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The Hawai'i That Was: Living on Uncertain Ground - The First Human Wave Arrives
The southeast coast of the Big Island of Hawai'i is a barren blasted land. One can blame it on the lack of rain, but though it is arid, rainfall is plentiful enough to support forests nearby. One only...
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The Hawai'i That Was: How Can the Biggest Mountain in the World Stay So Hidden?
Mauna Loa from the Mauna Kea Road near the Onizuka CenterThe answer is easy: clouds. This whole post is a temper tantrum, a tantrum that resulted from the fact that we were on the Big Island of...
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Watching the Hazy Sun Sink into the Sea (almost)
The sun was almost sinking into the sea, since the coast is oriented a bit too much towards the south. I'm in Southern California for family matters (of a happier kind), and had the opportunity to...
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The Hawai'i That Was: Mauna O Wakea, the Opening to the Heavens, and the...
It's hard for me as a person of European descent to imagine what the first Polynesians to arrive at the islands thought of Hawaii's highest mountain. Mauna Kea, the "White Mountain", or Mauna O Wakea,...
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The Hawai'i That Was: A Tale of Two Kipukas, and Thoughts on the Rarest...
Thousands of years ago there was an eruption at Humu'ula Saddle, the broad wide pass between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai'i. The eruption was mildly explosive, so the resulting...
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Unusual Unconformity on California's Lost Coast
Will someone save the unconformity? It's going to gone soon!Well, okay, there's not much to be done about it, being that the exposure seen here is on the shoreline of one of the most violent...
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The Hawai'i That Had Never Been: A Mountain That is Younger Than Me, Mauna Ulu
Mauna Ulu, a mountain that originated between 1969 and 1974So much of geology is incremental. A rock slides from a cliff top, a river carries sand grains downstream, a glacier slowly pushes debris down...
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Cormorant and Pillow Basalt Above Waikiki Beach (but not the one you think)
I'm still on the road so posts are few, but I occasionally get to a computer. Today's picture is a Cormorant flying in front of a wave-cut cliff exposing pillow basalt at Waikiki Beach. I've been...
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The Hawai'i That Was: There was a Monster in the Water at Laupahoehoe
There is a small bay a few miles northwest of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai'i called Laupahoehoe. It's a raw section of the coastline, with waves that crash violently against the ragged exposures of...
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The Hawai'i That Was: Where are the Rivers? Waterfalls on the Big Island
Tooling around on the southern parts of the Big Island of Hawai'i, one may notice something. Despite the fact that Hilo and the Puna District villages get more rain than any other towns in the United...
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The Hawai'i That Was: A Veritable Rainbow of Sand (and cute gratuitous sea...
Lai'e Beach on the island of Oahu, with a coral beach sand stained by iron oxidesSand is white or gray. If you live in Florida or some other low-lying coastline, the sand tends to be nearly pure...
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The Hawai'i That Was: Look at the Cute Squirrel! (NOT a squirrel)
First time visitors to Hawai'i will at some moment see a mammal on the islands. The creature is common enough to be taken as some kind of squirrel, but it most certainly is not one. It's not a rat...
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A First (for me): River Otters along the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail
There's a wonderful thing about life and the animal world. No matter how old you are, you can still have the excitement of seeing something for the first time. The planet is so diverse and mysterious...
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Position Announcement: Dean of the Science, Math and Engineering Division at...
Modesto Junior College has announced an opening for the dean of the Science, Math and Engineering Division . We are at the forefront of science education in our community, and face many challenges as...
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Notes from our Trip to Hades: Heat Wave in California
There isn't a whole lot to say, other than to be aware of possibilities when one schedules trips in the southwest in July or August. We are on our way to Grand Canyon, and our route took us through the...
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Playing "Where's Waldo" with Bighorn Sheep in Zion National Park
How many Bighorn Sheep can you see in this picture?One of the surprises of a visit to a place like Zion National Park is the possibility of seeing some of the rarer large animals. We were taking a...
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Notes from the Monsoon in Grand Canyon National Park
One of the most awesome things I've ever seenTiming is everything. If one schedules a trip to the American Southwest in July or August, one may very well have to contend with the monsoons, the change...
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The Hawai'i That Was: Exploring Pololu Valley on an Unstable "Dead" Volcano
Do the signs add a hint of an element of danger to this hike?The stereotypical image of Hawai'i includes many things (most of which are seen in the opening credits of Hawaii Five-O), but one of them is...
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The Hawai'i That Was: What Happened to the Stones of Pololu? A Look at...
There's a different feel to the north country of the Big Island of Hawai'i. Gone are the sere and blasted basalt flows of recent volcanic eruptions. The older soils of Kohala instead support a...
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The Importance of Green Zones in Urban Settings (and a Fox)
I've occasionally noted the presence of a river trail in our community at the boundary of the Sierra Nevada Mother Lode and the Great Valley. It follows a stretch of the Tuolumne River for two miles,...
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