GeoJeopardy! Fridays #48

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because I have the day off.

- Dinosaur -

Amherst's Pratt Museum has the largest collection of these markings left by dinosaur strolls

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Along with the famous plates that ran down its back, it also had 4 tall, deadly spines on its tail

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Ash from an asteroid impact on this peninsula in Mexico may have covered the globe & killed off the dinosaurs

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In 1922 the first of these to be discovered came from a mommy protoceratops

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This "king" of the carnosaurus wasn't from the Jurassic period, but the late Cretaceous

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All the answers as well as any other previous GeoJeopardy! questions can be found over at my website by clicking the link.  

And if you enjoy this post as well as others, please consider subscribing to my blog via Google Reader or some other RSS feed so that way I better know my readership. Thank you.

Questions, images, and videos courtesy of j-archive.com

DINOSAURS! From Cultural to Pop Culture - ~2,000 BC: Biblical Behemoths

DINOSAURS! From Cultural to Pop Culture

Prehistoric Times 

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~2,000 BC
Biblical Behemoths

"Before the 19th century when dinosaur bones turned up they were taken as evidence of dragons, ogres,or giant victims of Noah's Flood"
Updike, 2007

The oldest known Torah, the Jewish Holy book (CBS News)

Our first stop along the ride through history is approximately 2,000 BC, which is when it was assumed the Book of Job from the Old Testament was written. That is where we run across the passage:

 15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
Job 40:15-18

African Elephant from Utah's Hogle Zoo.
 Photo by Jim Lehane.

The main reason this is our first stop, and not another one a little further along the timeline, is that Creationists seem to have taken up this phrase as proof that dinosaurs were in the Bible and have been around since Creation. If we analyze the passage we do have something that can be described as a dinosaur it seems. First off "behemoth" is a rather obscure term but since the term dinosaur wasn't coined until 1854 this could be taken as a dinosaur, or as any other unknown/obscure animal of the time.

White Rhinoceros from Utah's Hogle Zoo.
Photo by Jim Lehane.

Picking apart other parts of the passage we have "he eateth grass as an ox", indicating an herbivore. The next line, "his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly". I'm not really sure how to interpret that one, but we will just assume it means the animal is pretty big and strong, not really a physical description though. Now we get to the line that is the primary "proof" given for it being a dinosaur; "tail like a cedar". Not many, if any,animals today contain a tail that can be described as "like a cedar".Looking at the next line, "bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron", we get the feeling of a large animal with large bones and large limbs. But all modern day large animals with large limbs, all contain tiny little tails (like the elephant and the rhino).

This has been one of the the "proofs" that Creationists provide as evidence that dinosaurs were in the Bible, since no modern day animal can fit the mold. Dinosaurs do seem to fit it well though. So does this mean dinosaurs really did live with mankind? I don't think so, but I think this is an important entry in the Dinosaurs Cultural to Pop Culture series, and one that couldn't be forgotten.

References
Bible references obtained from the King James Version: http://kingjbible.com/job/40.htm
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/expert-discovers-ancient-torah-scroll-in-plain-sight/

Dinos in Pop Culture

Toy based on the PBS show Dinosaur Train

AW #34 Last Call for Posts

This reminder just went out that the next Accretionary Wedge is due this Friday the 27th over at En Tequila es Verdad.

GeoJeopardy! Fridays #47

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because it is a lazy day.

- Minerals -

       You’ll discover not gold, but a black mark, after rubbing this “gold” on porcelain

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   A scratch test won’t reveal a mineral’s allergies, but this property

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Over half the use of this mineral in the U.S. is for spreading on roads & highways to melt ice & snow

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   Steatite, or soapstone, is a compact variety of this soft mineral

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   German geologist Abraham Werner gave this mineral its name, derived from a Greek word for "to write"

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All the answers as well as any other previous GeoJeopardy! questions can be found over at my website by clicking the link.  

And if you enjoy this post as well as others, please consider subscribing to my blog via Google Reader or some other RSS feed so that way I better know my readership. Thank you.

Questions, images, and videos courtesy of j-archive.com

Guest Post - Tiny Earthquakes in Maine: From the Last Ice Age

I have another guest post for you today. This time we have Mariana Ashley focusing in on what the hell is going on in Maine and why do they have so many tiny earthquakes.

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Earlier this month, Maine experienced a swarm of tiny earthquakes. In the first week of May, Maine was hit by as many as 30 minor tremors. These tiny earthquakes, which were all below magnitude 2, were not big enough to be felt although residents did hear them; many were reported as sounding like gunshots.

As many of you know, Maine is not on any active fault line; in fact, Maine is right in the middle of a plate. However, despite Maine's tectonic position, Maine still experiences some stresses and responses to the movement of the tectonic plate it's on.

Maine is also experiencing some after-effects of the last Ice Age. About 13,000 years ago, the area of Maine and New England was covered by an enormous amount of ice; this ice weighed a ton and depressed the crust in Maine by about 500 feet in some areas. The ice melted relatively quickly in relation to geologic time, and the crust is still responding to that loss of weight.

The stress from that loss of weight is released from tiny faults over the state. These faults are usually 100 feet wide and about a mile deep. They are located all over Maine, around mountains and the coast as well.

Normally these tiny earthquakes, in response to a change of weight or pressure of the crust, are more spread out and hardly noticeable, sometimes not even documented. Scientists are still trying to determine exactly why they swarmed in such close intervals in Maine. There have been two other records of tiny earthquake swarms in Maine, one in 2006 and another in 1967. Since they are so rare, scientists don't have a good answer why so many tiny earthquakes would occur so frequently in one location.

While there's no great explanation for the swarm of earthquakes in Maine, scientists don't believe this is anything to be worried about. This type of seismic activity is in no way a warning sign, and since nobody in Maine could actually feel the quakes, not many people are taking it as one either. If anything, this is just an interesting reminder that landscapes are a lot more complex than most people think; landscapes are constantly responding to forces and events that occurred far beyond our own lifetimes.

By-line:

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about top online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com.

Darwin Awards - Geology Strikes Back 6

Man Finds the Quick Way off a Glacier

A man learns his lesson as geology teaches him that
sliding down a glacier is not the quickest way to get down. Or as my
student put it "look before you jump".

Article courtesy of Heather Judd and Seth Fredrick

All other Darwin Awards - Geology Strikes back can be found at my website.

DINOSAURS! From Cultural to Pop Culture - Introduction

DINOSAURS! From Cultural to Pop Culture

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I have been fascinated lately with how dinosaurs have affected and been affected by their appearances in the daily lives of people from "Prehistoric Times" through the modern day. In regards to this I have developed a talk that I just gave at a UFOP meeting (and can give elsewhere if you want, just email me) but I am also dedicating a portion of my website to this as I build it up (DINOSAURS! From Cultural to Pop Culture)

The section of the website will illustrate the variety of things that were birthed from dinosaurs (culturally speaking) and how our perception of them has changed through time. This is a work in progress and will likely grow in size as I find more information and not necessarily in chronological order. I have divided this topic into four main time periods: "Prehistoric Times", "Medieval Times", "Modern Times-1800's", and "Modern Times-1900's". The plan is to add thing chronologically on the blog and then place them on the timeline over at the website so people can jump around or just scroll through time. This way if I find new information later I can place in the correct time slot without too much trouble and not being relegated to missing it because I already passed it on the blog. They are currently all blank right now until I get to that information.

This will be a "ride" through time (if you have seen the talk you will understand this) so posts are going to be by stops. The first time stop should be up in the next few days.

GeoJeopardy! Fridays #46

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because it's good time for a break.

- Shake, Shake, Shake -

       These waves, from the Greek for "shake", that pass through the Earth's rocks are caused by earthquakes 

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   The force of these smaller post-earthquake tremors decreases quickly over time

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   Herculaneum had not yet recovered from a 62 A.D. earthquake when this calamity occurred 17 years later

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   These, like the thrust type, are defined as narrow zones where rock masses move in relation to one another

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   Differing from Richter, the MM or "modified" this scale uses witness observations to gauge intensity

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All the answers as well as any other previous GeoJeopardy! questions can be found over at my website by clicking the link.  

And if you enjoy this post as well as others, please consider subscribing to my blog via Google Reader or some other RSS feed so that way I better know my readership. Thank you.

Questions, images, and videos courtesy of j-archive.com

Dinos in Pop Culture

Here is an image off the cover of a "clay" molding pack by crayola.

This is a repost since there was a problem previously.

UFOP May Meeting - Thursday

Please join us for our UFOP meeting on Thursday, May 12th at 7 PM in the Department of Natural Resources Auditorium, 1594 W. North Temple, Salt Lake City.

Our speaker will be Jim Lehane, Ph.D. student in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at the University of Utah, and our current state and chapter UFOP President. His talk will be:

"Dinosaurs! From Cultural to Pop Culture."

GeoJeopardy! Fridays(?) #45

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because it has been a busy weekend so I'm a little late.

- Geology -

Around 132 A.D. Chinese scientist Chang Heng invented an early form of this earthquake detector  

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One of the world's busiest geyser areas lies in a lava field near this Icelandic capital

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In the science of geology, petrographers are concerned with classifying these

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In 2003 it was located at 82 degrees north latitude, 112 degrees west longitude near Ellef Ringness Island

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The glaciers in Alaska are remnants of the last Ice Age, which ended about 11,500 years ago during this epoch

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All the answers as well as any other previous GeoJeopardy! questions can be found over at my website by clicking the link.  

And if you enjoy this post as well as others, please consider subscribing to my blog via Google Reader or some other RSS feed so that way I better know my readership. Thank you.

Questions, images, and videos courtesy of j-archive.com

Dinos in Pop Culture

Dino pool converted to a ball pit.