Accretionary Wedge Carnival #7! Hollywood Geologists

Tuff Cookie at Magma Cum Laude (http://magmacumlaude.blogspot.com/) is our host of the 7th Accretionary Wedge Carnival, on the topic of our favorite or least favorite depictions of geology and geologists in the movies. As will be seen from my list below my taste in movies runs towards action-adventure as opposed to the "sophisticated" cinema. But frankly, no movie with a geologist can avoid action and adventure...

Despite having grown up in southern California, and having lived through the 1971 Sylmar quake, I have never taken a picture of the Hollywood sign, so I offer a photo of a favorite Hollywood set, especially in the old westerns: the cliffs of Red Rock Canyon State Park on Highway 14 in the Mojave Desert. The rocks are Miocene continental floodplain sediments lifted up by fault motions on the Garlock and El Paso fault systems. John Wayne should come riding through any moment now....

My favorite geologists in the movies

1) Tremors (1990): Finn Carter as seismology student Rhonda LeBeck.

Speaking from an entirely gender-biased point of view, Finn wins my vote as the finest portrayal of a geologist in a Hollywood movie. Intelligent and creative, and cute, too. And finding strange underground worm things using a seismometer.

2) Volcano (1997): Laurie Latham as Rachel, Anne Heche as Dr. Amy Barnes (honorable mention)

Rachel didn't get much credit for being the first Hollywood geologist to get sucked into a volcano, but she displayed many of the traits of the real geologist: self-effacing, nervous in front of cameras, and yet a good and perceptive researcher. Of course, she wasn't a leading character. The actual 'star' of the film, Anne Heche gets honorable mention for looking at a topographic map on-screen, but then using a basketball to confirm that a street does in fact slope downhill the wrong way.

3) Dante's Peak (1997): Pierce Brosnan(!) as Dr. Harry Dalton, Charles Hallahan as Paul Dreyfus, Grant Heslov as Greg and others

James Bond as volcanologist?? Well, I dunno...too clean-cut, too shaven, too cultured. Now, the rest of his team, though, they were more like the people I see and work with on a regular basis. Coffee addicts, intense, and lovers of volcanoes. Some of the portrayals of geological processes were done pretty well, except for that really fast-moving Hollywood lava, and driving a truck through said flow without dying from the radiant heat. And that acid lake that killed grandma. And that overly steep giant Hollywood volcano in Idaho. I really liked the bridge that got washed out at the end of the movie, though.

4) King Kong (1976): Rene Auberjonois as Bagley

In his pre-"Deep Space Nine" days, Rene played a geologist who thought that the mysterious uncharted island was hiding a lot of oil. When shown to be wrong, he did what many geologists are known to do...he got drunk.

5) Erin Brokovich (2000): Julia Roberts in the title role

The second or third line of the movie had Julia Roberts saying "I love geology". I melted on the spot and was hers from that point on. Though she was actually a legal clerk and not a geologist, she was shown researching groundwater chemistry, taking samples of poisoned water, pulling dead rotting animals from wells, and running away from security guards after trespassing on company property. All in a day's work for any field geologist, I should think.

6) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones

O.K., so he was really an archaeologist, but he dug in the earth a lot, and the character was in fact based on Roy Chapman Andrews, an adventuring paleontologist who explored the Mongolian deserts in search of ancient life in the 1920's. His expeditions found the now renowned Flaming Cliffs which contained fossils of protoceratops, oviraptor, and that most famous of movie dinosaurs, velociraptor. His party also discovered the nests of some dinosaurs, containing egg clutches in concentric circles, and some very rare Cretaceous mammals. They were chased by bandits and assaulted by horrible dust storms. And what geologist doesn't dream of dramatic adventures in the field?

7) Jurassic Park (1993) and Jurassic Park III (2001): Sam Neill as Dr.Alan Grant.

His character was ok, but I was most impressed by the office trailer for the paleontology dig in Montana; messy, dusty, newspaper clippings on the wall, lunch mixed with research; a true geology office! The third movie in the series mostly had people getting eaten, but as usual, the dinosaurs looked pretty cool.

8) The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2 (1997):

Come to think of it, there weren't many paleontologists in this movie, except the guy in cowboy hat with the long beard who looked a lot like Robert Bakker. I think he got eaten by a velociraptor...

9) The Core (2003):

I don't really remember much about the geologists, but I loved the "element" they used to drill into the mantle and core in only two or three days; it was called "Unobtainium". And that giant mantle amethyst geode was pretty cool, even if the crystals killed some of the crew members.

10) Bringing Up Baby (1938): Cary Grant as Dr. David Huxley.

Handsome guy, looking for a dinosaur bone with beautiful Katherine Hepburn at her best, a pesky dog and a pair of leopards. What more could you ask?

11) Eight Below (2006): Bruce Greenwood as Dr. David McClaren.

A geologist willing to ride a dogsled for a week, face down avalanches, blizzards, crevasses, frostbite, a broken leg, and a fall into freezing cold water, all so he could find a meteorite in Antarctica. How he knew to look for that particular meteorite on a rocky mountainside as opposed to the surface of a glacier, I don't know. And they left those poor dogs behind....

Tourmaline Dreams, and the National Association of Geoscience Teachers

Off on another trip this weekend, to the Spring Conference of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, Far Western Section, hosted this year by Palomar College and CSU San Marcos. We will be participating in a number of field trip choices along the southern California coast, and up in the Peninsular Ranges. The highlight for me will be a tour of a working tourmaline mine in the Pala area.

Tourmaline is a beautiful complex silicate gemstone. The highly variable composition results in a rainbow of colors, sometimes in a single stone. One of the more famous is the "watermelon" stone that is green on the outside and bright pink on the inside. It often occurs in trigonal prismatic crystals. The tourmaline occurs in pegmatite veins associated with batholithic rocks of the Peninsular Ranges. During the early part of the last century, the stone was highly desired in China, although demand dropped off later on in the 1920's. Some of the gemstones are nothing short of spectacular, weighing several pounds, and reaching a foot in length.

The National Association of Geoscience Teachers is a great organization to meet with other geology teachers, and to see some really wonderful parts of the western United States. During NAGT conferences I have had the opportunity to walk around the deepest parts of open-pit gold mines, explore active lava flows, search for fossil fish in old lake beds, and to visit some of the most beautiful places I can imagine. We are always looking to add new members...the Far West Section, covering California, Nevada, and Hawaii has two conferences every year, and offers an extensive collection of geological road guides from past conferences. Our Fall 2008 will be hosted by CSU Chico, and will have trips exploring the northern Coast Ranges and the Lassen Peak region. Other sections around the country have similar programs available. The national NAGT publishes the Journal of Geoscience Education, and has extensive web resources available.

Check it out! The Far West Section website can be found at http://nagt-fws.org/ and the national website is at http://www.nagt.org/

Picture of the Day: Rock, Moon and Sky, and 10 Unanswered Questions

Dave Schumaker, and the Geology News blog (http://geology.rockbandit.net/) is back after a long absence, and I am looking forward to his insights on the geoblogosphere. He caught a post from the National Research Council and National Academies on the Ten Questions Shaping Earth Science Identified. This isn't your average David Letterman top ten list; it is an excellent guide to the direction of research in the earth sciences today, and bears repeating below.

I have been struck in recent years how new research is deconstructing some fondly cherished ideas about the planet...hot spots that aren't necessarily deep mantle plumes, a possible new layer in the core (the inner-inner core?), an older-younger-older and maybe younger Grand Canyon, a Sierra Nevada that is sinking, no rising, well maybe both, and a side of Mercury no one has seen before. The results of research are fascinating to see. One of the most important points I try to build into the minds of my students is the sheer excitement of living in a time when so much is being discovered.

The list of the top ten questions bears repeating...here they are! A news release, a brief, and a full report (for a price) can be accessed at http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20080312.html. Do you agree with the list? Would you have asked something different?

How did Earth and other planets form? While scientists generally agree that this solar system's sun and planets came from the same nebular cloud, they do not know enough about how Earth obtained its chemical composition to understand its evolution or why the other planets are different from one other. Although credible models of planet formation now exist, further measurements of solar system bodies and extrasolar objects could offer insight to the origin of Earth and the solar system.

What happened during Earth's "dark age" (the first 500 million years)? Scientists believe that another planet collided with Earth during the latter stages of its formation, creating debris that became the moon and causing Earth to melt down to its core. This period is critical to understanding planetary evolution, especially how the Earth developed its atmosphere and oceans, but scientists have little information because few rocks from this age are preserved.

How did life begin? The origin of life is one of the most intriguing, difficult, and enduring questions in science. The only remaining evidence of where, when, and in what form life first appeared springs from geological investigations of rocks and minerals. To help answer the question, scientists are also turning toward Mars, where the sedimentary record of early planetary history predates the oldest Earth rocks, and other star systems with planets.

How does Earth's interior work, and how does it affect the surface? Scientists know that the mantle and core are in constant convective motion. Core convection produces Earth's magnetic field, which may influence surface conditions, and mantle convection causes volcanism, seafloor generation, and mountain building. However, scientists can neither precisely describe these motions, nor calculate how they were different in the past, hindering scientific understanding of the past and prediction of Earth's future surface environment.

Why does Earth have plate tectonics and continents? Although plate tectonic theory is well established, scientists wonder why Earth has plate tectonics and how closely it is related to other aspects of Earth, such as the abundance of water and the existence of the continents, oceans, and life. Moreover, scientists still do not know when continents first formed, how they remained preserved for billions of years, or how they are likely to evolve in the future. These are especially important questions as weathering of the continental crust plays a role in regulating Earth's climate.

How are Earth processes controlled by material properties? Scientists now recognize that macroscale behaviors, such as plate tectonics and mantle convection, arise from the microscale properties of Earth materials, including the smallest details of their atomic structures. Understanding materials at this microscale is essential to comprehending Earth's history and making reasonable predictions about how planetary processes may change in the future.

What causes climate to change -- and how much can it change? Earth's surface temperature has remained within a relatively narrow range for most of the last 4 billion years, but how does it stay well-regulated in the long run, even though it can change so abruptly? Study of Earth's climate extremes through history -- when climate was extremely cold or hot or changed quickly -- may lead to improved climate models that could enable scientists to predict the magnitude and consequences of climate change.

How has life shaped Earth -- and how has Earth shaped life? The exact ways in which geology and biology influence each other are still elusive. Scientists are interested in life's role in oxygenating the atmosphere and reshaping the surface through weathering and erosion. They also seek to understand how geological events caused mass extinctions and influenced the course of evolution.

Can earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and their consequences be predicted? Progress has been made in estimating the probability of future earthquakes, but scientists may never be able to predict the exact time and place an earthquake will strike. Nevertheless, they continue to decipher how fault ruptures start and stop and how much shaking can be expected near large earthquakes. For volcanic eruptions, geologists are moving toward predictive capabilities, but face the challenge of developing a clear picture of the movement of magma, from its sources in the upper mantle, through Earth's crust, to the surface where it erupts.

How do fluid flow and transport affect the human environment? Good management of natural resources and the environment requires knowledge of the behavior of fluids, both below ground and at the surface, and scientists ultimately want to produce mathematical models that can predict the performance of these natural systems. Yet, it remains difficult to determine how subsurface fluids are distributed in heterogeneous rock and soil formations, how fast they flow, how effectively they transport dissolved and suspended materials, and how they are affected by chemical and thermal exchange with the host formations.

Picture of the Day - The Airliner Chronicles

Back to geological beauty from above. My flight in 2005 over Greenland was a stunner; glaciers are beautiful examples of erosion in action, and Greenland is a giant open-air observatory for studying and quantifying climate change. Greenland is one of those places I truly hope to one day see from ground level. It is very high on my geologist's life list. The sights from a plane are incredible, but there is still an isolation factor. A plane window is kind of like a television...you have little control over the content. You can change the channel (look out the other side of the plane), but there is no feeling for the air temperature, the odors, the sounds, and it passes by too quickly.

Picture of the Day - Ig or Sed Explained

Silver Fox and Ron are both right, the weekend's photo was of air fall volcanic deposits that mimic sedimentary layers. The locality is the Ubehebe Craters at the north end of the paved road in Death Valley National Park. The craters are a dozen or so maars, or phreatic explosion pits that originated within the last few thousand years (some researchers have suggested the last few hundred years). Basaltic magma, rising along fault zones at the north end of Cottonwood Mountains encountered groundwater (phreatic water) in the older clay-rich lake sediments, causing the water to flash to steam. The dozens of explosions were accompanied by ground surges of debris that formed the distinctive layers. Since years or decades or centuries separated individual eruptions, the layers were gullied by erosion, and subsequent eruptions coated the older rocks, causing an apparent angular unconformity (which I found to be the most interesting aspect of the photo). The sloping layers actually represent overlapping cones. I try to get my students to map the order of the craters that are visible from a walk along the rim. It is bigger than it seems...there are people standing on the bottom of the crater in the photo above. The biggest crater is 700 feet deep and nearly half a mile across.

The photo above shows one of the smaller craters with the dark rim of debris layers and a small bit of gullying on the left side. People on the rim serve as scale.

It's a great place to visit, but watch out for the persistent winds!

Picture of the Day-Igneous or Sedimentary?

Another interesting outcrop from the Death Valley region. Ideas on the formation of the unusual pattern of deposition or emplacement? It is in one of the more remote parts of the park for those whose idea of "remote" means the end of the pavement without a return loop drive. The best clue I can think of is: is this outcrop igneous or sedimentary? Below is another view of related outcrops nearby.

Y'all have a restful weekend. I am taking our Geology Club on a caving expeditition in the Sierra Nevada foothills tomorrow.

Picture of the Day - Danger Signs

Soon after posting a few death-defying pictures, Julian at Harmonic Tremors posted an additional photo of an "Unsafe Rock Area" (Danger danger danger! ), which brought to mind two of my favorite geology-related caution signs...the picture above is a sign warning of falling rocks at the base of a 400 foot "cliff" in southern England called Salisbury Cathedral!

The other sign may be familiar to travelers at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Just in case anyone feels uncomfortable passing such a sign, the park was kind enough to announce....