Continuing with my day out in Java, and geo-story-telling along the Cipimingkis River. The outcrops in the river are spectacular, a continuous tale of Miocene seas coming and going, leaving behind a sedimentary testament. The layers of rock crossing the...
Java, 12 million years ago. The tropical seas came in and then they went out again – before coming back in again, and so on - the sands and the muds were moved around, the coastline changed – and the...
I'm off on a short fieldtrip today - yes, actually looking at rocks, and sandstones in particular (undoubtedly more of that after the event). So a brief post on what is, to me, a beautiful sand from Lang's Beach on...
I hardly need comment – before Irene, I wrote the “Nourish or Retreat?” post and then she proceeded to underscore the validity of the question. The USGS has, of course, some provocative images, a number of which I have reproduced...
A couple of weeks ago, Sunday sand exhibited some portraits of foraminifera (forams). I will readily admit that I find these critters entrancing, and utterly fascinating in their diversity and ingenuity. And, of course, given their ubiquity in the world’s...
A couple of years ago, one of the great pleasures of my red Ford Mustang California dreamin’ road trip was a guided tour of the spectacular Oceano dunes by an enthusiast for, and expert on, this sea of sand. I...
I have recently received the devastating news that the several hundred unsold copies of the Oxford University Press hardback edition of my book are to be pulped. This is purportedly so that the hardback "doesn't interfere with the paperback sales,"...
This may seem at first glance a stupid question, and the answer – Cambodia – even sillier. But it’s a fact. The tiny island nation of Singapore is home to a booming economy and the growth that goes along with...
I guess that, if you wanted to write story for kids that illustrated the idea of the food chain, it could go something like this: One evening, as the sun was setting over the beach, Walter the warty sea cucumber...
Dear Michael, In the past week, I've been the fortunate recipient of six new samples for my sand collection! From Florida and Alaska, they are welcome additions to my collection. It now spans both poles and every continent save Australia....
When I wrote a while ago about the sands of Kefalonia and the mysteries of where exactly the homeland of Odysseus lay, I commented that one of the samples was clearly crammed with critters. However, at the time, I did...
I have referred several times in the past to Orrin H. Pilkey, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology at Duke University. Now, together with colleagues from the US and Northern Ireland, he has published what promises to be an...
For Nature is the noblest engineer, yet uses a grinding economy, working up all that is wasted to-day into to-morrow's creation; not a superfluous grain of sand, for all the ostentation she makes of expense and public works. (Ralph Waldo...
You live and learn – well, at least I try. And often I don’t even have to try – something I didn’t know (a category that knows no limits) just ups and surprises me. I read in the paper today...
Tectonic turmoil has been a long-running production in Indonesia, even by geological measures. Thirteen million years ago, peaceful seas covered what is today eastern Java, but blundering plates soon put an end to the tranquillity. The entire island of Borneo...
As I was browsing the stunning website of Elvira Wersche, whose installation and performance art works were the subject of the guest post by Carla Lagendijk earlier this week, in the “press” section I came upon a piece by Christine...
Tibetan sand mandalas, powerful images of ephemerality. Gathering, design, and dispersal, the never-ending journey of Buddhism and sand grains. And recently, thanks to my arenophile friend, Carla Lagendijk, I have been alerted to a modern exponent of the sand mandala....
It's been several months since the last one, so I should have known that it was time for it to come around again. "Fw: Fw: Fwd: FW: Oil - You don't know about." The forwarding history and addresses are always...
We were baking under the summer sun in a stream bed deep in a mountain valley in Eastern Greece. To the east of us, massive limestone cliffs, to the west, the mountain ranges were built from ophiolitic rocks, the stranded...
Mark Twain died one hundred years ago today “The Old Oolitic Silurian” – my father used to periodically quote this to me to illustrate his familiarity with geological terminology and to remind me of the connections between his own field,...
