America's Best Idea

Watch The National Parks: America's Best Idea every night this week on PBS at 8pm!


Crater Lake National Park (My favorite national park)

Read more about the documentary at http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/

Wildfires in Southern California

What are your opinions on wildfire management?



http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/wildfires_in_southern_californ.html

Virga

Speaking of interesting cloud formations, I saw these clouds at the Nationals baseball park in Washington, DC during the Red Sox vs. Nationals game.



My meteorologist friend, Micheal Erb, says:

"It's probably virga. Virga is rain or snow that's falling from the cloud but not reaching the ground. In this case it would be snow (it's very cold up there). It's not too rare, but still very neat to look at."

If you google "virga" you can find lots of cool photos, like this one here:

http://www.allthesky.com/atmosphere/virga-e.html.

Lenticular Clouds at Mt. Rainier

I found these photos of Lenticular clouds near Mt. Rainier and thought they looked cool. They form during ideal conditions when the air gets pushed over Mt. Rainier and cools and condenses into clouds. Here is a great photo taken by David Embrey:



I found this information in a report by Scott Sistek which you can read at:

http://www.komonews.com/weather/blog/35631614.html

NRC visit

Last week I met several geologists working at the NRC (National Regulatory Commission). In general, geologists at the NRC work on problems such as nuclear waste remediation, site assessment for locations that want to build new power plants, and the safety and environmental impact of the proposed Yucca mountain nuclear waste repository.

Most of the geologists I talked to worked on the Yucca mountain project. These geologists examined things such as the probability of a volcanic eruption or earthquake occurring over the next 1 million years. Scientists are required to make quantitative assessments of how the public could be impacted if high level nuclear waste were thrown in the air by a volcanic eruption or leaked into the groundwater system. The NRC is not pro- or against nuclear activity, but exist to regulate any type of nuclear activity occurring in the United States. The geologists I talked to at the NRC were very enthusiastic about their work. The overarching challenge of the Yucca mountain project is to determine or model how the Earth may change over the next 1 Ma. This appears to be a very difficult question. The pyramids were built no more than 5,000 years ago, which is substantially trivial compared to 1 Ma of geologic time. It is challenging to predict what types of societies may exist 1 Ma from now or exactly how the landscape will change and evolve over this large extent of time.

I think today's science offers a great amount of insight to this problem. This question can only be answered through an integration of the sciences: geology, geophysics, geomorphology, meteorology, hydrology, seismology, tectonics, anthropology, computer science and modeling, etc... I find this problem interesting because I am interested in learning how landscapes change over time and if we can accurately predict the form of the landscape into the future. The Yucca mountain problem is especially interesting because the results of any landscape modeling directly impact society, and is the core reason whether or not people will be harmed by nuclear waste or not. When I graduate I hope to have the opportunity to work on such a project, where I can use my knowledge of geology to help society.

Here is a picture of Yucca mountain from the DOE:

Ariel photo of Yucca mountain location in Nevada from http://esmeraldanvnuke.com/yucca.html:

More information of the Yucca mountain regulatory assessment from the NRC can be found at:

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/hlw-disposal/yucca-lic-app.html

This blog's beginning

I created this blog to report interesting facts, topics, and explorations of the geosciences. I hope to include my adventures, photos from hiking trips, recent geology in the news, geology lab related information, and commentary on this blog.

The topography is essentially a complex expression of the interactions between tectonics and erosion. To start, I wanted to post this amazing digital image of the Himalaya, the field location I am investigating as part of my Masters Degree at the University of Maryland. In my research, I am most interested in assimilating geospatial and geologic information to learn about landscape evolution. I hope to spark interesting conversations on this blog about integrating GIS, digital, and satellite data into geologic studies.

MODIS image of the Nepalese Himalaya
from http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=4753
Credit Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Caption from Visible Earth: "In the top half of the image, a number of lakes glow like jewels scattered throughout southeastern China’s Plateau of Tibet. Many of the lakes show tinges of blue-green that likely indicate microscopic plant life. In the bottom half of the image, a number of major rivers flow to the southeast, eventually joining the Ganges and emptying into the Bay of Bengal (not shown). And in northern India, a gray haze of air pollution hangs over some of the most densely populated cities in the world."