Fun With Geology

[wh..sh]

"Perhaps it is not size nor the huge witchery of changing shapes and shades that fill us with awe, but the obscure feeling that here we have an instantaneous vision of innumerable eons." - J.B.Priestley (1937)

[Ugly Dougly]

Apropos of nothing, wouldn't "Great Unconformity" be a great name for a theme camp?
Okay, back to the rocks.

[^Rhino!]

Apropos of nothing, wouldn't "Great Unconformity" be a great name for a theme camp?
Okay, back to the rocks.

I still think it would be great to have a heavy metal band called 'Orogeny".

Actually, the concept of unconformities (large missing sections of geologic time, sometimes with horizontal beds overlying inclined rocks) takes historical thinkers back to James Hutton, the Scottish scientist/field naturalist/geologist who came up with the concept of uniformitarianism and became one of the 'founders' of the science of geology. The unconformity he described at Siccar Point in Scotland is the original classic locality for the concept. Powell's recognition of the unconformity in the inner canyon in 1869 could be considered similar, in that horizontal beds overly deeply dipping rocks of the Vishnu Schist and the Trinity and Elves' Chasm gneisses of the Precambrian, and the Unkar and Chuar Groups of the Cambrian Period's deposition.

Superimpose the uplift of the Kaibab Plateau about 12 million years ago to that. and you're beginning to see an impressive sequence of events in the region. The fact that series of events took place at all is a testament to the power of plate tectonics. I've always found it apropos and awe-inspiring when you consider that the top of Mount Everest is Ordovician -aged marine limestone, complete with fossils. Once, it was below the sea, and now? 29,000 fet above sea lvel. That was a FAST collision, when India slammed into Asia.

Awe-inspiring, indeed.

[trilobyte]

I've gone and split everything rock-related from the Holding People Accountable thread. This is a much more interesting conversation, anyways

[theCryptofishist]

I still think it would be great to have a heavy metal band called 'Orogeny".

They usually play at the sex party at the trash fence on Thursday night.

[gyre]

You Might Be a Geologist If ...
You have ever uttered the phrase "have you tried licking it" with no sexual connotations involved.
You consider a "recent event" to be anything that has happened in the last hundred thousand years or so.
You have ever had to respond "yes" to the question, "What have you got in here, rocks?"

[ygmir]

I must be a geologist.....I can answer yes to all 3. haha

[gyre]

lol

[TomServo]

I must be a geologist.....I can answer yes to all 3. haha

Three kinds of rock?

Oi!
Oi!
Oi!

Punk rock anyways..

[^Rhino!]

I've gone and split everything rock-related from the Holding People Accountable thread. This is a much more interesting conversation, anyways

Thanks for the vote of interest.

I may be a total wack job when it comes to involving myself with geology and geological problems, but I jump in the conversation when somebody needs to call 'bullshit' on fear-mongering or bad science.

It's why I started the Black Rock Division of Geology in 2009, and gifted t-shirts with a logo on them (only 50 produced per year, it's all I can afford). Rob the Accordion Man was kind enough to aid in the logo design (it's what he does for a living in the NYC area, and is quite successful at it). The key was to make it kitschy and catchy at the same time.

It was that year or the year after that in the 'top 100 scientists' named by Discover magazine that they included Ian Kluft. Kluft postulates (he's not a geologist, but he is a qualified pilot, ham radio operator, and model rocketry enthusiast) that the playa is a meteorite impact site. He and his team have spent years trying to prove it. A summary of the current state of the research is at:

http://www.blackrocknevada.info/impact- ... 01101.html

But there's a HUGE problem with his thinking. When a meteorite impact takes place, there is a huge energy release that takes place, on the same order of magnitude as hundreds of atomic weapons. It's directed downward, and the immense pressure changes the characteristics of the rocks present. One of the most common minerals on earth, quartz, under normal conditions has no cleavage planes in the mineral and shatters with a glass-like (called "conchoidal") fracture. When quartz is exposed to the immense unidirectional pressure wave that is produced by impact, it develops cleavage planes, called 'planar deformational features' or PDFs by geologists. To measure them and the axes they occur on requires a petrographic microscope with a universal or spindle stage.

To make a long story short, the 'evidence bar' in order to prove a meteorite impact crater's existince is pretty high, and Kluft has not even approached the level of evidence he'll need, and PDFs are but one part of the overall suite of evidences necessary which include:

1) geochemical signature
2)PDFs
3)oriented 'shatter' cones
4) stratigraphic evidence
5)impact breccia
6)structural features u8nique to impacts.

Until he's got all of that, I call it a load of hooey, as I probably should in the overall scheme of impact investigative science.

My qualifications?

I've drilled both the Crooked Creek and Decaturville impacts in Missouri, and am a full original member of the Impact Field Studies Group originally started at the University of Tennessee. I've also helped to probe the secrets of the Weaubleau structure, another proposed impact structure in Missouri, as both on-site and consulting geologist for Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. I've also taken the specialty course "Traces of Catastrophe" given only at special meteorite impact conference events by Bevan French of the Smithsonian Institution. He was one of the original people who came up with PDFs, even equating them with varying degrees of pressure and size of impact. From my opinion, Kluft's story has holes in it big enough to drive a semi through.

The Black Rock Division of Geology plans to return to the playa in 2013. That's all I'll say for now, other than the fact that we' AREN'T associated with the Earth Guardians.

[wh..sh]

I totally enjoy your posts, ^Rhino!

[ygmir]

I've gone and split everything rock-related from the Holding People Accountable thread. This is a much more interesting conversation, anyways

Thanks for the vote of interest.

I may be a total wack job when it comes to involving myself with geology and geological problems, but I jump in the conversation when somebody needs to call 'bullshit' on fear-mongering or bad science.

It's why I started the Black Rock Division of Geology in 2009, and gifted t-shirts with a logo on them (only 50 produced per year, it's all I can afford). Rob the Accordion Man was kind enough to aid in the logo design (it's what he does for a living in the NYC area, and is quite successful at it). The key was to make it kitschy and catchy at the same time.

It was that year or the year after that in the 'top 100 scientists' named by Discover magazine that they included Ian Kluft. Kluft postulates (he's not a geologist, but he is a qualified pilot, ham radio operator, and model rocketry enthusiast) that the playa is a meteorite impact site. He and his team have spent years trying to prove it. A summary of the current state of the research is at:

http://www.blackrocknevada.info/impact- ... 01101.html

But there's a HUGE problem with his thinking. When a meteorite impact takes place, there is a huge energy release that takes place, on the same order of magnitude as hundreds of atomic weapons. It's directed downward, and the immense pressure changes the characteristics of the rocks present. One of the most common minerals on earth, quartz, under normal conditions has no cleavage planes in the mineral and shatters with a glass-like (called "conchoidal") fracture. When quartz is exposed to the immense unidirectional pressure wave that is produced by impact, it develops cleavage planes, called 'planar deformational features' or PDFs by geologists. To measure them and the axes they occur on requires a petrographic microscope with a universal or spindle stage.

To make a long story short, the 'evidence bar' in order to prove a meteorite impact crater's existince is pretty high, and Kluft has not even approached the level of evidence he'll need, and PDFs are but one part of the overall suite of evidences necessary which include:

1) geochemical signature
2)PDFs
3)oriented 'shatter' cones
4) stratigraphic evidence
5)impact breccia
6)structural features u8nique to impacts.

Until he's got all of that, I call it a load of hooey, as I probably should in the overall scheme of impact investigative science.

My qualifications?

I've drilled both the Crooked Creek and Decaturville impacts in Missouri, and am a full original member of the Impact Field Studies Group originally started at the University of Tennessee. I've also helped to probe the secrets of the Weaubleau structure, another proposed impact structure in Missouri, as both on-site and consulting geologist for Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. I've also taken the specialty course "Traces of Catastrophe" given only at special meteorite impact conference events by Bevan French of the Smithsonian Institution. He was one of the original people who came up with PDFs, even equating them with varying degrees of pressure and size of impact. From my opinion, Kluft's story has holes in it big enough to drive a semi through.

The Black Rock Division of Geology plans to return to the playa in 2013. That's all I'll say for now, other than the fact that we' AREN'T associated with the Earth Guardians.

I would be interested in your thoughts on the Kaali crater, and lesser ones on the island of Saaremaa.
I visited them, and am give to understand, it's travel across the continent, may have spawned much of Northern European mythology, especially the far north, due to low angle and altitude of travel, and devastation from the shockwave and heat
. and that it was perhaps, a source of steel/iron for ancient swords of the region.

[Bob]

...I've also helped to probe the secrets of the Weaubleau structure...

That's what she said...


Yeah, Kluft's a wackjob.

[^Rhino!]

I've gone and split everything rock-related from the Holding People Accountable thread. This is a much more interesting conversation, anyways

Thanks for the vote of interest.

I may be a total wack job when it comes to involving myself with geology and geological problems, but I jump in the conversation when somebody needs to call 'bullshit' on fear-mongering or bad science.

It's why I started the Black Rock Division of Geology in 2009, and gifted t-shirts with a logo on them (only 50 produced per year, it's all I can afford). Rob the Accordion Man was kind enough to aid in the logo design (it's what he does for a living in the NYC area, and is quite successful at it). The key was to make it kitschy and catchy at the same time.

It was that year or the year after that in the 'top 100 scientists' named by Discover magazine that they included Ian Kluft. Kluft postulates (he's not a geologist, but he is a qualified pilot, ham radio operator, and model rocketry enthusiast) that the playa is a meteorite impact site. He and his team have spent years trying to prove it. A summary of the current state of the research is at:

http://www.blackrocknevada.info/impact- ... 01101.html

But there's a HUGE problem with his thinking. When a meteorite impact takes place, there is a huge energy release that takes place, on the same order of magnitude as hundreds of atomic weapons. It's directed downward, and the immense pressure changes the characteristics of the rocks present. One of the most common minerals on earth, quartz, under normal conditions has no cleavage planes in the mineral and shatters with a glass-like (called "conchoidal") fracture. When quartz is exposed to the immense unidirectional pressure wave that is produced by impact, it develops cleavage planes, called 'planar deformational features' or PDFs by geologists. To measure them and the axes they occur on requires a petrographic microscope with a universal or spindle stage.

To make a long story short, the 'evidence bar' in order to prove a meteorite impact crater's existince is pretty high, and Kluft has not even approached the level of evidence he'll need, and PDFs are but one part of the overall suite of evidences necessary which include:

1) geochemical signature
2)PDFs
3)oriented 'shatter' cones
4) stratigraphic evidence
5)impact breccia
6)structural features u8nique to impacts.

Until he's got all of that, I call it a load of hooey, as I probably should in the overall scheme of impact investigative science.

My qualifications?

I've drilled both the Crooked Creek and Decaturville impacts in Missouri, and am a full original member of the Impact Field Studies Group originally started at the University of Tennessee. I've also helped to probe the secrets of the Weaubleau structure, another proposed impact structure in Missouri, as both on-site and consulting geologist for Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. I've also taken the specialty course "Traces of Catastrophe" given only at special meteorite impact conference events by Bevan French of the Smithsonian Institution. He was one of the original people who came up with PDFs, even equating them with varying degrees of pressure and size of impact. From my opinion, Kluft's story has holes in it big enough to drive a semi through.

The Black Rock Division of Geology plans to return to the playa in 2013. That's all I'll say for now, other than the fact that we' AREN'T associated with the Earth Guardians.

I would be interested in your thoughts on the Kaali crater, and lesser ones on the island of Saaremaa.
I visited them, and am give to understand, it's travel across the continent, may have spawned much of Northern European mythology, especially the far north, due to low angle and altitude of travel, and devastation from the shockwave and heat
. and that it was perhaps, a source of steel/iron for ancient swords of the region.

That's a tall order, but I'll be looking it over this weekend. The tourism there (one of the 'lesser islands of Estonia' ) seems to be interesting...indluding old USSR missile tunnels, windmills, and BEER. In the meantime, you can whet your teeth on this article I came across:

http://www.ikzm-d.de/infos/pdfs/31_Veski2004.pdf

It lloks like they're doing a fair amount of research there in an effort to understand the cultural landscape.

[Ugly Dougly]

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2 ... tml?ref=hp

That giant hole in the ground cutting across Arizona is still sparking debate—and now, new analyses hint that parts of Arizona's Grand Canyon may be millions of years older than previously thought. The key evidence, scientists say, comes from the concentration and distribution of helium atoms found in nearby mineral samples. But many researchers are skeptical, noting that it's not clear whether these findings radically change current scenarios of how and when the iconic gorge was carved.

[gyre]

Old news.

[^Rhino!]

Old news, so he sayeth.

Dude.

With geologists, it's ALL old news.

Sing it with me.......

[media]

Look out for the asteroid.