Bearded Geology

Just recently, I found out that The Royal Mint of the United Kingdom is releasing three versions of a newly designed 50 pence coin. These coins celebrate the grandmother of paleontology, Mary Anning. Coincidentally, Anning is the focus of a new film, "Ammonite" also (full disclosure: I've yet to see the film, but it seems to be loosely based on Anning's life, much of which is unknown to us today, particularly her romantic life). These coins bear the illustrations of an two marine reptiles, a Plesiosaurus and an icthyosaur called Temnodontosaurus, and a flying reptile called Dimorphodon. All three lived during the Jurassic Period and were discovered by Anning in the early 1800s. The Royal Mint even offers color imbued and gold versions of these coins for a higher price. After finding out about the Mary Anning coins, I immediately found out that The Royal Mint had also produced three versions of the 50 pence coin featuring dinosaurs in 2019! I immediately opened my wall...

A new project I've been working on is now on the blog: the Arkansas Paleozoic Stratigraphy Database . This is a searchable database of the Paleozoic lithostratigraphic nomenclature in Arkansas with some related information. Within this database, you can search for stratigraphic names that not only are currently in use, but names that are now abandoned and replaced, as well as some that have recently been proposed. For each name you can find its age, any sub-divisions, proper usage as used by the USGS and AGS, historical usage (including past and present names), type locality or type area, type section location (if available), primary reference section location (if available), geographic distribution, etymology of the name, and citation of the original publication the name was used in. Also included for each name is a downloadable stratigraphic chart (PDF file) of either the Ozark or Ouachita/Arkansas River Valley region (whichever the unit is best exposed in) that illustrates the s...

I've made the leap into expanding my social media footprint to Twitter! For blog updates and the occasional stray thought find me @BeardedGeology . An embedded Twitter timeline is temporarily available in the sidebar; just click on the dashed button at the top left corner of the page.

In celebration of winter weather (or disdain of it, your choice), I thought I'd do a brief post on beds, but not the geological kind. This post is mainly in response to a bedsheet set made by Cannon that I own. The following image is a photograph of the snowflake pattern on my bed sheets. For those of you who have taken a mineralogy class (especially my mineralogy labs), what kind of rotational symmetry do you see in the three different snowflake patterns? I see five-fold, six-fold, and eight-fold rotational symmetry: In crystallography, there are only five rotational symmetry patterns: one-fold, two-fold, three-fold (triangular), four-fold (square), and six-fold (hexagonal). You can repeat patterns with these symmetries across a two-dimensional plane in some arrangement to fill the entire plane. Five-fold, seven-fold, and anything higher is forbidden in classical symmetry; you cannot repeat these patterns in any arrangement without leaving gaps between the pattern.  In the above i...

Although the pandemic left me at home for much of the year, I haven't posted much throughout this year. But, I have recently been working on two ongoing projects that I've added to the blog and are accessible at the top of the home page via the new "Projects" link. These are the World's Largest Crystals and the World's Largest Gemstones . Two databases of the largest known crystals and gems.  I've long been wanting to work on an update to Peter Rickwood's 1981 publication, The Largest Crystals , in which Rickwood painstakingly compiles information about the world's largest known crystals using sources such as eyewitness testimonies and 19th century publications. The introduction to Rickwood's paper is a great starting point to understand what the largest crystals are, how we can define them, and what complications can arise in determining them as the largest. Most of the minerals that he describes are included in the World's Largest Crysta...

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many classes have been forced to adapt to online teaching. I myself am adapting some mineralogy lab materials to online and found that this blog can provide a platform for supplemental material. This includes a new page in the Mineralogy Course Links page: " Bearded Geology's 3D Crystal System Model " page.  This new page includes interactive 3D models of the six crystal systems (sorry, trigonal). These are designed to provide interactive examples of the rotational axes and mirror planes in these crystal systems when the infamous wood block models are not available.  All but two models were designed by me using Microsoft Paint3D, and all rotational axes and mirror planes were added by me as well. The tetragonal model is from Microsoft's 3D Library and the triclinic model is modified from the SketchUp 3D library. Next to each model, I've included a link to download each of them in .GLB format for personal or educational use on their own...

A new paper was published in GSA Today co-authored by freshly graduated University of Arkansas alum, David Gates, on the graduate school admission process for those studying geoscience. It's quite a handy step-by-step guide that I wished I had while I was applying to grad school, since I had no idea what I was doing at the time (and still don't). If you are considering applying for grad school, please check it out and adhere to the guidelines and target dates presented. Smidt, S. J. and Gates, D. J., 2020, A guide to graduate school admissions in the geosciences: GSA Today, v. 30, n. 5, p. 68-69, doi: 10.1130/GSATG410GW.1 . 

People looking at folds. Faces obscured to protect identities. ¡Mas folding!. Action shot of man pointing at a fold Normal fault in sandstones and shales Recently, I got to join a field trip to the Ouachita Mountains to discuss a spectacular structural event that took place in the Late Paleozoic. The strata of the Ouachita Mountains are dominantly sandstone and shale beds from the Cambrian to the Pennsylvanian that were deposited in an offshore, deep water environment somewhat similar to the deep water regime of the Gulf of Mexico. Beginning in the Mississippian Subperiod, a compressional event initiated as proto-North America collided with a small land mass (volcanic arc) to the south creating the Ouachita Mountains, a...

About four years ago I ran across a website called Macrostrat.org , a website that started from the University of Wisconsin to compile stratigraphic data into a searchable database. While browsing their site, I saw the most beautiful geologic map. Don't get me wrong, there are great geologic maps that have been published, but this one struck a chord with me. Painted in the standard geologic colors, but with an earthy hue, was the surficial geology of the continental United States, northern Mexico, southern Canada, and the oceans. No borders between countries or states were visible, except for a couple of inexplicable odd lines along Michigan and Mexico that just happened to render. It's just geology. The zoom setting I had it on restricted the details to what are visble on a national scale. Not too generalized; not too specific. It looked as if it were a piece of abstract art with hints of Jackson Pollock evident in the Basin and Range province. I immediately thought tha...

While I've been doing some reading and writing for my PhD comps exam, I've tangentially discovered that the term thagomizer  is not in the 783-page Glossary of Geology  (5th edition, revised 2011). I was under the assumption that the term, coined in Gary Larsen's The Far Side comic strip for the spiky bits of a Stegosaurus' tail, has entered mainstream usage. However, it appears that it hasn't quite attained formality in scientific literature, much to my dismay. (image credit: ©Gary Larsen/ Wikimedia ) The Glossary of Geology includes several anatomical names used in paleontology (e.g. orbit, tibia, glabella, and gizzard), but the thagomizer didn't make the cut. Although it has recently become used in the scientific literature ( Costa and Mateus, 2019 ). This got me wondering if there are any terms used for the bony plates that protrude from the Stegosaurus' back. Unfortunately, I have not found any such endearing name for these like the t...

Follow @YearOnEarth to get a sense of the entirety of Earth's geologic history as it is compacted into one year. The story of the Earth will begin soon. 01.01.2020 pic.twitter.com/MgZ64qqCxQ — Earth (@YearOnEarth) December 15, 2019 Last year, I honestly thought about doing this. Glad to see that great minds think alike!😁

As 2019 ends, Forbes just published this article on the top ten false or misleading geological statements that needs to die. They're the kind of thing that gets written in tabloids with volcanoes and earthquakes abound. The article is basically a rant by a geologist - Dr. Robin Andrews (Twitter:  @SquigglyVolcano ) - that deservedly wants an end to sensationalized headlines misrepresenting our field of science. As do we all.

I just ran across this really good Associated Press article titled " AP: At least 1,680 dams across the US pose potential risk ," from last month about dam hazards and recent dam failures. Here's a brief summary: A more than two-year investigation by The Associated Press has found scores of dams nationwide in even worse condition, and in equally dangerous locations. They loom over homes, businesses, highways or entire communities that could face life-threatening floods if the dams don’t hold. A review of federal data and reports obtained under state open records laws identified 1,688 high-hazard dams rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition as of last year in 44 states and Puerto Rico. The actual number is almost certainly higher: Some states declined to provide condition ratings for their dams, claiming exemptions to public record requests. Others simply haven’t rated all their dams due to lack of funding, staffing or authority to do so.  Deaths from dam failures ...

Gemstones are inherently in demand, and as such, there are many who attempt to either create an imitation (simulant) gemstone or create a lab-grown (synthetic) gemstone. Simulant gemstones are those that mimic another, but have different properties and compositions than the imitated gem, such as a red-dyed quartz simulating a ruby (a variety of corundum) ( read more here about simulants ). Whereas, synthetic gemstones are those that have the same chemical composition and properties as the imitated gem ( read more here about synthetics ). Synthetic gemstones are not a new concept; rubies have been known to be synthesized since the late 19th century and emeralds (a variety of beryl) since the 1930s. Undoubtedly many antique jewelry items bear synthetic gems such as ruby and emerald, and as technology and techniques advance, more and more gems are becoming replicated. Real rhodochrosite cabochons (two on the left) and imitated rhodochrosite (two on the right). The banding of the simu...