Tag Archives: geology

The Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and the Big Picture 0 (0)

The Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Meteor Crater aren’t on the obvious and shortest route from San Francisco to the Upper Midwest. But in 1979, with no reason for staying in San Francisco — that’s another topic, for another time … Continue reading

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A Big Diamond, a Little History, and Some Geology 0 (0)

I take commercial puffery with a grain of salt, but that 2,492 carat diamond from the Karowe mine does seem “epic”. It’s also what I’ll be talking about this week: along with the Karowe mine, Botswana, what diamonds are and … Continue reading

Posted in Diamonds and Gems, Discursive Detours, Science News, Series | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Super-Earth With an Air About It: 55 Cancri e, Janssen 0 (0)

This month’s analysis of a piping hot super-Earth’s atmosphere is a big deal. But it’s not the “first” detection of a terrestrial exoplanet’s atmosphere, not by about eight years.1 I’ll be talking about how scientists sift through data, 55 Cancri … Continue reading

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The Cabrières Biota: an Ordovician Snapshot 0 (0)

When I saw “epic importance” and “fossils” in the same headline, I figured whatever’d been found would be at least somewhat out of the ordinary. I’ve learned to take journalistic puffery with at least a few grains of salt. But … Continue reading

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T. Rex, or Not T. Rex, That is the Question 0 (0)

Headlines about Tyrannosaurus rex, scientists, and “what we thought we knew” being wrong started showing up in my news feed last week. It’s been a while since I talked about dinosaurs, and I found Nicholas R. Longrich and Evan T. … Continue reading

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