If I've Told You Once, I've Told You a Thousand Times...oh wait...

I have told you a thousand times. This is my 1000th post here at Geotripper.

What have I been telling you? Mostly I've been talking about the science of geology, and the very real wonders of living on this planet. I'm hoping that even if you can't get out and see the places I have talked about that you can sense some of the awe that I feel when I look at rocks and landscapes, and see the powerful forces that have shaped our planet for 4.5 billion years. I also secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) hope that you might develop an appreciation for our terrestrial home, and find ways to protect it from degradation and disaster.

I know that numbers are arbitrary celebrations the way that surviving one more circuit around the sun is a celebration. But I would like to take a moment to thank all of you who have given my writings and photos a few moments of your precious time. I enjoy the feedback, the comments, and the questions, and I enjoy being part of the geoblogosphere community. I feel like I know so many of you, even though I have only met one or two of you in person (sorry Gaelyn, I PROMISE to come the the North Rim soon!).

I had no idea I would end up sitting on a thousand posts. I figured I would run out of things to say, but there are always new discoveries to talk about. I am especially happy with my blog series. I've always known I didn't have the personal discipline to write a book, but I sort of did just that, only it was fun. If you have never checked them out:

The Other California, an exploration of a lot of unknown but geologically interesting places in our incredible state.

Under the Volcano (and into the Abyss), an exploration of Yosemite Valley, one of my favorite corners of the world.

Time Beyond Imagining, a chronological history of the Colorado Plateau, my other favorite corner of the world.

A Convergence of Wonders, which answers the question of what a subduction zone and 200 million years can accomplish in the Pacific Northwest.

Vagabonding across the 39th Parallel, the chronicle of a journey across the wilds of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, the ultimate unplanned and chaotic trip.

And finally my first series, the Airliner Chronicles, in which I actually finally benefited from bothering the flight attendants by using their planes as a tripod to take pictures of geological features from way up high.

So how shall I celebrate? I think I shall hit the road! Like, early tomorrow morning. I'm working on a field guide for an AAPG field seminar that is taking place in late July, exploring Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Parks and all the cool places in between. We are doing a reconn of the field trip stops for the next week, so blogging might be sparse for a few days. On the actual seminar we will be looping out of Las Vegas, and unlike my average trip, we will be staying in hotels and using nice new rental SUVs. If this sounds like a good time, come and join us! You can get the basic info by clicking here.

See you all on the other side!

Accretionary Wedge #26: Musings of an Education Junkie

I got to borrow a class today. This was important for me in this most unusual summer. California's budget crunch left me with no classes to teach over the summer months for the first time in years, and I was going through withdrawal pains.

I wasn't really aware of this at the time, as I had immersed myself in a grant writing project, some website design, and then out of the blue, one of the weirdest political controversies I've ever been involved with (it's true, in response to your unspoken question, that I do not know how to relax). So, when I heard that my old employer, Santa Barbara City College, was running a field studies trip through my area, I jumped at the invitation to join them for a few hours. They let me talk about the Mother Lode and California Gold Rush history at one of the old mines near Mariposa. It was like a breath of fresh air for me (and a touch of minor misery for the students forced to listen!).

This month's Accretionary Wedge is an introspective set of questions about the Geoblogosphere, and is proposed by Dave Bressan (History of Geology and Cryology and Co.) and Michael Welland (Through the Sandglass). A lot of geobloggers have responded, and I have been much impressed by their perspectives. I'm looking forward to seeing them in one place, in case I missed something. The wide-ranging questions were paraphrased as follows:

What role the geoblogosphere should play going forward? Should it have a role in disseminating research? Should geoblogging be factored into academic- or business- employees’ evaluations? Can, and how should, the expertise and enthusiasm of geobloggers be harnessed to effectively reach and educate the broader public? In short (again, as I interpret the issue), what do you see as the purpose of geoblogging and the geoblogosphere?

Geologists are story-tellers. Sometimes those stories take the form of peer-reviewed research, sometimes it is in the form of a classroom lecture, and sometimes it is a story told around a campfire, or over a round of beers. The geoblogosphere is a wonderful new forum for geologists and teachers to tell their stories.

I don't know that the geoblogosphere has a particular monolithic "role", but I do see it as having a purpose. It is a vast anarchy, much like gaggle of competing stories told over the campfire, but with an important distinction. Almost all the geobloggers I read seem to be oriented towards education, and even if that is not their main motivation, it is the effective outcome. I turn to the geoblogs for a quick informal perusal of the latest research, immediate analysis of geologic events (on-site reports from Kilauea's latest outburst, for instance), and to learn about places I may never have the chance to explore for myself...in all of its crazy disparate threads and pathways, it is an educational tool.

Sometimes (in the real world), I will be discussing an outcrop or site at a national park overlook, and occasionally a few tourists will start listening in, even asking questions. In the same way, lots of non-geologists arrive in the geoblogosphere when a search engine lands them there. They are looking for more information on whatever rumors are sweeping across the world of Twitter and texts (2012, anybody?), and geobloggers are often the ones responding to these things quickly. The geobloggers often provide a more nuanced scientific response to geologic events and political issues than the mainstream media, and there is great value in the tendency of geobloggers to critique (and sometimes severely demolish) bad scientific writing. This is seen during major ongoing disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, oil spills, and global warming, and in stupid local issues such as the weird dust-up over serpentine in California.

Can it be harnessed? In the sense of organizing, it already is to an admirable degree, due to the efforts folks like Chris at Highly Allochthonous, and Stratigraphy.net, with their newsfeeds. If there is anything further to be done, a good start would be for all geobloggers to have a link to one of these feeds posted prominently on their blogs.

I had a great time out in the field today, working with the college students to better understand the origin of the Mother Lode, and of the beautiful exposures of serpentinite at the mine site. Telling stories. And when I can't be in the classroom or in the field telling stories, I tell them and read them in cyberspace instead.

Women Geologists and the Geoblogosphere

Kim over at All My Faults are Stress Related and a number of other bloggers are asking for help on a survey of women geologists and the geoblogosphere, the results of which will be presented at a GSA symposium. If you meet the guidelines, link up with the survey here.

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!

An Alternate View of Upper Yosemite Falls

If you haven't been to Yosemite Valley in a few years, you may be startled by some of the changes. The bus and auto parking lot at Lower Yosemite Falls has been removed, and the site is being returned to nature. A network of paved trails offer some new and spectacular views of the Upper and Lower falls, including this one from last week. The falls were full and were being blown about by high winds.

Yosemite is a beautiful place. Don't let the crowds scare you away; a midweek visit is not so bad, and a short hike in any direction will often generate some solitude.

Posts will be sporadic for a few weeks; like many of the other posters in the geoblogosphere, it is field season, and I will soon be on the road to the Colorado Plateau. If you REALLY miss my posts, check out the new geoblogosphere roster by Chris at Highly Allochthonous to find some great alternatives. The field is growing fast!

Geoblogosphere Gets Some Press!

Kudos to the ground-breakers and trail blazers of the geoblogosphere for getting recognition in the dead-tree press: the AAPG Explorer and Geotimes (thanks Chris for the links)! Some of you worked for several years in relative obscurity in a corner of blogworld, but now that world has expanded.

I think what I really like about the geoblogosphere is the fact that you have broken a certain stereotype of bloggers in general, especially in the political world: a bunch of pale dudes who never go outside, living in their parent's basement with bags of Cheetos scattered about. It is a delight to see everyday life from a geologist's perspective in far-flung parts of the world such as South Africa, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, and many of my favorite places closer to my corner of the world, including the Colorado Plateau country, the Basin and Range and California (here, here, and here). And with Tuff Cookie's, Callan's and Ron's help, I am learning a great deal about the mid and eastern United States, where I have spent far less time. There are many more great sites, and I always wake up looking forward to seeing the latest news in the geo-world. One more site I would suggest is http://hfaroundtheworldin180days.blogspot.com/. See what happens when a geologist spends six months traveling the world...

Great job to all! There are still some blank spots on the geoblogosphere world...I would like to see some more of you starting and maintaining blogs on the earth sciences. And the puns. I love the geology puns. Keep them coming!

Why I Blog - Notes from a Rookie in the Geoblogosphere

Brian at Clastic Detritus asks about what the science blogs are, and whether they seem to fall into categories: blogs about science, or blogs by scientists? It's an interesting question, and I don't think I've been here long enough to put myself in one category or another. Mostly I started this blog after spending a great deal of my online time following politics in the blogosphere, and realizing slowly that we now have an alternative form of communication that has some great potential in my field of education and earth science.

Consider that in politics, blogs pretty much didn't exist in the public conciousness prior to the presidential elections in 2004, but they have grown in influence to the point that many people get their news there instead of the mainstream media, because of a perceived corporate bias (take your choice, left or right). These blogs have been able to influence the direction and intensity of public discussion on a number of important political issues, and have even successfully changed the expected results of a number of elections (just ask Joe Lieberman in Connecticut). The blogs have become a sort of ultimate democracy, and sort of an ultimate anarchy at the same time. You have to be able to filter out the accurate information from the garbage.

I have been watching the fledgling geoblogosphere from the margins for the last year or so, and was disappointed that it didn't seem to include much of anyone at first beyond Andrew Alden's About Geology (apologies to everyone I missed...), and I sort of wandered away during a very busy spring and summer, and when I came back, I found that the number of interesting and active geoblogs had vastly increased.

What is the role of the geoblogosphere?

At conferences and in the journals, our science is presented in a very formal way, and there are the very appropriate guidelines and buffers and peer reviews that promote an intellectual honesty that our science disciplines must maintain at all costs. I love going to conferences when I have the chance, but I also note the some of the best parts of the attending these gatherings is the chance to meet other teachers and other geologists over coffee or beer, and getting to know them as individuals and friends. We can toss out our opinions and jokes, and trade teaching ideas, all in an informal atmosphere of give and take.

As I observe the Accretionary Wedge carnival, and the Where on (Google) Earth contests float through the geoblogosphere, I realize that I am participating in the same kind of friendly communication that I previously did during the off-moments of conferences. It is a chance to find out something else about our colleagues that doesn't emerge in a formal paper or session. Sometimes just plain fun, but I also see great potential for a rapid mobilization when major issues arise. I am remind, for instance, of attempts to shut down the USGS to save a small, small portion of the federal budget. I can recall a few times when very famous geologic outcrops were threatened by short-sighted road beautification projects. It is good to know that if such problems arise, a concerted effort by geobloggers can make a significant difference in resolving the problem.

In my own case, it really boils down to the fact that I have a whole bunch of pictures that I want to share, and I enjoy discussing geological/educational stuff in a setting that allows for informality and the occasional stupid comment (NOVAblog, I was kidding about the coal-burning power plant). I've been enjoying it so far, and hope to continue making contributions. And I would really like to see more people make the plunge and start their own geoblogs. There should be more of you participating, both students, teachers and researchers. I found it to be a very straight-forward process starting and adding to the blog, and truly a lot less hassle then maintaining my formal website. It actually is a great deal of fun. I am living proof that you don't have to be particularly smart or sophistocated to do it.