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Geotripper Goes to the Movies: Review of Unconformity (2022)
Copyright: Jonathan DiMaioOne of my earliest blog posts, back in 2008, was a top-ten list of the depiction of geologists in movies. I've revisited it a few times, most recently in 2018Â when I added in...
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A Rare Day for the Great Valley: The Sierra Crest, and a bit of Half Dome
California's Great Valley is many things: one of the most important agricultural regions in the world, America's Serengeti Plains where millions of migratory birds spend the winter, and one of the most...
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Discover the Wonders of the Hawaiian Islands with Geotripper and Modesto...
Are you looking for a bit of adventure? I invite you to join our Modesto Junior College Anthropology 190/Geology 190: Field Studies in the Hawaiian Islands from May 30 to June 11, 2024. This...
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Echoes of a Watery Paradise in a Forsaken Hellscape - The Brief Return of...
Imagine a lake that's six miles across flanked by dramatic mountain peaks reaching heights greater than 10,000 feet. We're in California, so it's got to be Lake Tahoe, right? But it's not. It is the...
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What's the Most Awesome Thing You've Ever Seen? Musing on Solar Eclipses, Part 1
Totality of the solar eclipse of 1991 from San Jose del Cabo. The corona, an aura of plasma and gases, is only visible during totality. Photo by Dr. William Luebke.There is a major celestial event...
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The End of the Tuolumne River! (It's not as bad as it sounds...)
The slough at the headquarters area of Dos Rios State ParkBack in the 1980s, Douglas Adams published his hilarious "trilogy" of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. The second book, The Restaurant...
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George Lucas Had It Wrong. A Day of Fierce Pride at Modesto Junior College...
I had conflicting responsibilities and to my regret had to miss my school's graduation ceremony yesterday. I know that many of my students had the honor of walking that stage, and I can only say: I am...
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A Stunning Night: The Aurora Borealis from Central California
It has been a stunning night. I never believed the auroras would make it into Central California, and most of the predictions suggested it wouldn't. But then reports started pouring in; sightings in...
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Geotripper on How to Plan a Perfect Volcanic Eruption, Hawai'i Style!
So you want to demonstrate a volcanic eruption for your field geology course, and are unsure how to proceed? Let the crew (of one) here at Geotripper help you to plan out the very best eruption...
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Landslides and Slope Mitigation in California's Great Valley...Wait...What?
 I used to talk to my students about the geological hazards that we face as inhabitants of California's Great Valley (or Central Valley, for those who don't appreciate its actual greatness). I would go...
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Visiting Hawai'i...for the Limestone Caverns? (Part one)
People visit Hawai'i for a great many reasons. There are the stereotypical reasons: beautiful beaches, surfing, palm trees, luaus and so on. There are other reasons: a wish to learn about the culture...
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Part 2: The Limestone Caves of Hawai'i - The Catastrophes at Makauwahi Cave
 Makauwahi Cave and Sinkhole as it is todayI learned to my great surprise that Hawai'i has a few (very few, really) limestone caves. In part one I talked about the odd origin of Makauwahi Cave on the...
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Twice in 2024! Auroras in Central California
Back in May of this year, I saw something I had never seen before: the aurora borealis gracing the night sky over the prairie of the Sierra Nevada foothills. It was an astounding once-in-a-life event....
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Visible now! Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)
 It's not often that I get to see two rare astronomical phenomena in the same week, but that's what has happened. The other night was an extraordinary display of the aurora borealis in my part of...
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A Second Look at Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)!
I had my first look at Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) last night, but my timing sucked, as I didn't locate it until it was close to the horizon and practically lost in the afterglow of the sunset....
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Why did the Road Cross the San Andreas Fault? 22 Years of Geologic Change (a...
2002 I've been leading geology field studies trips to lots of places in the American West for 36 years and started to take digital pictures in 2001. I sometimes struggle to find new things to...
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What We All Think We Know: Myths and Misconceptions about California and...
Today is the Great Shake-Out in California: At 10:17 AM, around 10.5 MILLION people will participate in a statewide earthquake drill. This is also the 35th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake...
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In the Heart of the Devil: The Damning of Del Puerto Canyon
This beautiful canyon is under serious threatCalifornia geology is complicated. Unlike any other state, it is affected by the interactions of all three kinds of plate boundaries: divergent (the crust...
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The Simultaneous Seasons of California (and a peek at Half Dome)
It was a beautiful Christmas day here in the Central Valley, one of the prettiest I can recall. The storm that blew through yesterday was gone, and the winds were enough to prevent the fog from setting...
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About That Bucket List...What Would You Do To See These Places?
Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado RiverSo...about that bucket list of yours. Surely you have one. If you don't, what's keeping you from making one? Here's a version I promoted a few years back (I've made...
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Strange Doings in the Sky Today. What the Heck is a Circumzenithal Arc?
We live our lives never truly knowing when the day comes that something remarkable happens. I was doing totally normal errands today in the middle of town when I saw a sun dog, a common enough...
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An "Extinct" Fish Finds Life Again in a Parched Desert: The Saga of the...
The pupfish habitat at the springs in Shoshone, east of Death Valley National ParkOf all the things one might look for while exploring intense desert environments, what is the most unlikely form of...
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The First Lunar Eclipse of 2025
Interesting skies once again! Tonight was a lunar eclipse. The timing was great, with totality being reached before midnight here in the Pacific Time Zone. But we are in the midst of a powerful Pacific...
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The Most Extraordinary Landscape on Planet Earth: Geotripping on the Colorado...
Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado RiverNOTE: This is an updated and revised version of a post from December 28, 2024 So...about that bucket list of yours. Surely you have one. If you don't, what's keeping...
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Do You Think You Know the Highest Waterfall in Yosemite Valley? You Could Be...
Quick quiz: What is the name of this waterfall?What is the highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley? Depending on the parameters one can use to determine "height", your assumption may be wrong! Most...
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