14 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
    1. But as the Arabian Desert was forming, about 6,000 years ago its population imploded. The same would happen in the Levant about 4,200 years ago, commensurate with an intense aridification event.

      Middle-east desert is linked to humans of modern era ~6000yago.

    2. We did not – the greening and aridification of North Africa and Arabia were due to planetary cycles, not human impact.

      Author (Ruth Schuster) denies humans involved in aridification/desertification.

  2. Mar 2024
  3. Aug 2023
  4. Feb 2023
    1. I really highly recommend Robert Hazen's _Story of Earth_ [1] if you're into this sort of stuff. Highly knowledgeable and entertaining geologist argues that the geosphere and the biosphere should really be viewed as one co-evolving system, over deep time. There are thousands of species of minerals that can only exist because of the action of life, and those minerals in turn enable new forms of life, which enable new species of mineral, and so on in a complex and ever evolving system within which we exist for only a fraction of an instant.[1] https://www.amazon.com/Story-Earth-Billion-Stardust-Living/d...

      .

  5. Mar 2022
    1. Such results suggest that the act of gesturing doesn’t just help communicatespatial concepts to others; it also helps the gesturer herself understand theconcepts more fully. Indeed, without gesture as an aid, students may fail tounderstand spatial ideas at all

      Could the pedagogy of using gestures to understand "strike and dip" in geology also be applied to using the right hand rule in better understanding electricity and magnetism? Would research on this idea show similar results as in geology? This could be an interesting way of testing this result in another area.

    2. “penetrative thinking.” This is the capacity to visualize and reason about theinterior of a three-dimensional object from what can be seen on its surface—acritical skill in geology, and one with which many students struggle.

      Penetrative thinking is the ability to abstractly consider and internally visualize or theorize about the inside of a three dimensional object based on what can be seen on its surface.

      Penetrative thinking can be useful in areas like geology and anatomy.

      Improvements in penetrative thinking can be exercised, encouraged, and improved by using gestures.

    3. Students learning about geology for the first time can also benefit from usinggesture.

      Geology is a solid example of an area in which gesture can be used in teaching the subject, by using the hands to indicate the movements of one mass against another.

  6. Nov 2021
  7. Apr 2021
    1. The four surviving stones at Waun Mawn are of unspotted dolerite, and possibly derive fromoutcrops 3km to the south-east at Cerrigmarchogion on the Preseli ridge (Bevinset al.2014).

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  8. Apr 2019
    1. The concept of ‘deep time’ was first described in 1788 by the Scottish geologist James Hutton, although only coined as a term 200 years later, by the American author John McPhee. Hutton posited that geological features were shaped by cycles of sedimentation and erosion, a process of lifting up then grinding down rocks that required timescales much grander than those of prevailing Biblical narratives.
    2. Deep time represents a certain displacement of the human and the divine from the story of creation. Yet in the Anthropocene, ironically we humans have become that sublime force, the agents of a fearful something that is greater than ourselves. A single mine in Canada’s tar sands region moves 30 billion tons of sediment annually, double the quantity moved by all the worlds’ rivers combined. The weight of the fresh water we have redistributed has slowed the Earth’s rotation. The mass extinction of plant and animal species is unlikely to recover for 10 million years.
  9. Mar 2017
    1. seismic exploration camps

      Seismic exploration camps are outposts of southern oil and gas exploration activities. They are constructed to shelter scientists during their surveys of the north in search of oil and gas resources. Geologists and related scientists set off explosions to induce waves underground. Theses waves 'echo' off the different layers of material allowing geologists to interpret if/where oil and/or gas could be located.

      Though it is considered a non-invasive way to see into the subsurface when compared to drilling test holes, creating the infrastructure to allow seismic exploration to take pace and setting off explosions takes a toll on arctic ecosystems. In his book Unfreezing the Arctic Andrew Stuhl "This method [seismic] required the use of several tracked vehicles in a caravan, setting off blasts and collecting the data from them, and gashing vast stretches of the Arctic landscape" (Stuhl 114).

      Legacy of this seismic exploration is felt today, as the scars Stuhl references still exist.

      For more information and photos visit: (https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/seismic.html )

      Stuhl, Andrew. Unfreezing The Arctic. 1st ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Print.

  10. Jan 2017
    1. The interaction of forces on objects is Newtonian but in our case when the force is applied the objects are changing shape within themselves. Newtonian only discusses the in between. While we will talk in terms of forces it is really continuum but we talk like it's Newtonian.