Month: June 2011
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Ancient Greek Before His Time
Via Discovery News: Chalk up another win for the ancient Greeks. The Greek historian and geographer Strabo wrote nearly 2,000 years ago that Piraeus, a small peninsula near Athens, had once been an island—and a new study in this month’s issue of Geology shows he was right…
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World’s Smallest Dinosaur?
From Discovery via geology.com: Paleontologists at the University of Portsmouth are investigating a fossil of a tiny dinosaur that lived during the Lower Cretaceous period and may have weighed as little as seven ounces.
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US Mineral Exploration for Rare Minerals
Via the Kansas City Star: … new 3,000-foot hole bored into the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska potentially drills away at a troubling Chinese monopoly. The drills pull up cylinders of rock in search of exotic minerals like neodymium, praseodymium and ytterbium. Those so-called rare earths are critical ingredients of your car’s catalytic converter and…
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AGI Webinar on Geoscience Careers in Mineral Exploration
This is an excellent webinar for any undergrad or graduate looking to make a career in the geosciences. Listen to the following speakers discuss geoscience careers in minerals exploration. Professor Bill Chavez, New Mexico Technical University David Groves, Newmont Mining M. Steve Enders, Society of Economic Geologists The speakers will discuss the following topics: 1)…
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Peshawar Archaeology
Via The International Herald Tribune: Archeologists say that the city of Peshawar may be around 2,500 years old. The University of Peshawar (UoP) and K-P Department of Archeology performed a recent excavation at Gor Khatri, a prominent cultural landmark and the highest point of the city. The results suggest that Peshawar dates back to 300…
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The Lives of Artisanal Miners
Via geology.com from GIA Insider: Andy Lucas, gemology product manager for GIA, addressed the International Colored Gemstone Association (ICA) Congress in Rio de Janeiro last month. The Congress focused on the fair trade issues that have gained a great deal of momentum over the last few years… There has been a growing worldwide consciousness to…
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Dinosaur Bone Hunting: Excavating Fossils With Paleo Prospectors
By Mary Fairchild (2011, private ranch near New Castle, Wyoming.) To collect, conserve, curate and display extraordinary geological and natural history specimens that have the power to educate, enlighten, and excite people about the wonders of the natural world.–The Black Hills Museum of Natural History’s mission statement When dinosaurs walked the earth, a vast inland…
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Missouri River Flood of 2011
The Missouri River is at record flood levels. Combine this with aged and unrepaired infrastructure (levees and dams) and old nuclear generation plants and we could have a big problem. Let’s hope not. Here is a recent video of bank collapse on the Missouri River from the AGU Blogosphere: The Landslide Blog
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Events – No Events till After July 4
Summer is here, so there are no ESCONI meetings till September. There are a few earth science events that will be happening in July and August, which I will post on after July 4. If you are looking for a gem/mineral show… here is a list from Rocks and Minerals Magazine. I know many of…
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New species of Nannocricetus
Via PhysOrg: Dr. Zhang Zhao-Qun, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his colleagues, recently described a new cricetid species of Late Miocene, Nannocricetus wuae, from the locality of DM02, near the Damiao Village, Siziwangqi, Nei Mongol, China, as reported in the latest issue of Vertebrata PalAsiatica 2011…
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Download “Volcanoes of Hawaii”
Book on Volcanoes of Hawaii is available for free download from USGS This general-interest booklet is a companion to the one on Mount St. Helens Volcano first published in 1984 and revised in 1990 (see Selected Readings). Together, these publications illustrate the contrast between the two main types of volcanoes: shield volcanoes, such as those…
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Field Museum Behind The Scenes Tour with Rob Sula
Rob Sula, our ESCONI Vice President, writes: Due to space, class size is limited so please contact Georgia Madden to sign up. You can call her at (630) 942-2063 or e-mail her at madden@cod.edu. Please do not contact me directly as I am leaving for my field season tomorrow morning and I won’t be back…
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Yellowstone: No Big Eruption Soon
Via MSNBC from geology.com: It’s no mere doomsday pseudoscience: The Yellowstone supervolcano really could be the end of us all. When the Yellowstone Caldera — the name of the national park’s geographic structure, which roughly translates as “caldron” — blows its lid, much of the continental United States will get covered in a blanket of…
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Do It Yourself Trilobite
Andrew Young [ESCONI member] writes: “Thank you all, again, for the wonderful field trips this spring: Braceville, the St. Paul quarry and environs. I’m sure that some of you will endeavor to collect over the summer, but for those who must wait to search for our beloved trilobites – rolled or in matrix – attached…
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Tracking Tetonic Plates
From Anchorage News via geology.com: The Pacific Northwest is a restless place. The ground is being shoved by tectonic plates. Snow-capped volcanoes inflate and deflate in concert with the creep of molten rock. Coastlines bulge as tension builds on an offshore fault very like the one that snapped in Japan on March 11. Scientists now…
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Chicago Member Wants to Car Pool for Friday Field Trip, 2011
An ESCONI member who lives in Chicago, is interested in sharing a ride (and paying for half gas) for the trip to Sycamore.
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Jack Horner’s Opinion Piece for CNN
Via CNN – Why we’re creating a ‘chickenosaurus‘ When I was a young boy, I dreamed of two things: one, to become a paleontologist, and another, to have a pet dinosaur. I have become a paleontologist, and now I strive to figure out a way to bring back or create my living dinosaur. I was…
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Events This Week 6/13 – 6/20/2011
Saturday, 6/18 – ESCONI Field Trip to the Larson (Vulcan) Quarry on Barber Greene Road in Sycamore, IL. 9:00 am to 11:30AM. Sign up by sending me an email with the number of people and their names. I will acknowledge by return email. Dave fossil54@att.net Rules: 1. Must be an ESCONI member. 2. Must be…
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Friday Lecture: Meteorites & Impact Events
Friday, 6/10 – General Meeting – Lecture: Dr. James St. John, Ohio State University at Newark will present a program on Introduction to Meteorites and Impact Events. This will give an overview of what rocks from space look like, what their mineral contents are, their ages, their origins, and their beauty. Various rocks resulting from…
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Geodefest 2011
Let’s Get Cracking at GEODEFEST 2011 Chicago Rocks and Minerals Society Presents a Celebration of Geodes Saturday, June 11, 1 to 5 PMNew Location: St. Peter’s United Church of Christ, 8013 Laramie Ave., Skokie Don’t miss Geodefest 2011, the Chicago Rocks & Minerals Society’s 3rd annual celebration of geodes – those plain ol’ lumpy, bumpy…
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Events This Week Ending Sunday 6/12
Friday, 6/10 – General Meeting – Lecture: Dr. James St. John, Ohio State University at Newark will present a program on Introduction to Meteorites and Impact Events. This will give an overview of what rocks from space look like, what their mineral contents are, their ages, their origins, and their beauty. Various rocks resulting from…
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Male or Female Dinosaur?
Via Discovery News Paleontologists have devised a new method to distinguish male from female dinosaurs, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The technique, which involves analyzing upper-hind limb bones, may help to solve this long-standing male or female anatomical mystery, since the remains of dinosaurs today are…
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Photos Added for Field Trips
Photos of the Indiana field trip and Braceville trip were just added to the photo albums. Photo: Andrew Young
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Anomalocaridids
From Yale via Geology.com: Paleontologists have discovered that a group of remarkable ancient sea creatures existed for much longer and grew to much larger sizes than previously thought, thanks to extraordinarily well-preserved fossils discovered in Morocco.
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Olivine Rain
Geology.com: “NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope detected tiny green crystals, called olivine, thought to be raining down on a developing star. This graphic illustrates the process, beginning with a picture of the star and ending with an artist’s concept of what the crystal “rain” might look like.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
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Economist on Anthrocepene
Via The Economist: … Geologists care about sediments, hammering away at them to uncover what they have to say about the past—especially the huge spans of time as the Earth passes from one geological period to another. In the same spirit they look at the distribution of fossils, at the traces of glaciers and sea-level…
