much in the healing powers of these stones that they would take pieces with them, to be buried with them miles away.

Other evidence? Bones from skeletons recovered in the area show signs of “serious disease or injury,” so it’s very likely that only people who were in the absolute worst of conditions would make the trek to Stonehenge - but it’s likely not the only use for the monument. It’s highly likely that it still could have been a temple as well as a healing center. Who knows?

What do you think, loyal BLAG readers?

This was an article that I’d originally intended to submit to my school newspaper, The Montclarion, but I never got around to it. So here it is in its final version, the Top Ten Albums I’m Deleting From My iTunes.

You’ve got them too - the album you downloaded because you liked the single, because you liked the cover art, because you liked the band’s previous work - you name it, you downloaded it. And then you end up hating it. It sits around wherever you have music stored, collecting digital dust, until you finally work up the nerve to hit the delete key. If you’re a collector like me, this is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do - to reduce the numbers, to dip below a certain point - or maybe it’s because you just want to keep it around to have it remind you how much hatred you’re harboring. Either way, these shitty albums sit around and take up valuable space that could be used for anything. Porn Schoolwork, free hard drive space, or even other music!

When I publish this list, I will work up the nerve to actually rid myself of these auditory atrocities. I really will delete them. And I’ll never look back.

10. Finch’s Say Hello To Sunshine
Finch were one of my favorite bands in high school. Their first full-length album was one of the first that I ever purchased for myself (which just so happened to be on the only day that I ever cut school), and I listened to it non-stop. In late 2004, Finch would release their sophomore effort, Say Hello To Sunshine. What happened there was very bad. They followed the trend at the time, and turned away from their screamo roots - releasing an album that’s closer to nü-metal than anything else. I found it unlistenable; and apparently, the majority of others did too. Finch broke up later that year, but recently got back together. Here’s hoping their newer efforts fall more in the vein of What It Is To Burn, eh?

9. Paramore’s All We Know Is Falling
Female-fronted punk is almost unheard of. (Almost.) Even more uncommon? Female-fronted pop-punk. When I first heard about Paramore, I was really excited. An enthusiastic teenage girl leading a band of her peers? On Fueled By Ramen? Sign me up! I love female lead singers, especially since there are so very few in these genres, and I’m willing to give most anyone a try. Unfortunately, Paramore just never caught on with me. Everyone loves them…and sorry, but Hayley whatever her name is’s voice just irritates me. I can’t even name, let alone RECOGNIZE any of the other band members - not good PR. Take away the gimmick and they’re just another no-name mediocre band. I’ve got to admit, though - Hayley is kinda cute, and I love her hair.

8. Cute Is What We Aim For’s Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch
Another disappointment by FBR. First things first: “Curse of Curves” is highly offensive to me. Call me curvy, call me fat, whatever - I’m hot, and that’s what matters. I don’t need some whiny brat bitching about weight - girls have enough self esteem issues as is with media portrayals…but that’s another rant for another time. The vocals are forgettable, the instrumentals equally as much, and the lyrics are just plain insipid. My disdain for CIWWAF was cemented when I found that the cover of their latest album was stolen from the Counting Crows. Naughty naughty, Shaant.

7. 30 Seconds To Mars’s 30 Seconds To Mars and A Beautiful Lie
I know, I know - TWO albums? Yes. Because they’re equally as meaningless to me. I downloaded A Beautiful Lie because a) I liked “The Kill” and b) Jared Leto is hot with a ton of eyeliner. Superficial, yes. As I listened, though, everything started sounding the same. Blending together. When I can’t tell your tracks apart and don’t notice, that’s a good thing. When I do, it’s very bad. Again, I find them lyrically forgettable - I mean, hell - if I hadn’t seen the video for “The Kill,” I’d probably have just written them off as another humdrum band.

6. The Lyndsay Diaries’s Remember The Memories
Honestly, I don’t even remember downloading this. I remember reading about it in a book (Andy Greenwald’s Nothing Feels Good) and getting it because I liked his motivation. It turned out to be another Dashboard Confessional clone, and it did nothing for me. Baleeted.

5. Regina Spektor’s Soviet Kitsch
I love the former Soviet Union. I love its theories, its ideals, its misfires, and the whole ethical belief behind it. I’ve got relatives from the former Soviet Union: from the Ukraine, to be specifc. So when I found out that Regina Spektor was also Ukranian, I was like DUDE. NOBODY’S UKRANIAN! and I borrowed the album from my friend Sarah…and I was severely let down. Her piano playing is fantastic, but she reminds me too much of Tori Amos, of whom I am admittedly not a fan, and probably never will be. Her vocals are abrasive, and her lyrics are so horribly tragic that I can’t listen to them.

4. Hawthorne Heights’s If Only You Were Lonely
Okay, here’s how it went with Hawthorne Heights. When they first came out, they were on Victory. Victory marketed them as this awesome new band that fans of Thursday would like! I love Thursday! So I bought their first album. I couldn’t get past the part about cutting their wrists and blacking their eyes and falling asleep to die or whatever. Way to ring the emo bell. When their sophomore album came out, If Only You Were Lonely, I heard the single “Saying Sorry” and kinda liked it, so I gave it a shot…only to find that it was more of the same. My heart goes out to the band at the loss of Casey Calvert, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that they suck.

3. Panic At The Disco’s Pretty.Odd
I knew it was bad news when they took the exclamation point out of their name. There is such a huge stylistic jump from their first album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out (which I truly love) and this. It doesn’t work. It’s like they’re trying too hard to be the Beatles; and they’re going to end up the same way…except I don’t think any Panic fangirls are going to kill them to save the world.

2. Angels and Airwaves’s We Don’t Need To Whisper
When I was in the eighth grade, Blink-182 was king. They had enough gross-out silliness paired with ~*punk rawk*~ to catch my attention, and I’ll readily admit that if it weren’t for Blink, I wouldn’t like half the music that I do. When the band went on “permanent hiatus” in 2004, I wasn’t crushed like some, but I did feel like a little part of my childhood had died. Two years later, the members had separated themselves into solo projects: bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker in +44, and guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge in Angels and Airwaves. I downloaded both albums, gave them a listen, and absolutely LOVED +44’s When Your Heart Stops Beating. I still spin that in semi-regular rotation. Tom DeLonge’s venture, though, was an epic fail. Maybe it’s me, but I just didn’t get it. I’ve always thought that his voice was unnecessarily whiny, kind of like a cheese grater on open flesh. To have it be the sole focus of a side project, though? I’ll pass.

And finally, the number one album I’m getting rid of is:

1. The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’s The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
There’s nothing like glorifying rape and abuse like “Face Down”! Catchy little number, isn’t it? And with a song like “Ass Shaker,” who needs enemies? I don’t even feel I need to write anything about this album - it should speak volumes for itself.

Runners up to this list include The Academy Is’s Santi (which only escaped because I never downloaded it), Plain White T’s Every Second Counts (which is loathed but yet spared by the horribleness of “Hate (I Really Don’t Like You)”), and the Borat soundtrack (whyyyyyyyy did I download this? Oh yeah! To annoy future roommates!)

Agree? Disagree? What are your most loathed albums? Share them in the comments!

Lately, I’ve found myself really into the style of Chuck Klosterman - the genius behind Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs as well as a handful of others. I like his style, I like his sense of humor, and I find what he writes about to be incredibly interesting: as the internet says, “relevant to my interests.” I’ve read a bunch of other books that have been compared to his, from the good (Love Is A Mixtape by Rob Sheffield) to the bad (Perfect From Now On by John Sellers). The style is so often mimicked, but never perfected. That’s good - you don’t want to read different versions of the same book over and over again. I’m happy to be reading a lot again - it’s been hard for me to.

When I was a little kid, I loved reading. It was a novelty to me - something I was good at, something I loved. Hell, I skipped kindergarten because I read my birthday card to the principal. I’ve been reading since I was 14 months old, and I never really stopped. It’s just been put on hold on occasion. In middle school and high school, I never had time to read for pleasure. I know, it sounds terrible! Unable to read? It’s true. The amount of work I had to do was so overwhelming that I’d be crying over geometry until nine or ten at night, take a shower, then go to sleep and wake up the next day and go to sleep. In high school, I pretended to have a social life, and was often away. Most of my book money went towards purchasing manga rather than actual literature, and while it was fun at the time, I’m not that into it anymore.

When I left for college in the summer of 2004, I brought a small collection of my favorite books: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. There are a handful of others in there, including a copy of both Hamlet and Macbeth (the latter of which is my absolute favorite), and more that I don’t feel like linking on Amazon. The point is, I brought the books I treasured and read them when I had a brief moment. Since I didn’t have my own bathroom, I couldn’t leave them in there to read, nor have anywhere to sit and read excepting my bed.

My bookshelf started to really expand my junior year, when I had a bathroom (mostly) to myself, and could thusly read in there - somewhere isolated and secluded. (Hah.) My roommate used to leave books in the bathroom for me to read, too - I left my hardcover copies of Weird NJ, she left Jon Stewart’s America: The Book. She also left Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, which I loved - this was also the year that Vonnegut passed away, and she mourned him for a week.

Senior year, I had much more free time - and many more people who encouraged my reading. My boyfriend is a voracious reader, and he’d always have one to recommend to me or one lying on the floor that I’d pick up and walk away with. I’ve read more this year then I have in quite some time, and my brain appreciates me for it.

Right now, I’m trying to read a lot of books on the “you should have read this!” list. My high school showed me a lot of the classics, but I’ve never read them. Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, Great Expectations? Never read them. I never really had the interest to.

Right now, though, I’m finally reading 1984 by George Orwell, with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World soon to follow. I’ve been saving two Klosterman books (IV and Fargo Rock City), and I keep meaning to get some more of Nick Hornby’s works.

There are so many books out there, I find it exceptionally hard to find a good one. How do you pick out a book? Are there any you’d recommend? I’m always open to suggestions!

We’ve all heard the anecdote “a penny saved is a penny earned.” You see them everywhere - the little copper coins discarded at the side of the road, shoved in piggy banks, on the floor, in the vacuum…typically going to waste. It’s a shame, because pennies add up. And that’s exactly what Rob is hoping for.

Rob is a dear friend of mine who lives out in Salt Lake City. His girlfriend, however, lives halfway across the country - but both are bound and determined to get together and meet in the middle, in the beautiful city of Chicago. There, they can both start their lives together, but there’s a problem. The cost to move is ridiculous, and although Rob has been working three simultaneous jobs and saved all the money he can, he’s still short.

While discussing his future one day, he came up with the idea that if every person in the world donated him one cent, he’d have enough money to move in no time. Even if only a few people donated a couple pennies, he could make things work.

It seems like a lofty goal, but one that can work. Especially for the one thing that I think matters most above all in this world: love. If there was more love in the world, who knows? There might be less war, less worry, less starvation…but that’s all speculation. What I can tell you is that one cent, one negligible cent, can make a world of difference for one young man, and I hope you can support his cause.

Visit him at Pennies Saved, or join the Facebook group, or even the Myspace. Show your support and spread it!

My obsession with trilobites began when I was a little girl, taking a trip to the Rutgers geology museum. There they had dinosaur skeletons and skulls, rocks and minerals galore - and even better still, trilobites. I didn’t know what they were at the time, but I remember being slightly frightened and entirely intrigued by these palm-sized prehistoric bugs.

Fast-forward sixteen years or so. As a sophomore in college, I was reintroduced to my former friends in an invertibrate paleobiology (read: dead things with no spines) class and fell in love all over again. Ask my geology friends - they’ll tell you that I’m the trilobite girl. I don’t know what it is about them that has captured my interest for so long. I’ll try to explain.

Trilobites were arthropods, much like lobsters and most insects. They lived during the Cambrian period, roughly 600 million years ago. Trilobites were marine creatures and lived in the seas, and varied in size from a couple of millimeters to over 70 centimeters long. The largest trilobites were roughly the size of an unopened umbrella. What’s most impressive to me, though, is the fact that there are over 20,000 described species of trilobite. Broken down, that’s about 5,000 genera, 150 families, and 10 orders - but still, that’s a number that’s hard for me to believe. Twenty thousand different species entirely wiped out? Poor little guys.

Trilobites went extinct at the end of the Permian, about 250 million years ago. That period in time is colloquially known as the Great Dying, because, well, nearly 96% of all marine species were rendered extinct, and it was at that point that trilobites met their end. However, in life, trilobites were pretty nifty little creatures. Little is known about their actions that can’t be told from the fossil record, but what we do know is this: trilobites came in both swimming and crawling forms, fed on plankton or were filter feeders, would coil when attacked, and have been found in every continent with Paleozoic-age rocks.

For Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend bought me a book called Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey. Fortey, I find, is much like myself - only a real, full-fledged, certified trilobitologist, whereas I am merely an amateur doing her utmost to learn more. He discovered his love for the trilobite at a young age, and turned it from a hobby to an obsession and eventually into a career. What’s more, though, is that his writing style is not overly scientific and often humorous - making it ideal for people who are not scientifically inclined to pick up and read. For me, it was light and easy reading, and I savored every page. (And yes, there are plenty of pictures in!)

Trilobites and their kind may be long dead, but what can I say? I’ve been trilobitten.

For more information on the ‘bites, I’d suggest visiting A Guide to the Orders of Trilobites - easily the most comprehensive trilobite source on the ‘net.

I’ll be down the shore on vacation from the 26th to the 3rd, so I won’t be around to read or comment entries, most likely. There’s no internet connection in the house aside from my father’s laptop, and I’m probably only going to go online to zap my pets and then sign off. If you need to get in contact with me, send me an e-mail - it’s likely I’ll see it..

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!

Growing up, I always knew that my parents were slightly older than the rest of my friends’s parents. This was made most apparent to me in my 11th grade history class. We were studying the Kennedy assassination, and my teacher asked if any of our parents were alive for the incident. I knew that my parents were high school aged when it happened, so I spoke up.

The only other person who had parents who were alive at the time was a guy whose mother was two.

Growing up with parents who were raised in the fifties and grew up in the sixties has left a very distinct impact on me. They’ve always been very protective of me, and I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of things that most of my friends were. Mom says I should write everything down and make a list for my future therapist. I don’t intend on doing that - I don’t feel the need to. Sure, I was pretty sheltered, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t learned any lessons.

I’ve learned the most from my father, I think. Mom taught me plenty, but it’s really Dad’s influence that’s had the most impact on me. And thusly, instead of a list of grievances, here’s my list of the five most important things my father has shown me.

1. If it’s broken, fix it yourself. Dad’s always been an incredible do-it-yourselfer, building pretty much the entire addition to our house, flooring, sheetrocking, painting, and plumbing among others. We’ve fixed cars, installed the pool…you name it, it’s likely we’ve done it. The best thing of all, though? I’ve always been included in the process. Dad’s always explained what happened, why it happens, and how I should take care of it. My skills have been useful in everything from Girl Scouts to college, and I know it will be helpful for as long as I live.

2. Listen to everything musically. You never know what you’ll like. Dad has always had a very open mind towards music, listening to everything from folk to bluegrass to jazz to hard rock. Unlike my mother, he even listens to what I like on occasion, too - which always floors me. Therefore, I’ve always tried to be really broad with my music tastes and will give anything a listen. Dad was a DJ back in college, and he suggested I give it a try. I apprenticed, loved it, and had my own radio show for about two years.

3. Be spontaneous. You never know what you’re going to run into, and you’ve got to embrace it. If it happens to be a motorcycle? Go for it! (I’m still working on getting my lisence, but I’m getting there.)

4. It doesn’t have to be funny to make people laugh. One of my fondest memories is at my sixth grade choir concert. We had just finished singing the National Anthem, and out from the back corner, I hear someone shout “PLAY BALL!” I couldn’t help laughing - I knew it was Dad. Dad’s always been incredibly punny, and has always made even the most awkward situation pretty funny with quick wit and groaners. I’ve picked up this habit, and even though I’m not always as on top of things as he is, I’ve learned the art of the pun.

5. No matter what you do, always do your best. It pays off. When I was younger, I absolutely hated math. I was bad at it, I never understood it, and Dad always helped me with it. I suffered through basic algebra and was miserable at geometry, but somehow that hard work paid off: once I got to Algebra 2, I suddenly…got it. I don’t know how I got it. I will never know why it clicked all of a sudden, but from my sophomore year of high school, my diligence paid off and I suddenly understood. I don’t think this would have been possible without my father’s help.

I’m going into my first year of graduate school, and I’m more excited than ever to be going to school. What will this lead to? Hopefully great things, and I’ll always remember what I’ve learned from my father.