After two years of regular geology blogging I was thinking it might be fun to highlight the posts that I think are my best work as well as the ones that have been the most popular…they are not necessarily the same. This just goes to show it is impossible to predict what the collective consciousness of the geoblogopshere or the geotwitterverse will like the best. Some of these posts come from ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week # 20 – Feb 3-9
This week we have a photo of the something that has been on my mind a lot for the last little while and will continue to be on my mind in the comings years months weeks. Of course I am speaking of lab work and particularly the new iodine extraction line that I have been developing. Over the past few months I have had a 0% success rate with this damn thing. However, thanks to the fresh ideas and ex ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #19 – Jan 27 – Feb 2
Hi Everyone, Sorry this post is a bit late. Things have been crazy the last few days in the lab. I am trying to get enough done in the next few weeks to submit an abstract to a conference and I still have quite a long way to go. The 19th photo of week was taken by me at the Hogan Sand Pit just north of Ottawa near Cantley, Quebec. It is a pretty interesting sedimentological feature called a “ ...[Read More]
Guest Lecture – Dr. Tim Lowenstein
Our department was recently lucky enough to have Dr. Tim Lowenstein from SUNY Binghamton come give a guest lecture on the changes in the chemistry of seawater throughout geologic time. Originally, we thought that the major ion chemistry in the past was more or less the same as it is today. However, over the last 10 years this long standing belief has been challenged by many researchers and champio ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #19 – Jan 20-26
Wow! January is flying by! We are already in the last full week of January since next Friday is Feb 1. It has been a very busy first month of 2013 for me. My goal this semester is to finish my lab work by the summer, which would allow me to focus on writing the 4 papers that I have collected partial data for. These four are in varying degrees of completion from the merely conceptual to actually ha ...[Read More]
Translate Radioisotope Hydrogeochemist – #1000simplewords
There is a new craze sweeping twitter…at least among those that I follow, which is mostly geoscientists. This is of course the #1000simplewords challenge. In essence the challenge is to explain your profession using only the 1000 most common words in the English language. The most complex/specific title that I could come up with for myself was radioisotope hydrogeochemist. What a mouthful of ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week # 18 – Jan 13-19
The photo for this week is something that I stumbled upon the other day when looking for directions to a friend’s house. It is a large scale concentric feature on the landscape and is located about 40 minutes north of Kingston near the hamlet of Holleford. I have actually been to this location in person when I was a geology undergrad and so I had the benefit of prior knowledge to help me int ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #17 – Jan 6-12
Happy New Year everyone! I hope that you all had relaxing and enjoyable holidays. I sure did. It is time to start off the new year with the 17th edition of the photo of the week. Here in Ottawa it is a balmy -19 degC with the wind chill making it feel like -28 degC right now! Happily I am toasty and warm inside…for now. If you’re curious the coldest place in Canada at the moment is Eur ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week # 16 – Dec 16-22
It’s photo of the week time! I hope you’re excited…I am! There has been a lot of consternation in the twitterverse and geoscience community lately about the true identity of the Ediacaran biota, particularly the little guy pictured below. The abstract can be found here. The basic proposal is that the Ediacaran fossils are not marine, but rather are actually lichen. Bonus photo of ...[Read More]
Research Highlight – Variations of 129I in the atmospheric fallout of Tokyo, Japan: 1963-2003
I occasionally like to focus in on what I view as a key paper either in my particular field of iodine geochemistry or in the geochemical world at large. In this instance I have decided to highlight a paper in my field that releases a fantastic wealth of data that is matched nowhere else in the literature I have seen. This paper also reflects incredible dedication and planning to answer a scientifi ...[Read More]