"I'm a Geologist": Why That's Important

(From Geotripper) The following words are not mine, but I wish I had said them. Allen Glazner is a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and a former classmate at Pomona College (in another century). He has written a number of excellent books on the geology of California, including a beautiful book on Yosemite National Park (with Greg Stock). Geology is not about rock collecting, it's about the sustainability of living on planet Earth. This is part of a column from NewsObserver.com. Please give the whole editorial a look.

"If I were to ask average people where gasoline comes from, most wouldn't really know. They might have a mental image, from a children's book, of a black pool of oil underground with a pipe sticking into it, but this is far from the truth. Many think drinking water comes "from the faucet," with little idea of what the source is. The average American home has more than 400 pounds of copper in it. Where does that come from? Even the sources of the sand and gravel vital to construction are a mystery to most people.

Well over 90 percent of the power used in the U.S. comes from fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Thank a geologist - we're the ones who find oil, natural gas, coal and uranium. Even if you think that these energy sources are loathsome, we're stuck with them for some years to come. Geothermal energy? That's an easy one - thank a geologist.

We all take clean, fresh water for granted. Thank a geologist - we find that fresh water and monitor its quality and inventory. Many "green power" devices, such as high-capacity batteries, LEDs and superstrong magnets, depend upon rare, obscure elements such as dysprosium, neodymium and indium. Thank a geologist - we're the ones who know how those elements are cycled in the Earth and where to find them.

The prices of many of these metals, including all that copper in your house, have doubled or tripled in recent years, and the price of oil has quadrupled in the past decade. Business people would benefit from learning a little geology so that they could understand this better.

Geologists are the go-to people for natural hazards. We monitor earthquakes and map faults so that buildings and bridges can be sited as safely as possible. We advise on where to put roads and houses to avoid landslides, and where to put tunnels for roads, pipelines and other infrastructure. We monitor volcanoes for risks to the local populace and aviation. We map areas susceptible to flooding. When the gasoline storage tank at the corner gas station starts to leak, we figure out where that underground gasoline plume is going and how to fix the problem."

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/03/05/1029942/geology-can-you-dig-it.html#ixzz1FmXtLCUD . Thanks to Lockwood and Anne Jefferson for the tip.

A Great Opportunity: CalPaleo, May 14 at Sierra College

This came across my desk this week. It looks like a great opportunity to learn about California's unique paleo-past! (cross-posted from Geotripper)

"Sierra College and Sierra College Natural History Museum are pleased to host the 2011 meeting of CalPaleo on Saturday May 14 – only two and a half months from now. PaleoResource Consultants – a company providing paleontological mitigation services -- is co-sponsoring the meeting.

Don't miss this great opportunity to present your own research and learn about the latest research of others. CalPaleo meetings have typically emphasized the research of students from California colleges and universities, with a sprinkle of research papers by professors and other researchers. The cohesive factor that makes us CalPaleo is that we are California Paleontologists -- either we live here and do research here, we live here and do research elsewhere, or we live elsewhere and do research here. Regardless, we are all California Paleontologists. CalPaleo meetings bring us all together in a way that GSA, BSA, AAPG, AASP, or even SVP meetings cannot.

In this 2nd announcement of the 2011 CalPaleo meeting, we provide an update on the CalPaleo 2011 website, fieldtrip plans, registration fees, local lodging, and the first Call for Papers (both oral and poster). With the next/3rd announcement, we hope that you will be able to download an attractive, colorful Call for Papers to give to all your friends. In the meantime, please forward this simple and rather plain 2nd announcement to everyone that you think needs to know about the 2011 CalPaleo meeting and encourage them to be here. You may even want to offer to let them ride along with you!

You will love the Rocklin area, located in the foothills of the Sierra just 20 minutes east of Sacramento right off I-80. Unlike much of California, we have trees, lakes, and permanent streams! In other words, our environment is much more like the late Tertiary. Plan ahead. You may just want to spend an extra day or two here in the Pliocene!

CalPaleo.org Website – It’s up; it’s working. It’s just still under construction. CalPaleo.org that is. Check it out and give us feedback on what needs to be added to make it more “user friendly”. Thanks to Kristin McCallister who has been doing most of the work. Kristin is a former Sierra College student, a recent graduate from University of Nevada at Reno, and now employed with PaleoResource Consultants in Auburn.

Fieldtrip Plans – On Sunday, following the CalPaleo presentations on Saturday, Dick Hilton will be leading an informal fieldtrip from Sierra College up to Donner Pass. Some of us are calling it – “From the Pliocene, back to the Pleistocene”. During this trip we will examine outcrops that have in the past produced Jurassic invertebrates, Eocene wood and leaves, and Miocene leaves. Plus we will see classic Sierra Nevada geology, Mesozoic low-grade metamorphics, Cretaceous granites with xenoliths, Paleozoic roof pendants, Tertiary auriferous gravels and volcaniclastic sediments, and Quaternary alluvial deposits. Both the Tertiary and Quaternary deposits have produced vertebrates elsewhere, but not so far in the outcrops we plan to examine.

Registration Fees – After considerable gnashing of teeth, the CalPaleo 2011 Organizing Committee has decided that, in order to pay for both a continental breakfast and lunch, we will need to charge a nominal $20.00 registration fee. There will be an extra charge of $25.00 for the Sunday fieldtrip, including lunch, bus transportation, and a copy of the fieldtrip guidebook.

Housing Ideas – In the next/3rd announcement, we will provide a list of motels available near the Sierra College campus. There are both inexpensive and four-star hotels within walking distance of the campus.

Call for Papers -- Abstract deadline is Friday 01 April. April Fool! Actually the deadline is Saturday 02 April. Expect another reminder in late March, but why not put the date on your calendar now? Follow the Boy Scout motto -- “Be Prepared”. Help us capture the diversity of paleontological research underway in California. Remember that not all fossils have bones and teeth! Be present to ensure that your area of expertise is represented -- be it ichnofossils, microfossils, invertebrates, plants, fish, birds, other dinosaurs, or those lovable, warm, fuzzy guys!

Save the Date! -- As we stated in the 1st announcement, what's most important right now is that you Save the Date! Saturday 14 May 2011. We hope to see you at CalPaleo in 2011 at Sierra College in Rocklin.

CalPaleo 2011 Organizing Committee

Confronting Creation Science in the Classroom

From Larry Collins, FWS member, who has excellent resources on his website concerning creation-science in the earth science classroom:

"I am retired geology faculty member of California State University Northridge (retired since 1993) and used to be quite active in the NAGT FWS, but old age has caught up with me, and I am no longer able to participate. So, I will not be at the up-coming conference in mid-March. However, I am sure that you are probably aware of the fact that science teachers in elementary and secondary schools in many parts of country, including California, are being confronted by young-earth creationists who want to put their religious beliefs into science class rooms. This is an on-going problem. If you know of any such geology science teachers who are members of the NAGT FWS who are facing this issue, I call your attention to two pdf articles that they can down-load which give geologic reasons (1) why a supposed Noah’s ark in eastern Turkey cannot be either its fossilized remnant or a supposed cast (see attached image) and (2) why a worldwide Flood cannot have happened because of the presence of thick evaporite mineral deposits of rock salt and gypsum that occur interlayered with the fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks of many different geologic ages on all continents. In the first article, magnetite derived from weathered basalt is what produces the iron signals for supposed washers, rivets, and brackets instead of pure iron metal for Noah to use to hold the walls of the Ark together. In the second article, desert drying conditions cannot occur in the midst of a worldwide flood. See: http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Sutton%20Hoo%2014.pdf and http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Collins2.pdf . I hope that you will pass this information on to possible interested teachers. I have other articles on my website on opposition to creationism that they also might find helpful. http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/creation.html ."

Lorence (Larry) Collins

Registration Deadline Extended: Far Western Section Meeting

The registration deadline for the Spring 2011 NAGT conference (see previous post), to be held at Caltech in Pasadena, CA, on March 25 - 27, has been extended to March 11. The registration fee is $95 for all payment postmarked by March 11. For payment postmarked after March 11, the fee will be $125. Go to the conference web site at

http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/meetings/nagt/index.html

Students of the geological sciences are invited and encouraged to attend Far Western Section events at greatly reduced rates. See the conference website for details. Hope to see you there!

Far Western Section, National Association of Geoscience Teachers Spring Meeting: Caltech Tectonics Observatory, March 25-27, 2011

Have you ever wanted to know more about the geology of southern California, the San Andreas fault, and some of the incredibly strange rocks that crop out around the San Gabriel Mountains, like Vasquez Rocks or Devil's Punchbowl? The Far Western Section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers invites you to join us on March 25-27, 2011 for our spring meeting, hosted by the Caltech Tectonics Observatory in Pasadena, California. These meetings are a great way to learn some fascinating geology, meet some fascinating people, and as much as I would like to say "have a scholarly time", I'm going to instead say "have a fun time".

Complete details of the meeting can be found on the Caltech Tectonics Observatory website at http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/meetings/nagt/. You do not need to be a member of NAGT to attend (but we will gladly welcome you into membership if you wish to!), and the cost of the event is modest (less than $100 if you register before Feb. 25, plus a bit more for the Saturday banquet).

Check out the wonderful slate of activities and field trips below!

Field trips:
•Erosion and Sediment Transport in steep Mountain Terrain, San Gabriel Mountains - Mike Lamb (Caltech)

•San Gabriel Anorthosite and the San Andreas Fault - Bruce Carter (Pasadena Community College)

•Vasquez Rocks - Elisabeth Nadin (UA, Fairbanks) and Rebecca Walker (Mt San Antonio College)

•Devil's Punchbowl and Red Rock Canyon - Donald Prothero (Caltech/Occidental College)

Evening Speakers:
•Good Vibrations Inside the Earth - Jennifer Jackson (Caltech)

•TBD -Jess Adkins (Caltech)

Exhibits and tours:
•Tour of Seismo Lab - Margaret Vinci (Caltech)

•Southern CA Earthquake Center (SCEC) display

Workshops:
•Low-T Thermometry and Thermochronometry and Applications (including dating the formation of the Grand Canyon) - Ken Farley, John Eiler, and Brian Wernicke (Caltech)

•Earthquake Magnitude, Energy, and Focal Mechanisms (beach balls) - Joann Stock (Caltech)

•Plate Tectonic Rotation of the Transverse Ranges: what happened, how we know it happened, and how it created Southern California’s unique geography, climate, ocean currents and biological richness - Tanya Atwater (UCSB)

•Historical Earthquakes and Uplift/Subsidence of Sumatra from Coral Growth Rings - Elizabeth Nadin (UA, Fairbanks) and Belle Philibosian (Caltech)

•Operations of Community Seismometer Network (How your laptop can help scientists better understand earthquakes) - Tom Heaton and Ming-Hei Cheng (Caltech)

The registration form is here: http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/meetings/nagt/register.pdf

NAGT Annual Awards and Deadlines: Nominate Someone Special!

NAGT offers a variety of awards and grants to educators, and scholarships to students. Consider nominating a deserving colleague or student to recognize exceptional service or work. For more information on nomination procedures go to the NAGT Awards website at

http://www.nagt.org/nagt/programs/awards.html

Awards, Grants, Scholarships, and Deadlines:

OEST Award: for outstanding K/12 teachers, deadline June 1st.

Neil Miner Award: for exceptional contributions in stimulating interest in the earth sciences, deadline April 1st.

James Shea Award: for exceptional contributions to geoscience writing or editing, deadline April 1st.

Bob Christman Distinguished Service Award: for outstanding service to NAGT, deadline open.

Dorothy Stout Professional Development Grant: financial grants up to $750.00 to community college faculty or students, and K-12 teachers, deadline April 15th.

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award: for exceptional undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants, deadline June 15th.

Scholarships for Field Study: for undergraduates ($500.00) attending any field-based class as part of their degree requirements, deadline February 16th.

NAGT Two-Year College Section to be Proposed

From Jackie Hams of the Far Western Section....

The Executive Committee of NAGT unanimously passed a resolution in support of establishing a two-year college (2YC) section within NAGT at their October 30, 2010 meeting in Denver. Formation of a 2YC group within NAGT was a recommendation of a June 2010 NAGT/NSF sponsored workshop titled, “The Role of Two-Year Colleges in Geoscience Education and in Broadening Participation in the Geosciences: A Planning Workshop.” The workshop brought together 31 2YC geoscience instructors and representatives of agencies and funding organizations.

http://serc.carleton.edu/geo2yc/workshop2010/index.html

An organizational committee of 13 2YC faculty is developing a mission statement and structure for a 2YC section to submit to the NAGT Executive Committee in April. The 2YC committee is studying similar groups in other science professional associations and discussing how a 2YC section can work closely with regional NAGT sections. Recognition of the 2YC community by NAGT will provide a national voice for institutions which are estimated to enroll approximately 45% of the undergraduates and minority students in the country, and play an important role in the science education of pre-service and K-12 teachers as well as life-long learners. NAGT members will be asked to vote on changes to the NAGT Constitution to establish a 2YC section.