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Rain? In a Rain Forest? Exploring California and Oregon on the 50th...
Humboldt Redwoods State Park, CaliforniaIt starts with little cascades like this... Humboldt Redwoods State ParkThat grow into brooks like this, repeated thousands of times over... Prairie Creek,...
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A California Geologist Observes a Flood in Oregon: Hilarity Ensues?
OMG, a gigantic river! The Umpqua River below Roseburg, OregonI'm really more of a desert rat. I hail from a dry valley in California, I take my students on extended field trips to places like Death...
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Holiday Wishes: The Nation's Christmas Tree and Holiday Images of the Ah-wah-nee
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! As is my tradition, I offer up once again a very big Christmas tree, the General Grant Tree in Kings Canyon National Park. The tree is so large (268 feet...
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The Volcano That Wasn't There, and Two That Were...
Mt. Shasta and Shastina from the northI hope that your holiday travels were safe and happy. I had a fine time visiting family across the Pacific Northwest, from Seattle to central Oregon, Northern...
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Evening Scenes of a Primeval Landscape: The Great Valley as it was
It's my home, and I've been known to denigrate it for it's pollution, dust, and visual desolation (hundreds of miles of monotonous agricultural fields). Only 5% of the original landscape of...
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Explore the Wonders of the Colorado Plateau: Join Geotripper and the AAPG on...
Antelope Canyon, on the Navajo Reservation near Page, ArizonaThe Colorado Plateau, the region encompassing large parts of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado, is one of the great geologic showplaces...
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A New Year. Do Something New. See a New Place.
Peyto Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta, CanadaI've never been one for resolutions. Changes in my life tend to happen at the various times when the need for change becomes apparent and I try acting...
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2014: Our Year Without a Freezing Temperature
My flower garden WILL recover...Something strange happened last night, the last day of the year 2014. At seven minutes to midnight, the official temperature at Modesto airport stood at 33ºF. At some...
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Middle-Earth Here on our Planet? Some Geo-thoughts After the Last Tolkien Movie
Mt. Ruapahu, an active volcano on the North Island of New ZealandA new world came into being a little over eighty years ago. It formed in the mind of an English scholar, a world with a vivid geography...
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A Great Museum for a Great Valley: Support the Museum at the January 17th...
Something incredible is about to happen in Modesto. The long-awaited re-opening of the Great Valley Museum in its new home at the Science Community Center is taking place in a few weeks! The new museum...
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A Stunning Photograph: No Human Has Seen Such a Thing
One of my most vivid memories as a child was the time our family paid a visit to the telescope and observatory on top of Mt. Palomar in Southern California. I'm not sure how old I was, perhaps 8 or so,...
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What Defines a Wilderness? Is it the Barrenness or the Richness? The Joe...
A wilderness surprise: Joe Domecq Wilderness ParkWilderness [wil′dər nis]:1. A neglected or abandoned area of a garden or town.2. An area essentially undisturbed by human activity together with its...
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Land of Shadows and Reflections: A Winter Day at Yosemite
Yosemite is simply a magical place. No matter when one visits, something incredible is to be seen. I'm always hard put to select my favorite time of year, but usually the answer ends up along the lines...
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If These Cliffs Could Talk: The Ah-wah-nee, To-tau-kon-nu'-la, and a...
The first question might be "what is that?". It's a pair of climbers, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell, on El Capitan (To-tau-kon-nu'-la) in Yosemite Valley (Ah-wah-nee) who are seeking to do...
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The Way it Was This Week: Winter in the Valley of the Ah-wah-nee
Is there a more beautiful place than this, the Ah-wah-nee, or the Yosemite as some chose to call it years ago? I'm sure that everyone who explores the outdoors has "that place", the spot that...
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Giant Alien Space Bear about to Destroy the Earth? Or the Impending Opening...
What you are actually seeing here is the Science on a Sphere learning area in the soon-to-open Great Valley Museum, and one of the very few blank walls left in the wonderful new center of learning that...
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4.4 Magnitude Earthquake near Pinnacles National Park
A 4.4 magnitude earthquake at a depth of about 10 kilometers struck Central California near Pinnacles National Park early this morning. We got an excellent seismic record of the event at Modesto...
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The Insight of Werner Herzog (applied to Geology in the Field)
I was wandering through Salon.com when I ran across this piece about film director and all-around creative person Werner Herzog. Many of his excellent films have had wilderness/outdoor themes,...
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The Sierra Beyond Yosemite: Donnell Vista and Sonora Pass
It's gloomy and foggy, and I haven't seen the sun for days. It's a few more weeks before field season (Death Valley!), but I can't help exploring the sunnier places from warmer times. I'm looking back...
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The Sierra Beyond Yosemite: Where the Sierra Ends (maybe), and Gold
In some places it is pretty clear where the Sierra Nevada ends. For a hundred miles or more there is a solid rock wall that reaches a height of two miles in the Owens Valley. There is no mistaking that...
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