It is cold and snowy here in the Big Sky Country. But most of us don't complain, and many of us get excited when the white stuff starts to fall from the sky. I live in one of the warmer parts of Montana, so this week it shouldn't get any colder than –16° F (that's …
Category: Montana
Natural Bridge Falls
My favorite waterfall in Montana is Natural Bridge Falls, located on the Boulder River, south of Big Timber. At high water---such as in this photo taken this spring---some of the water flows over the top of the cliff, while a considerable part of the flow comes out of caves in the side of the cliff. …
Eagle Formation, Billings Montana
One of my favorite places to hike in the Billings area is Zimmerman Park, which is mostly atop the Rimrocks, a cliff formed by sandstone of the Cretaceous Eagle Formation. The Eagle Formation is usually interpreted to be either a barrier island deposit, similar to Padre Island in Texas, or a shallow marine sand bar …
Around the web 3/3/2013
I'm enjoying a good thundersnow (or some call it a snunderstorm); the first blizzard thunderstorm I have experienced in Montana (I have seen it happen in Utah, Colorado, and I think Missouri). The temperature dropped from 59°F to 32° in less than thirty minutes, and it started to snow and blow really hard. I love …
There is more than one way to be really wrong about the environment
In between sessions at the young-Earth creation seminar I attended last month, there was a promotion for an upcoming anti-environmentalist documentary entitled "Axed: The End of Green," created by Montana filmmaker J.D. King. According to the promotional video, the objective of the documentary will be to expose "the dark side of the green movement for …
Continue reading There is more than one way to be really wrong about the environment
Trap shooting, geology, and Romans 12
I went trap shooting for the first time this weekend, at a church men's retreat near Nye, Montana: For those who are interested, I'm standing on a terminal moraine, with the Beartooth Mountains behind me. I looked for erratics from the Stillwater Complex, and may have found a boulder of anorthosite. The valley in front …
Gneiss Chert
I haven't been blogging lately, but I have been enjoying being back home in Montana. Here I am with my "Gneiss Chert" t-shirt that I got for my birthday a few months ago. The waterfall is Undine Falls in northern Yellowstone National Park. Grace and Peace P.S. This waterfall was on the cover of the …
Home in Montana
I have a new home and a new job in a new state. It is good to be back home in Montana. And it is good to be able to enjoy snow in June. Here I am as close to Beartooth Pass on the Montana-Wyoming border northwest of Yellowstone National Park as we could get …
Billings Gazette geology videos
The Billings Gazette has three short videos on the geology of the Billings, Montana area featuring Rocky Mountain College geology professor Derek Sjostrom: Geology of the Beartooths -- Montana's highest mountain range (Granite Peak, 12799 ft, 3902 m) has a core of 3.2 billion year old metamorphic rocks. Geology of the Pryors -- The Pryor …
Montana
I moved from Romania to Colorado in 2008. I moved to Missouri in 2009. I'll be moving "home" to Montana in a few weeks. John Steinbeck wrote, "I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." Here are three videos from …
Rock fall in Billings hits house, again
Video from the Billings Gazette: Rimrock boulder destroys video camera (I haven't figured out to embed this on on my WordPress blog). Slideshow: Gallery: Falling rocks. Article: Crews succeed in pushing slabs off Rimrocks cliff. Here's another video, but it isn't nearly as good as the "Rimrock boulder destroys video camera" linked to above: As …
Around the web 1/29/2011
Mountain lion in St. Louis County! -- This doesn't happen too often. A night-time wildlife camera captured a mountain lion in suburban St. Louis, less than ten miles from our home. We're a little more used to opossums, raccoons, deer, and wild turkeys around here. I don't worry too much about mountain lions when hiking …
Around the web 12/30/2010
Eurypterids in the petting zoo? -- Eurypterids---the giant, scorpion-like arthropods of Ordovician to Devonian seas and lakes---may not have been the terrors of the waters that most have assumed. From FoxNews: Ancient 8-Foot Sea Scorpions Probably Were Pussycats. Some may have been vegetarians or scavengers, though the researchers acknowledge that species other than the ones …
Around the web 12/11/2010
In the beginning... -- Blogger Joe Carter (at FirstThings.com) finds Stephen Hawking's cosmology as expressed in The Grand Design to be a bit "drab and nonspecific." Carter rewrites Hawkings to make it a little more of a "creation story for young atheistic materialists." In the beginning was Nothing, and Nothing created Everything. When Nothing decided …
Billings house demolished by rock slide
People like to build in pretty places. In Billings, Montana (where I spent the first eighteen years of my life), there are plenty of big houses along the Rimrocks, a cliff that forms the northern border of much of the city. Part of the landscaping for these expensive homes is the sandstone boulders, many of …
Billings tornado!
On Saturday, June 20, a rare Eastern Montana tornado destroyed the 10,000-seat Rimrock Auto Arena (formerly Metra) in Billings. No one was seriously injured or killed by this F2 tornado which went through a portion of Montana's largest city. Growing up in Billings, my memories of Metra include high school graduations (including mine), hockey games, …
New York City — A Montana Native’s Perception
Being that the dreaded Yankees won the World Series, here is my map of New York City, as originally posted in December 2007. A couple days ago I commented (click here) on a map of Montana printed by The New Yorker Magazine. (I got the map from Strange Maps). Those Easterners know that Montana has …
Continue reading New York City — A Montana Native’s Perception
GM bailout money used to send jobs overseas
The Stillwater Complex in south-central Montana is the only significant US source of platinum and palladium, which are used in automobile catalytic converters. The newly restructured General Motors, with the US government as a primary shareholder, has decided to cancel its platinum-group metals contract with Stillwater Mining Company, opting for cheaper ores from Russia and …
Continue reading GM bailout money used to send jobs overseas
Montana clean
My home town of Billings, Montana is tied for being the city with the cleanest air in terms of ozone concentration in the entire United States, and is in the top 25 for cleanest air in terms of particulates. From MSNBC.com: Report lists worst, best cities for air quality Ahhh. To breathe some fresh Montana …
Brrrrrrr
Next day update -- The temperature here in Lakewood was even colder this morning (12/15/08): -11°F (-24°C). I love winter! It's a little cold this morning: -1°F (-18°C) here in Lakewood, Colorado, and -15°F (-26°C) in my hometown of Billings. But I love winter! My comment to my wife this morning was, "I'm glad we …
GeoChristian 