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The Great Valley Museum at Modesto Junior College Opens THIS WEEK! Come and...
It's been a long time coming, but the day is finally upon us! The Great Valley Museum Grand Opening takes place this weekend! The museum opens to the public from 10 to 4 on Saturday, April 4, and it's...
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A Day on the Stanislaus: There's Still Some Water in California
It's not nearly enough, and the runoff from the snows of winter will be the worst ever, but there is still a little bit of water in California. The rivers aren't dry yet.It's been a strange year,...
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Shortest Lunar Eclipse of the Century: A Few Views
I did it so you wouldn't have to.... Yes, I was one of the lunatics who got up early in the morning to check out the shortest total lunar eclipse of the century. Here are the shots I got over the space...
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Driving Through the Most Dangerous Plate Boundary in the World: Welcome to...
View from Muir Beach Overlook towards the Marin HeadlandsI'm pretty sure every household has a junk drawer. It's that place where objects that we can't or won't get rid of accumulate. It's a mixed up...
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A Fleeting Spring in the Sierra Nevada Foothills: The Red Hills Area of...
There was actually a bit of rain today in central and northern California. It wasn't much, barely getting the ground wet in the valley, and maybe a quarter of an inch in the Sierra Nevada foothills,...
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Solar Pillar from the Foothills of the Sierra Nevada
We were headed home after a brief excursion into the Sierra Nevada foothills, and as we enjoyed the colorful sunset we noticed a solar pillar (or sun pillar). The pillar is caused by light reflecting...
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Driving Through the Most Dangerous Plate Boundary in the World: Geology's...
We continue our drive through the most dangerous plate boundary in the world (past tense, since it became inactive 20 million-plus years ago), and we've arrived at the Marin Headlands, one of the most...
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Work Has Begun on the Yosemite Region Ferguson Slide!
I was up in Yosemite last weekend for a class field trip, and was surprised to see a lot of changes at the site of the Ferguson Slide, the huge 2006 slope failure that blocked Highway 140 for months....
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Incredible New Fossils Acquired for the Department! But...
During our field trip last weekend, we stopped briefly at a mineral show in the Sierra foothills. I wasn't going to buy anything, but then I saw some specimens that made my jaw drop, and they were...
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A Fleeting Spring in a Horrible Drought: A Day in Yosemite Valley
There are so many moments when I want to deny the reality of the California drought. It has been relentless, the winter air warm and dry, the soil crunching under my feet at a time when it should be...
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A Fleeting Spring in Yosemite: When Going Out Was Really Going In
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” John MuirHas that kind of thing ever happened to you? We headed east yesterday...
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Where the Rivers are "Upside-Down": A Hike to the Stanislaus Table Mountain
Around 10 million years ago, a lava flow surged from a volcano near present-day Sonora Pass in the Sierra Nevada. Composed of latite, but non-viscous like basalt, it flowed off the volcano and into the...
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Memories of Floods Past: The 1997 New Year's Day Flood in the Sierra Nevada
There is a very strange looking meadow in the Sierra Nevada foothills 700 feet above the Tuolumne River. Bedrock around here is generally poorly exposed and deeply weathered. The region is one of...
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Driving Through the Most Dangerous Plate Boundary in the World: Terra Fatale...
In the old film noir movies, the femme fatale was a staple character, an attractive and seductive woman, especially one who brought disaster to any man who became involved with her. To be fair, there...
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A Teacher of Astronomy? Have we got a place for you!
I don't know if astronomers love geology as much as a geologist like myself loves astronomy. But if you are a teacher of astronomy and you are good at it, have we got a place for you! Modesto Junior...
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Major Earthquake in Nepal Upgraded to Magnitude 7.9
Source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us20002926#general_summaryA very strong earthquake has struck in Nepal with a magnitude of 7.9 (initial reports listed 7.5). One would expect...
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Driving Through the Most Dangerous Plate Boundary in the World: The Alien...
The strange alien terrane bursts out of the core of the Diablo Range!The next stage of our journey through the most dangerous plate boundary on the planet takes us across the Coast Ranges from the Bay...
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Driving Through the Most Dangerous Plate Boundary in the World: Exploring the...
A long time ago (a few weeks; that's years in internet time) I began this series about driving through the most dangerous plate boundary in the world. Convergent boundaries with their subduction zones...
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Work on Yosemite's Ferguson Slide Continues, and Can Someone Tell Me What...
Ferguson Slide on May 2, 2015Three weeks ago I passed the Ferguson Slide on the way to Yosemite, and found that work had begun on mitigating and stabilizing the slide so an avalanche shed could be...
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What Lies Beneath Yellowstone? Yosemite, of course!
Upper Yosemite Falls, 1,250 feet high. Taken together the three components of Yosemite Falls amount to the fifth or seventh highest waterfall on the planet, at 1,425 feet (depending on who is...
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