Geology

It was quiet this morning in the Science Community Center at Modesto Junior College. I walked up to the roof to have a look around and there was a beautiful cloud pattern and the Diablo Range rose in the distance. It was a peaceful start to the day. But what a day it was!It was the Ribbon Cutting event for the Science Community Center. It was a decade-long-plus journey for the science faculty at MJC who were tasked with envisioning and designing a facility for teaching science that could carry our campus through the next century. How in the world can you plan for a century? We can't possibly know the kinds of changes that face our community and society over the next century, but we can do our best to prepare our children for the incredible journey. We came together and produced a vision: a teaching facility that could house the biology, chemistry, physics and earth science programs, but which would also house our community outreach in the form of the Great Valley Museum, a fully functional observatory, and a state-of-the-art planetarium. And an outdoor nature laboratory. We saw a place that would give the best possible educational opportunity to our students, and inspiration to generations of children who might not otherwise ever be exposed to science.As I've noted before, the vision was challenged. It was too expensive. It was so grandiose. It was too ambitious for a community that has consistently high unemployment, and too many low-paying jobs. Attempts were made to cut back the project, but the faculty and staff persisted, and aided by a very unfortunate Great Recession that drastically cut construction costs, the Science Community Center has become a reality with the vision largely intact. And millions of dollars under budget.Unlike many projects at public educational institutions, this project (and dozens of others across our campus) was funded by the local community, not the state. It was the fruit of Measure E, a bond issue in our district and county. The community supported the concept of giving our students and our children the best possible education as the best way of out of our economic malaise. They gave us the mandate, and I think we achieved the aims. The only piece now missing is the Outdoor Nature Laboratory, and it may be just a year away from construction.But we still wondered. Would the public show up for a ribbon-cutting ceremony? Was the community still behind us? I felt they would be there, but I'm not sure what the organizers of the event were expecting. They only put out 70 chairs (but they did provide a live musical act and food). Twenty minutes before the event, the chairs were mostly filled...And then more than filled. Dozens of people were standing behind the chairs. And more were arriving by the minute...There were at least 150 gathered around the seating area by the time the dignitaries started their speeches. And still more people were arriving.And then I looked behind me, and realized the entire foyer was filled with hundreds more people. They couldn't even see the speakers or the ribbon, but they pressed in. It was a wonderful affirmation of years of hard work on the part of our faculty and staff people.We spent the next few hours leading tours through the facility. It was delightful to experience the enthusiasm our community members had for the center. There were seniors who had served on this site during World War II when this property was a military barracks, or a few years later when it was a mental health facility (I'm inclined to still think of this place as an asylum). Some of my first students from the early 1990s were there. Some of my current students were there. And there were kids. Kids enthralled at the opportunity to touch a genuine dinosaur bone, and excited to realize that our region was the first place in California where a dinosaur was discovered. And that even more exciting creatures once dwelt here, including sabertooth cats and wooly mammoths. And menacing 30 foot long mo

“March 2012 set records for warm temperatures that promoted early leafing and flowering across large areas of the United States.” Quoted from the USGS press release.

When natural gas prices rise heating a home with gas becomes more expensive. Many other activities become more expensive. One concern about exporting natural gas is that lots of people (and industries) will see their expenses go up. An article on the Christian Science Monitor website explores who will see higher prices.

A summary of photos posted on flickr today, tagged with “geology.” Displayed below are 56 geology-related photos were added to flickr today. Similar Posts on Geology News: Daily Geology Photos – May 10 Daily Geology Photos – May 19 Daily Geology Photos – May 21 Daily Geology Photos – May 15 Daily Geology Photos – May 2 The Geology News Blog, 2013. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Who is linking?

AccuWeather.com has an article about a subdivision in Lakeport, California where a landslide moving at a rate of inches per day is tearing homes apart.

“Invasive “crazy ants” are displacing fire ants in areas across the southeastern United States. [...] It’s the latest in a history of ant invasions from the southern hemisphere and may prove to have dramatic effects on the ecosystem of the region.” Quoted from The University of Texas at Austin press release.

Up above our last hiking stop on Slickenside Ridge, MOH and I came across this wonderful exposure of a breccia (hiking stick for scale). Here's a closer view, showing massive and drusy quartz cementing the breccia and filling vugs left in the rock. This is a type of fault breccia — though I was so into my admiration of the breccia that didn't think to look for the fault — and you can see hints of slightly oblique slickenlines on the smooth upper surface in the first photo. In fact, it just occurred to me to show you what I mean, so here are two photos of that upper surface, one without drawings, one with. Planar fault surface from the 1st photo, enlarged. Same photo with some lines drawn in. The possible slickenlines in the upper left are the ones I noticed first; the second possible slickenline direction shown in the lower right is vaguer, might be my imagination. More field work required! A zoomed view of the "best" part of the breccia. Looking northwest toward Winnemucca Mountain (hidden from view by my choice of framing). Now I've walked back over to the spot where I left you in the last post, looking down Water Canyon toward the northwest. Just above the bright reddish orange dike rock on the right side of the photo, on the hill across the canyon, you can see the lower part of a rock wall first mentioned in this early post about the dikes. Looking back down the hill and across the canyon. And so now, as we turn to head back down the hill, we might think about investigating the rock wall on the far hill, the one we sometimes call "Dike Hill."

ABC News Australia has an article about the 101 carat colorless diamond that set a new price record by selling for $23.8 million.

Large slabs of ice pushed onto land along the Yukon River have pushed buildings from foundations and a fear of flooding has forced evacuations.

An article on NationalGeographic.com explains how the popularity of “climbing Everest” has resulted in inexperienced climbers creating traffic jams on the mountain and littering the landscape. Ways to reverse this are explored.