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Pete Seeger: Singing Truth to Power
What is the most powerful agent of social change? If we are to judge by the accomplishments of one particular man in a life well-lived, that tool would have to be song. Pete Seeger passed away this...
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South Dakota Senate Proposes to Allow the Teaching of the Great Spaghetti...
Via WikipediaVia Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy and from the South Dakota State Senate website itself, we find that a bill has been proposed that will make law the statement that "no school board or...
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Out in America's Never Never: A Corner of the Navajo Nation Where the Ancient...
One thing I love about blogging is the total freedom be distracted and leave projects unfinished. This is something I inadvertently did six months ago. I got distracted by a river trip down the Grand...
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Cigarettes Don't Cause Cancer. "Cigarette-Science" Tells Us So
Credit: Lady GreyThe non-tobacconists have constructed a complicated and massive program to brainwash you into thinking that cigarette smoking will give you cancer and other horrible diseases. This...
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When His Horizon Fell Dark, His Dream, Unfinished, Morphed...Finding Beauty...
Most of the time readers are hearing of my adventures of teaching at Modesto Junior College, but few know that I have also been teaching classes at California State University, Stanislaus down in...
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I'm Glad Movies Like "Avatar" Aren't Metaphors or Anything: Exploring Black...
It's the stuff of science fiction movies. A pastoral peaceful society is overwhelmed by a technologically superior and more numerous invader because they were unlucky to be living on top of something...
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Out in America's Never Never: A Tale of Two Towers (and a few more)
Agathla Peak north of Kayenta, ArizonaAmerica's Never Never is full of strange and wonderful sights. We had left the forested Black Mesa and its rather depressing strip mines and headed east to the...
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Out in America's Never Never: Valley of the Gods, where pareidolia runs rampant
Pareidolia is a very human tendency to perceive faces and significant forms in unlikely places, like on oddly shaped potatoes and burnt tortillas. It is what allows us to see the "Man in the Moon", and...
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On the Road Again: Into the Valley of Death (and check out a new geology blog)
It's finally dawning on me: I'm hitting the road again. With students! I often imagine while in a classroom of having the walls and doors fading away into an open landscape where the principles I am...
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So What Do You Gain From Teaching Anyway?
Black tourmaline (schorl) crystals in a muscovite pegmatiteIt's been six years and 1,307 blog entries since I began Geotripper as sort of a lark. I had a lot of digital images of geological subjects,...
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Out of the Valley of Death: Home from the road
Dantes View at Death Valley National ParkIt's geology in the starkest terms. Death Valley is a place where the crust has been torn asunder, with valley floors lying below sea level next to peaks that...
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Out of the Valley of Death: A bit of life hangs on
Desert Gold near Ashford MillA visit to Death Valley generally comes with an expectation that conditions are going to be dry. The valley floor may average no more than 2 inches of rain in a normal...
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Is Science Dead? In my town, a resounding "NO"!
Science is in trouble, they say. Kids just aren't interested in science careers, and schools hardly teach it anyway. And in the poorer parts of the country, the problems are even worse. No one cares...
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Out of the Valley of Death: Cutting our (shark) teeth as new geologists
Ropy lenticular cloud, southern Sierra Nevada on the Kern River. Photo by Mrs. Geotripper.Our recent adventure in Death Valley National Park had some preliminaries. One doesn't just go headlong into...
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A bit of Geo-Graffiti
It's not the usual subject matter of the fence art in my local neighborhood. But I'll take the positive over the obscene any time...And no, I didn't do it.
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Out of the Valley of Death: Explorations in Red Rock Canyon
The next stop on our way to Death Valley National Park was one of the most ideal locations for learning the basics of stratigraphy to be found anywhere: Red Rock Canyon State Park in the El Paso...
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Out of the Valley of Death: Dreams of the Water Times at Fossil Falls
The lands east of the Sierra Nevada are dry. The massive mountain wall of granitic rock captures the Pacific storms that reach California and wrings the moisture out, leaving barren deserts and...
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Action on our Seismometer Today: Earthquake Swarm or Volcanic Harmonic...
Frankly, if we lived next to a major fault zone or an active volcano, the seismic record above on our department seismometer would be worrisome beyond measure. Earthquake after earthquake usually...
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The Other California: The Wetlands of the San Joaquin Valley, Actually Wet.
It's been a miserable year, one of the worst on record. For the last year much of California, including my home in the Great Valley, has received an amount of rain more appropriate to Death Valley than...
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The Water Pirates: A Can a Day is All We Ask (plus 107 million gallons)
New orchard on the California prairieIt's a sad and familiar story for California: there is a valuable resource in the ground, free for the taking. There are those who come to exploit the resource,...
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