The Java Sea

Recently in the news due to the crash of Air Asia Flight 8501, the Java Sea is the southern section of a vast shallow sea that extends south...

07:06

Humans & Vegetables

Childrens' distaste for vegetables is both well known and a common theme in advertising and entertainment.  Yet, we must acknowledge tha...

12:15

The Nature of Hanging Valleys

A hanging valley is generally defined as a stream or glacial valley that ends abruptly atop the steep wall of a deeper valley or sea cliff. ...

05:45

Mount Pavlov Eruption

Mount Pavlov, 8560 feet, is a stratovolcano on the Alaskan Peninsula, some 600 miles southwest of Anchorage.  It formed within the last 10,0...

12:04

Africa's Aquatic Dinosaur

Last evening, NOVA , on PBS, focused on the discovery and evaluation of Spinosaurus fossils, the largest carnivorous dinosaur yet unearthed ...

07:58

River of Floods

Near the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, as the last of the Continental Ice Sheets was retreating into Canada, a massive lake of meltwater for...

17:42

The Connecticut River

The Connecticut River, the largest and longest river in New England, rises in northernmost New Hampshire, just south of the Quebec border.  ...

06:29

Gonzalo rakes Bermuda

Forty million years ago, Bermuda, 640 miles ESE of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, was part of a volcanic island chain that towered above the...

12:27

The Expendable Species

Throughout the first 120,000 years of human existence, we were just another species in natural ecosystems, moving about and subsisting via a...

06:40

Tragedy on Mount Ontake

Japan sits at the intersection of four major tectonic plates, making that country especially prone to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic act...

06:16

Gray Wolves in North America

Natives of Eurasia, gray wolves (also known as timber wolves) spread to North America via the Bering land bridge during the Pleistocene Ice ...

06:24

Reptile Season

Reptiles, the last major group of ectotherms (cold-blooded animals) to appear on Earth, evolved in the Carboniferous Period, about 300 milli...

11:01

The Laurentides of Quebec

The Laurentides, also known as the Laurentian Mountains, run across southwestern Quebec, from the area northeast of Quebec City to the regio...

08:52

The St. Lawrence River

The St. Lawrence River of eastern Canada flows northeastward for 744 miles, from the eastern end of Lake Ontario to the North Atlantic Ocean...

11:46

Rearranging California

Anyone interested in the geologic evolution of California is advised to read Assembling California by John McPhee, published in 1993, which...

07:45

Arctic Sinkholes

Over the past few decades, climatologists have documented a gradual reduction in both the thickness and the expanse of Arctic sea ice, a res...

17:40

Earth's Mass Extinctions

During the course of life on Earth, which began 3.6 billion years ago, the diversity of species on our planet has been determined by a myria...

08:06

Missouri's Pinnacles

Silver Fork Creek rises on the Glaciated Plain of north-central Missouri, a few miles southwest of Centralia; snaking southwestward, this st...

05:02

Front Range Geology

During the Cretaceous Period, 135 to 65 million years ago (MYA), a shallow sea stretched from the Texas Gulf Coast to British Columbia, cove...

05:05

Geology of Rio's Domes

Watching coverage of the World Cup, one is struck by the spectacular natural setting of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hemmed in and partly bisecte...

14:32