Sometimes you have to wonder. And the good tax-paying citizens of Bournemouth are certainly wondering. An article in yesterday's UK Guardian newspaper highlights the latest episode of another sorry story of expensive coastal meddling: "Shifting sands swell the cost of...
Among the many things that are intoxicating about the desert, the things that draw us back, I find the silence perhaps the most compelling. In a world where noise bombardment is the norm, the complete absence of sound is a...
Back in London, and time to catch up a little on documenting the examples of the world's sands that friends have sent. Yes, I confess, I'm an arenophile (or psammophile if you prefer not to mix your classical languages). Given...
Earlier this week, I went on one of my occasional pilgrimages back to my alma mater, on this occasion to give a talk to the Friends of the Sedgwick Museum on a topic that you can probably guess. The grand...
OK, time to contribute to the circulating fun of the geoblogosphere's travels. First, the US - the majority of states, but that's not surprising since I lived, taught, and generally worked there for many years. The blank states are slightly...
Back in November, in my post on the sandglass, I commented that watching avalanches of sand in a sandglass is to witness one of nature's most fundamental laws in action. The relationship between avalanche size and frequency is an example...
Sand has always provided a medium, a muse, an inspiration in many ways, but the way in which it inspired Andrew Clemens was extraordinary - and unique. Clemens was born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1852 (or 1857, reports vary), one...
Thanks to Jules for posting a comment that drew my attention to a piece in the New York Times Science section on Rob Holman, a coastal geologist at Oregon State. Not only does he run the unique Argus program which...
We are not the only species that builds homes and condominium complexes from sand. For example, some foraminifera construct shells from sand grains, as does the Trumpet Worm - and excellent artisans they are. A particularly clever worm which has...
Having mentioned John McPhee and Eldridge Moores in my previous post, here they are, thanks to Callan Bentley, talking at UC Davis. Great stuff - and McPhee reading from Annals of the Former World is wonderful. http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/12/john-mcphee-interview-on-youtube.html
Whenever I'm in this part of France, south of Perpignan, I make sure to visit the bijou town of Ceret, nestled (the word seems appropriate and less hackneyed here) in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Famed for its association with...
Now, back to the subject of this blog, but still following the global theme. In the course of researching and writing the book, I learned a lot and came across a wide range of topics that were new to me,...
First of all, thanks to all the respondents to my previous post and appeal. I was looking for a shortcut to figuring out the international dimensions of the Geoblogosphere, and, thanks to the highly valuable community component of blogging, I...
As a new participant in the gloriously titled Geoblogosphere, a couple of things have come to my attention recently that I'd like to highlight. One of them is entertaining, the other deadly serious, neither of them directly to do with...
I was enjoying the cultural splendours of St Petersburg when the devastating tsunami of December 2004 hit. Since the only source of information that CNN news could present to us was their weather-person, I became, as the token geologist in...
In Knutsford, Cheshire (the UK one), the first Saturday in May is "Royal May Day," the "royal" referring to King Knut (or popularly, Canute), the Viking King of England a thousand years ago. Tradition on Royal May Day recognizes sand...
Sometimes I just get sidetracked and other times I get overwhelmed - and now I'm both. I was working on the next post when the December issue of the National Geographic arrived, with the riveting piece by John Updike on...
I spent an enjoyable day with my daughter earlier this year in quest of sand grains around the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay, and it turns out that we were following in the footsteps of Robert Hazen. Also in...
