GeoJeopardy! Fridays #57

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because it's nice and hot out.

- Earth Science -

The caldera of a supervolcano that last erupted 640,000 years ago covers much of the 2.2 million acres of this national park

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This class of rock is made by changes in heat, pressure or shearing to pre-existing rocks

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Used to date artifacts because it has a half-life of 5,730 years, this isotope has 6 protons and 8 neutrons in its nucleus

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The Mohorovicic discontinuity separates the Earth's crust from this

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South America & Africa fit together like puzzle pieces; this theory says they were connected 200 million years ago & have been moving away from each other up to 4 inches a year

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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 Thursday

Dinos in Pop Culture, where we highlight each week some of the more obscure instances of dinosaurs used in the pop culture realm to sell anything from slippers to wedding cakes.

This week it is the second in the series of posts from Spain. These are cookies that were given out during my recent conference (The International Ichnofabric Workshop) at the El Museo Jurasico de Asturias (MUJA).

GeoJeopardy! Friday #56

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because I am back in the US of A.

- Prehistoric Times -

The Megaloceros was the largest one of these mammals that ever lived; it was over 10 feet tall & had 11-foot antlers

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Cultivation of this 3-letter tree fruit may have started in the Middle East over 10,000 years ago

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Anthropologists say this was the first of the genus Homo to leave Africa, sometime after 1.8 million years ago

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The Mousterian industry was the tool culture associated with these humans who predated the cro-magnons

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These 3-lobed sea creatures breathed through gills on their legs

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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 Thursdays

Dinos in Pop Culture, where we highlight each week some of the more obscure instances of dinosaurs used in the pop culture realm to sell anything from slippers to wedding cakes.

This week it is the first of a series of posts from Spain. This time it is a couple of pictures of the El Museo Jurasico de Asturias (MUJA). The first image is from the front, then the second image is a sign in front giving a description of the building as well as an overview shot.

A Scientist Can't be an Atheist

After some recent conversations I have had with some fellow scientists I have come to the conclusion that a good scientist cannot be an atheist. Now before you go jumping down my throat about how this can't possibly be correct or start cheering me on as a religious fanatic, hear me out. 

The way I view science and the way that it was taught to me was that you can't prove anything. Even if something has happened 100% of times in the past does not mean it will happen again in the future. If I hold up an apple and then drop it, I am fairly certain it will fall to the ground. But science dictates that there is a small amount of uncertainty that it might not actually do that. In science, you can't prove, you can only disprove.

So how could a good scientist be a "true" atheist? By being a "true" atheist I mean a person who is 100% convinced there is no God or anything of the sort. That, in my opinion, goes against what science is really about, which is questioning things. To be 100% convinced of something insinuates more like faith than science. Science is about being a skeptic, to be unsure of things. Now this analogy also applies to religious fanatics, like those who believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old. They ignore tons of scientific data to the contrary just to fill their belief system.

As a qualifier to my post, here are the definitions I am using. Definitions differ, so yours may be different than mine:

atheism:  Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god 

agnostic: One who holds that the existence of anything beyond and behind material phenomena is unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable, and especially that a First Cause and an unseen world are subjects of which we know nothing.

 Source - Oxford English Dictionary

Scientists should fit somewhere in the middle based on their way of thinking. I think that the majority of scientists if they are religious, view religion as a moral compass and not as a "this is the way things are" sort of thing and if they aren't religious then they are most likely agnostic. Although, agnostic usually gets lumped into the Atheist category on most questionnaires. Agnostic is not the same thing as atheist, contrary to what public media tends to make it out as.

I feel agnostic is the perfect "belief system" for scientists because it is basically what we study. It is uncertainty. You can't know one way or the other what is right. And that is how I feel a scientist should feel. Now I don't intend to inflame criticism with this post as to more incite conversation. This has also extended from a previous conversation with someone about whether it was even right to use the word believe as a scientist.

GeoJeopardy! Fridays #55

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because I am coming home from Europe today. But due to flying all day the answers to this week as well as the last 2 will be posted tomorrow (most likely).

- Geology -

At the mouth of the Mississippi River, this major class of rock is said to be more than 40,000 feet thick

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Intense glaciation has formed these long, steep-sided coastal inlets; the ones in Norway & Chile are especially deep

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This landmark in Rio's Guanabara Bay is an example of an inselberg, or "island mountain"

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This crater is formed when a volcano explodes & the cone collapses; Oregon's Crater Lake is an example

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Meaning "rock globe", it's the layer of rock encompassing the crust & outermost part of the upper mantle

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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.  (Remember the answers will be posted ~July 16th)

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 Thursday

Dinos in Pop Culture, where we highlight each week some of the more obscure instances of dinosaurs used in the pop culture realm to sell anything from slippers to wedding cakes.

To add to the vein of dino foot wear and Dino Train tie-ins we have sandles with a picture of the main character from Dino Train on them. Needless to say, I did not buy these.

GeoJeopardy! Fridays #54

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because I am still enjoying my time away. Remember the answers to this week and lasts won't be posted until ~July 16th.

- Earthquakes -

This well-known fault is considered the main boundary between the North American & Pacific plates

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The biggest quake ever recorded, a magnitude 9.5, occurred in 1960 off this South American nation's west coast

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S, or secondary, seismic waves travel fairly slowly, but these waves deep in the earth exceed 25,000 mph

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The USA's most powerful quake occurred in 1964 in Alaska on this Christian holiday also associated with a quake

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A 2005 quake beneath Lake Tanganyika on this 3,500-mile-long "Great" African fault was felt 600 mi. away in Nairobi

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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.  (Remember the answers won't be posted until ~July 16th)

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 Thursday

Dinos in Pop Culture, where we highlight each week some of the more obscure instances of dinosaurs used in the pop culture realm to sell anything from slippers to wedding cakes.

Another child's toy (with my daughter for scale) of a dino bike/walker.

GeoJeopardy! Fridays #53

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because I am going to be in the field for a couple of weeks. Because of that these are on autopilot and the answers will not be posted to the website until I get back ~July 16th.

- Volcanoes -

In 2010 stranded airline passengers learned that Eyjafjallajokull is a volcano in this country

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A Japanese proverb says, "he who climes" this peak "once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool"

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According to National Geographic, it's the most dangerous volcano in the lower 48 states

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In Sicilian it's called Muncibeddu, meaning "mountain"

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A specific eruption style is named for this Caribbean volcano that erupted in 1902, killing thousands

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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.  (Remember the answers won't be posted until ~July 16th)

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