Monday, November 28, 2011

Black Friday Roadtrip

Inspired by a post over at Garry Hayes over at Geotripper, I decided to post some of my favorite scenery along I-70 between Denver and Grand Junction. PBF and I spent Black Friday returning to Grand Junction after visiting family in Denver for Thanksgiving. In my opinion, a much better way to "spend" Black Friday!  And because I forgot to bring a camera, Google Street View will be assisting in the photos.

This water wheel (faint in center) outside Idaho Springs was built in 1896.  They had it covered with a big jack'o'lantern left over from Halloween of which I did not manage to get a picture.

Colorado's rich mining history has traces left along the sides of the highway.  Here is a tailing pile just west of Idaho Springs

The approach to Eisenhower Tunnel.  This amazing feat of engineering takes one over a mile and a half through a mountain from the Atlantic watershed to the Pacific watershed.


Nothing like some high elevation sedimentary rocks. These are located up near the top of Vail Pass

Dipping layers southwest of Vail, CO 


Steeply dipping layers just a few miles down from the last photo. This is just west of Wilmor Lake in the Eagle Basin. This is easily one of my favorite roadcuts
I can't tell you how great of timing the Google Van had in capturing a train running through debris from what was one of the many rock slides which plague Glenwood Canyon.  
The Eagle Basin is home the town of Gypsum, Colorado. The city is aptly named due to the extensive gypsum mining operation. The layers that were neatly organized in the last few photos are seen here super deformed due to the "flow" of gypsum.


Though not as well publicized for rock falls, DeBeque Canyon has it's share of lesser stable rocks.  This triangular on in the middle of the screen is one of my favorites. Though the rock itself is a well cemented sandstone, the rocks holding it up are close to silt and mudstone.


There is a brief highlight of how I spent my Black Friday. Much more fun than shopping!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Legos!

I just had to share this series of Lego creations I found on the internet today.


Ok, you may return to your regularly scheduled Sunday night!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Mars Sedimentary Structures Attack!!

Update...it's Sunday night and I'm finally editing a post that was supposed to be finished Friday.

Yes it is Friday night and I am at home, watching SNL from the 70's with PBF, playing Words with Friends and finally getting around to my expanded post about Mars.  This is the topic I would love to research and study.  It is the part of the reason I came back to school for Geology.  This post is basically a summary of the presentation I gave a few weeks ago. ( By summary I mean lots of pretty pictures!) Relating structures seen on Earth is a great way to start gaining understanding of what we see on Mars. Well, at least we can tell that our planet and Mars has some similarities.

Exhibit 1!  Here is an arial photo of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.   This is a high altitude sand dune field in the San Luis Valley, Colorado.  The dunes are backed up against the Sangre De Cristo Mountains to the east.
Duney goodness in Colorado!

This is a satellite photo from the Mars Global Surveyor in orbit around Mars.
It's a dune field blown up at the base of a chasm in the Valles Marineris system. Instead of the silt, sand an soil that makes up the Sand Dunes National Park, these are made mostly out of volcanic ash!


Volcanic ash duney goodness on Mars!

Exhibit 2!!
 A close up of the a section of the Grand Canyon. In the upper region, you can see various layers which make up the canyon walls.  This photo is lit from the south west..

A very small part of the Grand Canyon.

Here is a close up of the Terby Basin on Mars.  You can see layers of sedimentary rocks eroded by some force of nature (wind, water, or something).  

  


Exhibit 3!!
Alluvial fans in Death Valley, CA. Think of them as the mountain shedding.

Erosion from the Panamint Range to the west of Death Valley

Alluvial Fans on Mars! These are in the East Candor Chasma in the Valles Marineris of Mars. Notice the falls are more linear. This is because they are not water driven like the ones in Death Valley.

Fans on Mars!

Exhibit 4!!
Mississippi River Delta System! This is in the process of dumping millions of tons of sediment in the Gulf of Mexico each year.
The long "bird's foot" look of the delta is due to the Army Corps of Engineers keeping the channel  clear for ships.

If the sediments above are buried deep enough, they can become lithified.  That is what we see hear in Holden Crater on Mars!
"Fossilized" deltaic system on Mars.


Well, this post was quite a bit less wordy that I can be, the pictures are pretty to look at!  Hehe :)

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Mars!

For one of my Geology classes, I was asked to pick any topic in geology and give a 10 minute presentation over the topic.  I chose...Geology..... Of......Mars....!!!  (Meant to be read in your best Pigs in Space announcer voice)  

I'm not too far into my research, but I thought I would post a couple neat sites and articles I have found so far.

This is a press release from NASA concerning the possible origin of some rocks the rover Opportunity found at the Endeavor Crater rim.

This is a link to a picture taken by the martian satellite Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Victoria Crater on Mars. It shows sand dunes in the base of the crater!

Short post today, but as I do more research this weekend, I'm sure I will have more to share!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Back to School

Not that I actually took much time off between summer classes and working, but it is that time of year again.  I'm hoping to get back into a regular posting schedule, though with 18 credit hours and 15 hours of work a week...that may mean a few posts with more links than observations.  Either way, I hope to make it interesting.

On that note, here are some links for you to enjoy!

Ever wonder about geologists on other planets?  Here is one from mars!
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20110901.html

This is a photograph of the earth and the moon from the spacecraft Juno, who is on it's way to the moon.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/news/juno20110830.html

If that makes you feel small, here are some visitors to earth in the next week.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroid20100907.html

Apparently I am feeling spacey today.  I'm going to chalk that up to putting off my Organic Chemistry Lab book.  So for something related to organics...kind of...ok maybe its a bit of a stretch...a picture or three of the garden.

These were supposed to be cherry tomatoes.  Talk about over achieving.

Taken in the middle of August,  this is a very small portion of the new batch of tomatoes.
Not the best picture, but here is the jungle.


The poor plant in the front got hit with spider mites. Nasty little guys who basically suck the plant dry.  We did manage to save all of the tomatoes however, so lucked out there.  The rest of the plants are about five feet tall and doing great thanks to the kindly old man that lives behind us. He saved the day with a miticide he uses for his roses (mites cannot be killed by just insecticide, as they are technically in the spider family and therefore not an insect.) and in return, he and his wife were able to enjoy about three pounds of tomatoes from the garden!

Ok, enough procrastination, O-Chem here I come!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Something for Thought

Just a quick note to make you think, inspired by this post over at Mountain Beltway. (Check out the comments to see what the rock actually from).  I had forgotten, but the top of Mt. Everest is made up of dolomite which is only formed at the bottom of the ocean. In fact, a lot of Mt. Everest is made up of ocean-based sedimentary rock. There are fossils of trilobites, a purely ocean dwelling animal, in the tallest mountain on Earth.

Think about that for a second.



The highest point on our planet, is made from rocks formed in the deepest parts of the ocean.  Plate Tectonics is a pretty darned amazing thing.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

I'm back!

I decided that two months is too long to go without a post. (So I'm getting one just shy of two months)  Between two classes and work (that's right I'm gainfully employed now!) this summer has been flying by. I'm working as a math/geology/statistics peer tutor for my school and will be able to continue to do so during the school year. I'm really enjoying helping other students and it is definitly solidifying my desire to become a teacher.  Now that I am back in a routine however, I should be back to regular posts. This one is about the garden PBF and I have been tending.

We live in an apartment so there isn't much room for a normal garden but we have a small back patio with enough room for a few tomato and pepper plants.  We started the garden indoors in March. I believe I have a few pictures up from then.  Finally towards the end of May we were able to transplant the pepper and tomatoes into their final destinations, five gallon buckets from Home Depot.

Here they are looking a little sickly from being stuck in small containers for far too long.

They get about 6-8 hours of sun a day, and after about three weeks, they had grown to this!  I do wish I had a picture of what the weeds in the area looked like before I finally got to pulling them all.  They were starting to overgrow the buckets.

Tomatoes to the right and center and peppers to the left.

The bushy guy in the front center is made up of three cherry tomato plants in the same container.  The plan is that the three plants will support each other without a tomato cage and once the outdoor growing season is over, we can bring them inside with a grow lamp and keep them going through the winter!  Homegrown tomatoes year round!

They have all done amazingly well, and here is what they look like today!

They are growing so fast!

The count as of Monday was at least 50 tomatoes that are at least the size of a dime (and about 10 that are close to full grown), and 10-15 peppers. I'm hopeful that within the next two weeks we will be able to harvest the first batch!

Not bad for starting from seeds.

Seedling starter tray back in March.

Yum salsa garden!


Thursday, May 19, 2011

Another short post

In the last week and a half I have completed finals, gone camping, started my intensive Statistics class and had my sister out to visit for a few days.  Tomorrow, I leave for Denver to visit family, so no big post until next week.

I would liketo put up a short post on a current event. Here link to the blog of a Geomorphologist from Illinois and his takes on the problems with current media coverage of the disastrous flooding along the Mississippi.  http://lrrd.blogspot.com/   There are quite a few posts, so I will put up a couple which I think are important.

This one explains the reasons for a floodway.
http://lrrd.blogspot.com/2011/05/floodways-are-for-floods.html

This one breaks down poor media coverage of the flood with an article from The New York Times.
http://lrrd.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-york-times-falls-down-on-this-flood.html

See you next week!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Study intermission!

Down to my last final tomorrow and wouldn't you know it, I got distracted looking around the USGS website (What do you mean I don't have time for that while studying the entire 4.6 billion year Geologic history of  North America?).  Lucky for you, I found some exciting pictures and videos of recent volcanic activity in Hawaii.

This video shows the collapse of the Pu`u `Ō `ō crater.
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/archive/2011/Mar/PuuOoCollapse_20110305_small.mov

This video shows lava pouring from a volcanic fissure into a large crack running through the surface.
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/archive/2011/Jan/20110306_0675_torr_small.mov

Here is a picture of the above in case Quicktime is being a pain.


Here is the main site if you want to peruse some more lovely photos.
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/images.html

Ok enough exciting vulcanism (no, not this kind)...back to studying.

Just kidding, one more quick movie.  This is of a phenomenon called "gas pistoning" where lava is pushed up by underlying gases which ends up looking like the piston of an engine.
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/gallery/kilauea/volcanomovies/movies/Drainhole%20pistons%20night%20-%20Jun%203,%202006-small.mov

Ok, I'm done...or am I?
Yeah, I am.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Busy busy busy!

Sorry for the lack of posts these past couple weeks.  Between last tests/presentations, my cousin's wedding and now finals coming up this week, I have been feeling like a perpetual motion machine.  Yesterday I embarked upon a makeup field trip (which I missed for my wonderful cousin Natalie's wedding) that entailed driving up through Rifle, Dotsero, Gypsum and Glenwood Springs (where I was able to have lunch with Natalie and her awesome new husband Dany as they are spending a honeymoon at the hot springs) .  Here are some of the photo's from the trip!

This first picture is from the east end of the bike trail that runs through Glenwood Canyon.  The rocks directly to my right are from the Leadville Limestone which near the town of Marble, with some help from metamorphism, turns into the Yule Marble which was used for construction of the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  The stratified layers in the background are much older in age and were forced up with the White River Uplift.  This area is near the boundary of the White River Uplift and the Eagle Basin.
Looking west down Glenwood canyon.
 The next two pictures are from the youngest volcano in Colorado.  The Dotsero volcano last erupted over 4000 years ago.  At present, it is being mined to make cinder blocks and landscaping materials.

Basalt flow from a fissure eruption at the base the Dotsero volcano.

The dark red to black in the center of the photo denote the cinder cone.
 The town of Gypsum is aptly named for the flows of gypsum throughout the area.Gypsum is a lighter mineral and will flow, somewhat like Silly Putty, to reach the surface. The sedimentary layers in this area are churned up and folded in this process.  The company American Gypsum mines the mineral and produces varieties of wall board which are shipped throughout the nation.

The dark rocks to the right contains both siltstone and gypsum. 
A white chunk of gypsum lying on the surface of the road cut.
 Rifle Gap, also known for the Cristo's Valley Curtain, is a large recreational state park.  The damn that holds in the reservoir was constructed between a fairly narrow gap in the Grand Hogback .  The Grand Hogback also helps define the boundaries of the white River Uplift to the northeast and the Piceance Basin to the southwest.

Looking from the gap out into the resevoir.

Cretaceous fossile clams are abundant in the rocks seen in the foreground of the photo above.
 Here is a picture of the Rifle Meteorite Crater.  It is actually disputed as to whether a meteorite or a landslide produced the feature. A meteorite was in the area in the early 1900's, though no records show from where exactly it was collected.

Can you see it? No it's not the lake in the bottom of the photo. 
Tadaa! Yes, that little guy is the culprit.

While there were quite a few more photos from this trip, I must begin studying for my final tomorrow.  I do have a backlog of subjects on which to post, so you may get a second installment of Geology joy later this week, or I may just sleep for a few days. 

Monday, April 18, 2011

Monday Night Supplimental!

I couldn't contain myself.  Three quick photos.
The stand mixer decal came in the mail today.  Now we can really take down those pastries!
The pre-container planting tomatoes and peppers.

The herb garden.  Basil, dill and cilantro (that lazy rosemary still has a while to pop up.)
 Good night!


Rattlesnake Arches, the quick version.

Yes, another quick post.  Two of the tests from last week got pushed to today, then I have one more tomorrow.  Also, I found out that my final speech is to be presented on Thursday, so you get a post with lots of pretty pictures this week, then more on the Geology next week.

Yesterday, PBF, some friends and I headed out to hike the Rattlesnake Canyon trail.  I cannot stress how beautiful it is.  It has one of the larges collection of natural arches outside of Arches National Park in Utah. We took a 4x4 road to get to the upper trailhead instead of hiking in from the bottom of the canyon, and for the views, it was worth it (despite the climb back up the cliffs).

On a side note, I figured all the running I've been doing since moving here would get me in shape for hikes like this, but from the feel of my calves today, I need to hit up the stair machine a little more instead.

A veiw looking back from the upper road.
 You can faintly see Mt. Garfield (left) and  Grand Mesa(center-right)  in the background

The first great view of Rattlesnake Canyon from the 4x4 road.
It is hard to miss this on your way to the trailhead.
The first view from the upper trail.
This is from the backside of Rattlesnake Canyon, looking out northwest into Utah and  the Colorado River Valley.


The white layer in the middle is leaching out salts.
 (I know because I licked it. Geology involves all of the senses.)

Two of the three arches you first come upon.
I couldn't get back far enough to get all three without falling off the cliff behind me.

One of the most well defined arches.
There is an overlook trail that comes out on top of the canyon rim next to the top of the arch.
Have to undertake that one next time.

A formation below the trail we were on.  PBF named it the Railroad  Spike.
You can see the faint trace of an even lower trail in the canyon below.


On the drive back to Grand Junction.
View of the Colorado Plateau from the 4x4 road.
 The pictures don't do the place the justice it deserves, but hopefully you get an idea of the beauty.   Next week, observed sedimentary structures!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Monday Quicky

As I have a total of 5 tests in the next week, I'm going to wuss out and do a quick post today.  In my Historical Geology course, we are currently pursuing our fossil unit.  Here are my favorite fossils we have covered so far (and almost covered I suppose).

Trilobites.   So Cool.   They were amazingly diverse prehistoric bugs that completely disappeared from the fossil record during the Permian Extinction.     I don't have pictures of any yet (lab tomorrow!), but you can find several online.

Brachiopods.  While I don't find them to be particularly interesting, this specimen in lab was fossilized in a manner called permineralization.  It resulted in the shell being filled with pyrite.

Top shell.  you can't see the pyrite very well with this picture as it was from my phone.

Bottom shell.  You can see the top shell overlaying at the top of the photo.
One neat way to tell Brachiopods from their similar looking friends the Pelecypods is the symmetry.  Brachiopods have a strong symmetry looking down at the top, while Pelecypods are symmetrical from the side.

Diatoms are really neat single celled organisms.  They still exist today, but have been found as far back as the Jurassic (200 million years ago).  What I love about them, is the unique shell shapes (well, cell wall shapes would be a better term) they secrete.  Pretty complex looking for a single cell. They also used to be used as an abrasive in toothpaste!

Anyway, off to take one more run at my Weather and Climate practice test.   Happy fossil hunting!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Details from the No Thoroughfare Trail in Colorado National Monument Part 2

Last post, I focused on the older Precambrian rocks that make up most of the base of No Thoroughfare Canyon.  For this post I'm switching gears, actually more like throwing it in reverse, to look at some of the most recent activity in the canyon; the flood and rockfall deposits of less than a million years ago. That may still sound pretty old, but remember, we were looking at rocks older than 1.4 billion years last week.

Close to the mouth of No Thoroughfare, you come upon this:

The natural habitat of the elusive hiking backpack.   Look at  that camouflage!
My backpack on the ground is about a foot high so the larger boulders in the upper layers are a good foot in length at least. This is evidence of flood and possibly rock fall deposits (hehe, mass wasting). These poorly sorted deposits run up the canyon quite a ways. The sorting classification is based on variation in grain size of the sediments that make up the rock.  There is a system of measure called the Wentworth Scale  that is used in geology to classify the grain size of sedimentary rocks. This will come in handy in a few minutes. The next picture is a bit further up.  

Small cliffs in the mouth of the canyon.
I've highlighted the portions of the poorly sorted gravels in the next photo. Differences in rock size show differences in the environment in which the rocks were deposited.  The faster and stronger the force of the water, the larger and heavier rocks it has the ability to transport.  Each layer of the larger cobbles and pebbles represent a flood deposit, with the fine grained sands representing calmer water deposition.

Showing off a common tool in Geology.  Outlining rocks.
This picture has a very stark contrast between the fine grained sand deposits and the large boulders and cobbles above.  

Do not stand here during a flood.
 The rock piles on the ground have either fallen from the cliff above, or have been transported by another flooding event.
More exciting yellow outlining.
 Each of the deposits above are really just loose sediment.  They have not undergone the burial and lithification necessary to cement the grains together to become a full fledged rock. Lucky for us another deposit in the area, a bit older, has eroded into the canyon and shows what the rocks from similar deposition environment a few hundred million years ago can look like.  These are what the deposits above can become if they are not eroded away before they can be buried.
What the first deposits aspire to be....if rocks have aspirations I suppose.

A pebble conglomerate, and a foreshortened leg.

The last picture I'll leave you with is one I meant to put up last week, but for some reason or another spaced out.   If you ever needed proof the earth loves you, here it is.