Blogiversary Day! One year and Counting

The Geoblogosphere really seems to have taken off this year; Callan Bentley at NOVA Geoblog, Lost Geologist, Looking for Detachment, and Dinochick, and several others started about a year ago, and so did I, with these posts on January 7, 2008. The onset of my blogging coincided in my case with the acquisition of a new laptop that was actually capable of holding all my pictures. The first comment appeared three days later (from Anonymous), and I was uncommonly pleased to be noticed at last! My banner was a morning shot from the summit of Haleakala on Maui, and as an outlet for any creative impulses, the blogging almost replaced my once-a-year stint as a Christmas Comic maker, but not quite.

I started the blog as an effort to make geology and the other earth sciences more accessible to the lay public, oh, and to show pictures of my field experiences. Blogging feeds my geological attention deficit disorder; I don't have the concentration to do continuous research on a single subject, but I do enjoy flitting from one subject to another, and blogging is wonderful way to do so. I followed a few themes at times; the Airliner Chronicles was one of my early favorites, as was an exploration of some of the unfamiliar sights in Yosemite National Park (Under the Volcano). The longest running theme has been the still-ongoing exploration of the geology of the Colorado Plateau, which started in June. I'm up to the Late Cretaceous, and the end may be in sight! I started a few memes, not always on purpose, but it was fun to hear the great stories that were generated by my fellow bloggers, especially those of the death-defying geologists. The most attention of any of my blogs ever garnered seems to have been the 100 things list that geologists ought to see, an idea borrowed from an article in Geotimes a decade ago. I'm still getting comments and I enjoy all those stories too! People who reach my blog via some kind of word search most often hit one of my earliest blog entries, on the journey of the marsupials from China to Australia. I am at a loss to explain why, because no one ever commented on the blog itself (if you Google "marsupial geology", the post is the seventh hit).

This has been a lot of fun, not just the blogging, but to see the exploration of the world throughout the geoblogosphere. Many thanks are due to Chris at Highly Allochthonous for his blog feed, and also to the producers of the Geoblogosphere News. Both sites have become indispensible sources of news in the earth sciences. I fervently thank everyone who has paid a visit to my site, and appreciate more than you can know the comments and conversations that have taken place here. I regret that I missed the meeting of the geobloggers in San Francisco, but if your road ever takes you to Modesto or Yosemite, contact me and pay a visit! And, if you are tempted, give it a shot: blogging is fun!