A skilled artist or craftsman creates things that are not only functional, but beautiful. Here is a geologic map of the lower Mississippi River published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1944, and it is a work of art. The map depicts changes in the meandering course of the Mississippi River over time. …
Category: Geology
Giant gypsum crystals
It is an amazing world! Here's the cover of the April 2007 issue of Geology, published by the Geological Society of America. These crystals of gypsum were discovered in a cave at a lead-silver-zinc mine 100 km from Chihuahua, Mexico. The crystals are up to 11 meters (36 feet) long, and were submerged in water …
Earthquakes and the End Times
This item was originally posted on April 18, 2006 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. It is now part of my blog recycling program. Because I have more people reading The Earth is Not Flat! now than I did a year ago, I will occasionally go back and …
Earth as art
"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." -- Genesis 1:31 I'll let these images from NASA's Earth As Art site speak of the beauty and goodness of God's Earth: Grace and Peace
Guatemalan sinkhole
Pictures of a recently-formed sinkhole in Guatemala City can be found here. By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA, Associated Press Writer GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala - A 330-foot-deep sinkhole killed at least two teenagers as it swallowed about a dozen homes early Friday and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood. Officials …
Geology and the scientific method
Here's a quote from geologist John D. Winter on how geologists think as they go about their scientific investigations: Geology is often plagued by the problem of inaccessibility. Geological observers really see only a tiny fraction of the rocks that compose the Earth. Uplift and erosion exposes some deep-seated rocks, whereas others are delivered as …
Debris flows — concrete in motion
A fellow member of the Affiliation of Christian Geologists recently sent out a great photo of sediments deposited by a debris flow on the White River, near Mt. Hood in Oregon in November. The deposit here is up to 20 feet (6-7 meters) thick. Photo by Doug Jones, USFS A debris flow is a mixture …
Tungurahua Volcano, Ecuador
NASA's Earth Observatory web site has a good satellite image of the Tungurahua Volcano, which is presently erupting in Ecuador: The description of this eruption from geology.com/news: Tungurahua Volcano in Ecuador has been erupting or restless for the past several months. Lava flows and pyroclastics have blanketed much of the surrounding landscape, forced evacuations of …
Satellite images in real time
Most satellite and aerial imagery that is available on the internet (such as at Google Earth) is several years old. That is fine for most purposes. The USGS now has a site with live, real-time imagery from the LANDSAT satellites at earthnow.usgs.gov. It won't be useful for finding your house or planning a hike, but …
Stop that lava flow!
Perhaps the sign should have been facing the other way: Photo by J.D. Griggs, US Geological Survey Grace and Peace
North Korea Atomic Bomb Test
The basic USGS information regarding the near-surface 4.2 magnitude earthquake in North Korea, including location maps, can be found here. USGS Grace and Peace
Global Bubbling
Scientific American magazine offers some of its articles online for free. Free material from the October issue includes Impact From the Deep, which gives evidence that some mass-extinctions in Earth history were not caused by asteroid impacts but by massive upwellings of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas from the oceans. Here's the scenario: High levels of …
Alaska Volcano Observatory
The US Geological Survey operates five volcano observatories, which keep watch on regions of volcanic activity in the United States. The five observatories are for the Cascades, Hawaii, Yellowstone, Long Valley (in California) and Alaska. My web site of the week is for the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Here's a description of the Alaska volcanoes from …
New Gulf of Mexico Oil Field
Chevron has announced the discovery of an oil field off the coast of Louisiana that could rival the Prudhoe Bay field (Alaska North Slope) in size. This does not mean that the United States will soon have a source of cheap petroleum: the well was drilled in 7000 feet of water, down to a total …
Google Earth
It's time to get back to my "Web Site of the Week." I'll start with one of my favorites, Google Earth. Google Earth is software that you can download for free, which can be used for viewing imagery of virtually all of the Earth's land areas. Resolution tends to be better over the United States …
Rock Creek, Beartooth Mountains, Montana
We have been able to relax some while on our working vacation in Montana. This photo is of the glacial valley of Rock Creek, near Red Lodge in the Beartooth Mountains. This is a classic U-shaped glacial valley, featured in many introductory Earth Science textbooks (though usually from a different location). Note the hanging valley …
Noah’s Ark Found… Again?
I noticed posts on several Christian sites today regarding a group that claims they have discovered Noah's Ark in Iran. For example, World Magazine Blog had a post that said: A group of Christian archaeologists have discovered what they believe could be the remains of Noah's Ark. Climbing 13,000 feet up a mountain in Iran's …
On the Road Again…
The reason I haven't been posting much on The Earth is Not Flat! lately is because we have been traveling. We drove from Missouri to Utah for a few days of camping and exploration, and are now in Montana to visit family and supporting churches. We have spoken in ten of our twelve supporting churches, …
The Earth Has a Future
We usually think of the science of geology as being about the past: geologists often reconstruct events that happened thousands, millions, or even billions of years in the past. Sometimes geologists are called upon to project into the future as well. Examples of this include earthquake prediction and finding sites for long-term (>10,000 years) storage …
Submarine Volcano in Action
Most of the earth's volcanoes are underwater. For the first time, using the submersible remotely operated vehicle Jason II, scientists have observed an actual eruption. They were able to move close to the vent, mainly because the physical conditions are so different than on land: If we were observing this type of eruptive activity on …
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