Musings on Gold...GOLD! Buy GOLD! The World is Going to End Anyway

It seems like gold has been appearing everywhere of late, especially in those late-night commercials that ask you to pick up any loose gold that happens to be lying around the house, put it in an envelope, and send to those very nice sounding people who will send you a check for your trouble. The guy is strumming a banjo; how evil could he be? And I am absolutely sure they pay top dollar to the people desperate enough to fall for the scam.

On the other hand, the FOX Channel's Glenn Beck, fear-monger par excellence, has been shilling for a gold-selling company, while at the same time using his show to advise people to buy gold in these terrifying times. He tells us to "pray over it" ("Dear God and Jesus, should I use my money to give food to the poor, or buy gold???"; I wonder what voice speaks in his head, and what it says to him?). I'm sure there is no conflict of interest here...

I started thinking about gold because one of my very first efforts at web page design (1997, I think) still sits in a largely original state on my school website, a discussion about the history of the gold mining in the Mother Lode. It talks about the value of gold at the time, and the then current state of mining. A recent visitor to the site commented the price of gold had quadrupled since I wrote the piece, and suggested that interest in mining was up again (if you check out the site, be aware that some of my numbers are speculative).

First off, does anyone know of any ongoing interest in reopening any Mother Lode mines? I'd like to know about it. I must say, that if I were already operating a mine, I couldn't be happier. Great prices! But opening, or reopening a mine? Do mining companies trust that the price of gold is going to remain stable or continue to rise? Enough to make the incredible investments in equipment and regulatory paperwork? I've gotta say that the run-up in the price is very reminiscent of the dot.com craziness of the 1990's, the stock market craziness of the 2,000's, and the real estate insanity of the last 10 years. Wow...how'd they all do? What I remember the most was the maniacal exhortations to invest, invest, invest, even as prices started to fall.

If you are thinking of falling for one of these gold investment schemes, take a look at this article by Nouriel Roubini. For the record, he was one of those gloom and doom economists who predicted the ongoing recession-depression (does anyone believe it's over?) before it was fashionable. Can you spell "g-o-l-d b-u-b-b-l-e"? It may a good time to sell gold, but I wouldn't trust a banjo-strumming confidence man. See a reputable jeweler first. As for Glenn Beck and the other investment shills? Well, consider the source...

Late Add: Seems (surprise, surprise!) that some of those commercial gold buyers have gotten in trouble. Check out this report.

Disasters, Literary and Literal...

I remember journalism class from junior high: the five 'W's, who, what, where, when and why, and always present BOTH sides of the story. Reading the paper the other morning, I ran across the kind of article (on the possibility that we are in the "end times") that makes me bemoan that second rule that journalists seem to follow so carefully. Presenting "both sides" of a story tends to elevate the wrong side of the story to some kind of equivalence. This is seen often whenever a newspaper decides to cover some facet of creation-science, but it also shows up in this article on end-of-the-world mania. 20 paragraphs in the article quote the "true believers" or discuss the religious beliefs concerning the end times, while only 8 cover the comments of social scientists or skeptics. This story was carried on the front page, no less. And of course, the producers of the movie "2012" are raking in the dough for capitalizing on the mania. Even I enjoyed watching California fall into the Pacific.

Entertaining? Maybe. Helpful? Not really. Believing that the world is going to disappear, or that civilization is going to collapse takes away any kind of feeling of responsibility one might have for making things better. Why feed hungry people, or find shelter for the homeless, or work to lessen the impacts of global warming when the whole shebang is going to end in a few months?

Are you truly interested in learning about the potential for real disasters, with data that is grounded in reality? There are a lot of fascinating possibilities: the world is full of fault lines, volcanoes, steep mountains, huge river systems, and glaciers. I ran across a great article today in the High Country News that is a lot more responsible, and much better for the workings of your brain cells. It is a feature article on the Spokane Floods and J Harlan Bretz. Try to imagine much of state of Washington being flooded by the collapse of a vast ice dam that released the equivalent of several Great Lakes in the space of a day or two. It really happened! Repeatedly.

I've taken my students on tours of the region discussed in the article. Dry Falls, near Grand Coulee Dam (in the top photo) was the site of a 5 mile wide river that was more than 250 feet deep during the height of the floods. The lake that provided all the water covered much of western Montana (Lake Missoula). Abandoned lake shores can be seen in the third picture as terraces on the hillside. When the lake drained, the fast flowing water left behind giant ripple marks on the valley floors, such as those at the Camas Prairie, seen in the second picture.

Reality is so much more interesting...

2012: A Short Movie Review for my Geologist Friends

Let's face reality, nothing we geologists will have to say is gonna change anything about the "science" in this movie. So just sit back and enjoy the special effects, and try not to laugh at inappropriate moments.

Geologists get to be heros.

Oh, and Woody Harrelson dies one of the greatest geological movie deaths ever.

A lot of stuff happens, and practically everyone else dies too.

The World is Going to End in 2012! The Sequel

I am probably going to regret this, but someone needs to do it, and really, all of my geoblogosphere friends should do it, too...

THE WORLD IS NOT GOING TO END ON DECEMBER 21, 2012!

A movie is coming out, and the moviemakers benefit from lots of free publicity generated by everyone who is easily swayed by the newest and most bizarre conspiracy "theory". So it's going to be laid on really thick for the next two years, until the big day comes, and nothing happens.

It may be useless to try and explain the faulty and ridiculous logic to the true believers, because in addition to their lack of critical thinking, they also see us scientists as part of the vast conspiracy. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Who knows, when the world doesn't end, maybe they will remember that we tried to explain to them just why it wouldn't.

A commenter from my previous post on this subject...

...our planet will experience a powerful event. This time we're not talking about Planet X, Nibiru or a "killer" solar flare, this event will originate deep within the core of our planet, forcing a catastrophic change in our protective magnetic field. Not only will we notice a rapid reduction in magnetic field strength, we'll also see the magnetic poles rapidly reverse polarity (i.e. the north magnetic pole will be located over the South Pole and vice versa). So what does this mean to us? If we are to believe the doomsayers, we'll be exposed to the vast quantities of radiation blasting from the Sun; with a reversing magnetic field comes a weakening in the Earth's ability to deflect cosmic rays. Our armada of communication and military satellites will drop from orbit, adding to the chaos on the ground. There will be social unrest, warfare, famine and economic collapse. Without GPS, our airliners will also plough into the ground…

Basically I'm speechless. The scenario certainly looks as if the commenter cribbed the movie "The Core" as their literary source. If only we could get some unobtainium in the next two years!

On the other hand, if the world DOES happen to end as scheduled (as I've said before), I will be glad to let you say "I told you so" wherever we happen to end up...

Today's picture is a photo of a disaster we can and SHOULD be thinking about and preparing for: a major quake on the San Andreas fault in California. The 1906 event in San Franicisco killed around 3,000 people and enough stress is built up on several strands of the fault that another damaging quake will probably occur well within the lifetimes of most of my California readers. If you want to be paranoid, be worried about something that has a real likelihood of taking place.