#all-geo

The delicacy of mineral replacement and the serendipity of finding something so small and fragile. This is spectacular.

Small asteroids and chunks of cometary debris frequently slam into the surface of Mars, gouging out new craters. Thanks to a high resolution camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists can often spot such impacts relatively soon af...

Future Shock: The exceptional vulnerability of buildings in Nepal to a future earthquake

If you are reading this from the UK, you know already what I'm writing about, but to those elsewhere, the "Shipping Forecast" is mostly unknown. It's heard on BBC Radio 4 each day, and It's far more than a weather forecast, it's an insti...

The question of the headline, which was the title for the talks I gave last week in Phoenix was, I admit, a little cheeky. I'm just some schlub from New Mexico with an academic title and a book. That doesn't mean I know the answer to the question. But to the extent I have an answer, it is this - Arizona (and lots of other places) probably don't need as much water as they think.

Take your seasickness prevention pills and weigh anchor, my darlings. We are embarking on a long voyage, and I'm afraid it isn't the lovely salt sea, but an ocean of creationist bilge we be sailin'. BJU has got a lot to say about oceanography. A good portion of it is utter bunkum. And there's three bloody chapters of this shite.

A week ago, I looked eastward from my science lab and saw the sun setting on the Sierra Nevada crest from 80 or 90 miles away. It was quite literally moments before the first outliers of the storm arrived and hid the mountains from view. Over the next six days or so, California was pummeled by the worst storm in two decades. Flooding was widespread, and there were some huge changes in my local bailiwick, the drainages of the Merced, Tuolumne, and Stanislaus rivers. I've been able to directly document some out-of-control drainages like Dry Creek, and some barely controlled drainages like the Tuolumne River (short story, flood with Don Pedro dam, 9,000 cubic feet per second; flood without the dam, 45,000 cubic feet per second). I couldn't get up there, but I followed events in Yosemite Valley as the park service prepared for the biggest flood in a long time. One of the most incredible moments of the week was the opportunity that I had to inspect the activity at La Grange Reservoir, where the Tuolumne River was plunging over the dam ramparts at 7,000 cubic feet per second. I also took some video (below) that I wasn't able to post yesterday.

"This comment is so totally wrong on so many levels that it would be best to take your comments back, think about them, and send another try."