Upsection

Guadalupe Peak I haven't made any new posts in a while, though I do have some on the drawing table. I'm working on wrapping up a manuscript to submit (hopefully by the end of the weekend). I also was fieldtripping around West Texas and eastern New Mexico for a week. More posts coming soon, promise.

Stop what you're doing. Stereonet software now displays data in 3D, let's you rotate, go crazy. Geologists, get excited. Anyone who has worked with stereonets by hand knows that in addition to being an invaluable structural geology tool, they are also a pain, especially for large data sets. For the unfamiliar, stereonets are circular graphs that are used to represent 3-dimensional data in 2-dimensions.  Data can be everything from bedding measurements, fault orientation, to cleavage planes in a fold. Once this data is plotted on the stereonet it can be manipulated to work out everything from the deformation history of a region to the correct orientation to drill a mineralization zone (ie. where's the gold at?). Figure 1: Some bedding plane and lineaion data displayed on a 2D stereonet in OSXStereonet. Stereonets are notoriously difficult for students to grasp on the first try around. My undergrad (UCSC) structure class used a hamster ball-cd set up to explain 3D bedding p...

Oregon Lidar Regions The OpenTopography project has just released over 10,000 km^2 of lidar data for the Oregon coast stretching from the California border through to the Columbia River. Lidar stands for Light Detection and Ranging, and uses laser beams in a similar fashion to radar to create high-resolution clouds of data, in this case topographic data. The high resolution of lidar causes features that would normally be too subtle to be displayed on a old-fashion topo or even DEM (Digital Elevation Model) map to "pop" out. Who wants to find those faults?

Figure 1: Build your own seismograph activity. Last month I wrote an article titled  A seismograph in every home , where I showcased an in-home seismograph network program created by the USGS. I brought up the idea of placing these in schools and incorporating a geoscience curriculum to bolster interest in the geosciences among the youth (am I allowed to call them that?). I was so excited about this idea (I probably wasn't the first to have it) that I shot off an email to the USGS. The reply I received informed me that a few seismographs have been placed in schools. However, if there isn't already a geoscience program in place it can be difficult starting and maintaining contact with the school. Good news though! I was informed that IRIS has a Seismographs in schools  (SIS) program! This program gives teachers the opportunity to install a seismograph in their classroom and share data in real time. The SIS program includes resources for incorporating seismology into the classro...