More Chilean Earthquake Stuff and Mars

In other news, Concepcion, Chile is now sitting ten feet further west than it did previous to the magnitude 8.8 earthquake.

Only about 3.1 meters displacement, you say? For one event, that is pretty damn significant. That and in the grand scheme of things, there's only a smidgen of crustal shortening and subduction going on there. Amazing to think about how much ocean crust once did exist there before the subduction zone developed. But alas, as the ridge is still actively spreading, the crust must go somewhere!

Something about that whole conservation of mass thing . . .

Then there's this article about Mars. Cool. One of the great questions about Mars is centered around what controlled the erosional and sedimentary features on the planet's surface and what happened to it.

Mars' surface yields some spotty paleomagnetic evidence of possible early plate tectonics (I like to think so, at least. However, it's not universally accepted and other models exist), but it's plainly evident that whatever the tectonic style of the planet, it shut down while Earth was still in the Precambrian Eon (I guess it's considered a "Supereon"?). Mars is just too small to maintain plate tectonics/convection cycles like those of Earth - the heat gradient from core to surface is too steep. I could talk all day about what I think about the formation of the giant shield volcanoes and Tharsis, but that's not what the article's about. Well, it could tie into Tharsis. But it's not directly about it.

Later on, sedimentary features developed - most strikingly, the canyons larger than any found on Earth. Whatever fluids and erosional processes that once controlled this are mostly gone now. It's now being postulated in this article that some of the channel features were carved out by lava.

I can buy this - camped in Snow Canyon State Park in Utah a couple of years ago. It admittedly started as a canyon carved by fluvial (waterflow-driven) processes, but was located proximal to a basaltic magma source as young as 20,000 years old. Eruptions there changed the course of the river - partly by building up topography in some places and carving it out in others. Redirection of waterways carved new, deeper canyons and remnants of older lava flows can be seen near the top of the present day canyon. This is a phenomenon called "inverted topography," where younger rock sits lower than older rock. This is only one way to form inverted topography, but that could be a blog post in and of itself, so maybe I'll save that for another post.

Good Morning!

This was one of the forms of entertainment of choice at field camp - the dreaded Flash Bang. During periods of downtime and carbo-loading, it was discovered fairly early on that the sighting mirrors of our compasses, particularly those of the Brunton brand, reflected sunlight REALLY well across large distances. (This is also very handy to know for potential field emergencies in which signaling across large distances would be required. Let's hope my buddies and I never have this problem in future excursions.)

This turned into a game and it ultimately became hard for large groups to eat lunch together as we'd all end up flashbanging each other. My favorites were when we could get someone when they were about 1000 ft. away, usually on the other side of a basin or canyon that we were mapping.

The other dominant form of entertainment was the fabled "Suck Bomb," in which someone called out the target victim's name to grab his or her attention. The victim's typical answer is, "What?" The reply would then be, "SUCKS!"

Not really sure which is the more mature of the two, but both are funny. With the latter, people figured out pretty quickly when they were about to receive a suck bomb. If they heard their name called, some would figure it out and instead of "What?" we'd get a "F**k you!" with a giant grin on their face.

A short-lived practice was something some of the boys invented, called "Pass the Rock." Pretty self-explanatory. The trick was that the rock generally had absolutely nothing to do with the lecture going on at the time, but they wanted to see how long it'd get passed around and inspected. People figured that one out within a couple of weeks, I think, after it became frequent and rather obvious.

Back into the present and we find no soy milk in my fridge, so no pancakes this morning. Bummer. I'll probably do eggs again today. Thunderstorms are expected, my running buddy's bike is in need of maintenance (tire blew, so my inefficiently-running arse can't join her today on her 7-miler), and I have grading to blast through. Should be a quiet day, which I'm totally in favor of, and anything could be more productive than yesterday. About the only things I managed to do yesterday were to make/eat breakfast while it was still early, get out for an hourlong walk in the residental section of Urbana (GORGEOUS - saw some crocuses!), wash the pile of dishes I've let build up for a while after 11 pm, then attempted to stay up to watch a movie and fell asleep less than halfway through.

And I'm off to be along with it. Peace out.

I Love Geology, Yes I Do!

It's a monocline that looks like a SHIP! I hope everyone else sees that too!



This is a picture from the start of the San Rafael Swell in Utah. A monocline is sort of like an anticline (convex fold), except it only has one leg. It tells us that the area was undergoing some sort of uneven compression that caused one side to kink up and form a leg, while the other side slooooowly tapers downward to gradually merge with the rest of the Colorado Plateau. Note that this area is only a tiny part of the Swell itself. When we camped on the monocline in 2008, we were only still part of civilization in that we were staying in a campground. No facilities or water, though - we had to bring everything in and pack it all out.

One of the cool things we discussed at field camp while we were camping up on the Swell is that evidence of hydrocarbons exists in the sandstone beds of the monocline. Before erosive forces carved out the Little Grand Canyon and other features, this has been interpreted to be one of the largest hydrocarbon reservoirs ever to have existed. If I remember correctly, it was thought to contain more barrels of oil than sources in Saudi Arabia. Once the entrapping rocks were cut through during erosion, though, the hydrocarbons drained away to who-knows-where. They're long gone and broken down.

I'll dig out a few more photos with time. I've taken a TON of pictures on my field excursions in the past couple of years, downloaded them, looked at a few, and forgotten about more than I've looked at. Perhaps a massive reorganization/cataloguing project is in order.

Or, knowing me, maybe not! Regardless, I've been coming across some fun shots with stories behind them and it would be only best if I were to share them.

I'd like to point out that reading my class' text, which is the same one I used when I took the class as an undergrad at MSU, is MUCH easier now that I've been out of the class for a while and actually use this stuff every day.

Now off to the world of granite typing.

Excitement and Arm-Waving

Had possibly one of the most exciting meetings ever this afternoon!

There's not much in terms of detail since things are only in the barest of planning stages, but what I can say is that it's a collaborative effort with one of the other research groups in the department and if things end up as interesting as we suspect, and better yet if we can develop some new models, this could be VERY important research.

In other news, I'm writing another lecture to have ready for Monday's lab. Some of the information the prof conveyed in lecture this morning was anything but correct, and unfortunately the students won't realize that. I nearly broke the Rules of Conduct (my own personal rules, sort of coupled with some of the admittedly strange rules I have to stay aware of in the academic world. They certainly have their logic, but they can sometimes be counterproductive) during lecture when she said what she did. Took every ounce of willpower to not say anything, and I'm glad I didn't.

[I'm not mentioning any specifics about class, etc. so as to preserve identities.]

I'll let her know, but it wouldn't have been proper to call that error out during lecture. However, at the same time I'm concerned that the level of education my students are receiving from this class isn't satisfactory. This means I'm taking into my hands a large portion of their education. It's more work than I should have as a TA (never mind I'm the ONLY TA in the department who has only one lab to teach. Yes, my subject is that hard to teach), and I shouldn't be responsible for teaching fundamentals.

However, it appears that it usually comes to that for those who TA this class. When a glaring error (omitted chapter that was rather essential to the lab I ran Monday) cropped up last week, I was fuming mad about it. I wrote a lecture and even managed to pull it off and have some of the info stick in my students' heads, even. That's a huge accomplishment, given the rough time I had last semester when I was trying to teach intro geology lab to non-geology majors.

In addition to that, I graded the first lab quiz of the semester and it taught me a lot. I know where their deficiencies are and that helps me tailor what I need to cover in lab to help them learn. You can't learn this subject without solid fundamentals, and regrettably those are not always properly covered in lecture. I even managed to show them how to solve ternary phase diagrams. *smug grin*

This is going to be a tough semester, but in a manner different from last semester. It will be a challenge to stay on top of the material covered in class. It will be a challenge to keep encouraging my students to read the book (been there, was terrible about reading too). It will be a challenge to master the fundamentals behind the methods, and convey the concepts in a manner that my students can understand. This subject is tough enough when taught well, and I can't imagine how my students feel right now, because they KNOW the prof is lacking somewhat.

That is my challenge. My confidence in my ability to teach has soared somewhat since Monday's personal triumph, and I'm hoping I can carry that energy over into the coming lab.

. . . I need a shower. Did my first spin class with a friend tonight, and it was loads of fun. Recommend it - feel great now, wondering how well I'll be moving tomorrow!

More Cool Earthquake Stuff

From BoingBoing: Chile quake changed Earth's figure axis (based on center of mass, not north-south axis) and shortened Earth's days.

Forgive me for saying this, but this is what makes earthquake science COOL. And yes, I'm definitely keeping Chile in my thoughts; a friend of mine has plans to live there for a short while after she finishes her master's degree next year so my degree of separation from the country will soon close significantly.

At the same time as I'm amazed at the pictures of quake damage and that the death toll is as small as it is, I have to mention that the somewhat unsympathetic side of me keeps clamoring about Man choosing to build cities, civilizations in these unstable areas. Chile is a smart country - they acknowledge their risks and build accordingly.

I have considerably less sympathy for folks who build homes on major fault lines and have zero idea what they're living on (yes, I'm talking about YOU, people who built mansions on the Wasatch Fault!!). Sure, it's a great view. Sure, I'd LOVE to have a mountain range as my backyard. Do I want to live on a major fault line, even if it only ruptures every several hundred years? Nope! The less frequently a fault ruptures, the less data we can gather on it and the less we know about that fault or fault system.

Earthquake Frequency Stats

Here's a really good article on earthquake frequency in light of the recent quakes in Japan and Chile.

I'm not going to copy/paste anything directly into this post from that article, but I recommend reading through it. It is a strong testimony to the extremely short memory of us as a society, not to mention how uninformed the public are on earthquakes.

Many of the earthquakes studied in this statistics exercise (M 6.0-6.9) don't even make news because they occur in remote/low population areas, little damage occurs, or quakes of that magnitude occur with enough frequency that it's not unusual to the residents of the area. It's the quakes that size that hit less frequently in populated areas or cause lots of damage/kill lots of people that make the news. It's all about the social impact.

There's the matter of correlation vs. causation and the breakdown of Occam's Razor to some extent going on. Short public memory combined with 3 significant earthquakes since January causes a stir. Sure, there's a correlation. Three large quakes occurred in a short period of time. People died; it was a huge social impact.

Correlation here does not imply causation, however. It's easy to apply Occam's Razor and say, "well, they happened quickly, they must be related to each other."

Not necessarily. In this case, the better application of Occam is to say, "They correlate. They may or may not be related thanks to the large releases of energy from each quake and the resultant redistribution of stresses on portions of tectonic plate boundaries worldwide. But we cannot say causation - not enough information."

Add in the sensationalistic 2012 bullcrap, and it's easy to get swept up in the hype.

In a nutshell, sit down and think about it. Bad things and good things tend to cluster like this, but we're more prone to remember the bad things.