Bearded Geology

On occasion, my home Internet router will reboot itself for reasons unknown to myself, and during one such instance recently, I was left realizing how much that I rely on the Internet these days and was unable to do much without it. However, since I use the Google Chrome browser, I was able to play the jumping T. rex game while waiting for my router to finish rebooting (press arrow keys on the "No Internet" screen to activate). While trying to beat my high score, I noticed that the dinosaur, some kind of tyrannosaurid (the T. rex family), was jumping over saguaro cacti. This got me wondering about the evolution of cactus plants and when they evolved. Cactus are flowering plants (aka angiosperms) and angiosperms evolved in the late Jurassic Period, and rapidly diversified during the Cretaceous Period. But, did the cactus (particularly saguaro) live at the same time as the dinosaurs? First, when did cacti evolve? Interestingly,“[t]here are no relevant fossil records...

Hidden in the woods of Union County, Arkansas, a large unassuming sinkhole housing a small pond called the Norphlet Crater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Although it's easy to overlook, this hole in the ground has quite a story to tell about the early days of the oil and gas industry in Arkansas and a gas well that could not be tamed. Topographic map view of Norphlet Crater In 1922, two years following the Hill No. 1 gas well drilled by Constantine Oil and Refining Company near El Dorado, Arkansas, oil and gas production in the area expanded dramatically and El Dorado became the hub for the petroleum industry in Arkansas. Small independent oil companies and major companies with internationally recognized names, such as Shell and Standard Oil, were all drilling in Union County, Arkansas. In the pine covered hills and farmland about eight miles northwest of El Dorado, near the small town of Norphlet, a cotton field [1] on a farm own...

At 2:10 pm on Thursday, April 22, 1920, the small town of El Dorado, in Union County, Arkansas was busily going about its day. Over a dozen miles northwest, a drilling rig had just finished drilling the first productive oil well in Arkansas six days prior, the Hunter No. 1. However, just two miles [1]  southwest of town was another well being drilled that was going to make headlines as the first productive gas well in southern Arkansas.  Top left: land owners, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hill. Center: the Hill No. 1 well blowing water, gas, and mud into the air. Bottom right: Constantine Oil and Refining geologist, J. J. Victor. [2] The Hill No. 1 well (Sec. 1, T.18S., R.16W.) operated by Constantine Oil and Refining Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma drilled to 2,226 feet, when it became an "unexpected 'gusher'" and a "great 'gasser'" [3] . The Monroe News-Star newspaper of Monroe, Louisiana reported that it received a kick (i.e. anomalous influx of...

The MOOOOOOOOON!!! (image: Wikimedia ) 50 years ago today, Apollo 11 accomplished the bold feat of landing on the Moon and not only did they walk on the Moon, they brought back some of it with them on their return for study. Some bits of lunar rock found their way to becoming thin sections, which you can view here , and occasionally get loaned out to researchers outside of NASA. I was lucky enough to handle and view some of these thin sections in my undergrad Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology class, as well as a thin section of a Martian meteorite (the closest I'll ever get to being on Mars). The lunar rocks have been well-studied by geologists over the years and Mindat.org has curated a list of minerals found on the moon, almost all of which are also found on Earth. The Moon can, in a broad sense, been generalized into two types of igneous rocks: basalt and anorthosite. The bright, white-grey parts of the Moon are the anorthosite dominated areas. These are feldspar-rich ro...

Measuring section and bagging samples in Marion County, Arkansas looking for clues from the Ordovician in some cherty dolostones. When you can't find a Jacob's staff in the office, you grab a broom stick and make your own...with black, semi-goth duck tape! Now to figure out how to cut slabs, make thin sections, and make sense of these weird tan lines.

Of all of the many types of maps that have been made for one purpose or another, I find one of the most enjoyable kind to look at are the old USGS topographic maps. These types have been made since 1879  (which also was the year that USGS was established) and thus, depict the human world that once was. This is particularly interesting since many localities have been mapped three or more times and we can see the evolution of human geography. For this reason and because I grew up within two miles of two towns that were abandoned during the 1960s as a dam was constructed and flooded the town sites, I'm easily fascinated by old maps that show towns and other old settlements and structures that have been abandoned. Old topo maps from across the country can be viewed and downloaded for free (in JPEG, TIFF, or PDF formats) from the USGS ( click here for more ). Admittedly, this USGS site is a huge rabbit hole for me to fall into and I've downloaded several topo maps from it, inc...

On a rare occasion when I visit Facebook, I'll run across a post on my feed from someone who, for good humor or not, has shared an image, video, or link related to geoscience. Naturally, that makes me very happy and almost willing to comment on social media (I don't usually partake in many social media platforms and I try to keep my opinions on various matters personal). However, I have seen a few posts that are misleading or outright false that I will call out. One such is this image does raise an interesting question: No doubt that this image or variations of this image have been spread around on the Internet, and of course this is all in good humor. But, this is nevertheless poorly worded. Statement #1: "Those [countries] who use the Metric System" Firstly, "Metric System" doesn't need to be capitalized. Yeah, sure it's nitpicking, but I had to say it. Secondly, the US adopted the British system of measurements and altered them a bit to...

    Today, NASA announced a new mission , this one to one of Saturn's many moons, Titan. Titan beckons a visit from humanity so she can tell her tales to us. It is the 2nd largest moon in the solar system; slightly smaller than Jupiter's Ganymede, but still bigger than Mercury. With a thick atmosphere that is "four times denser than Earth's" and is much colder temperatures (appx. -290° F), some wondrous geologic and atmospheric processes are actively shaping the surface, such as raining freakin' methane (CH 4 ) and ethane (C 2 H 6 )!  Yeah, these molecules of carbon and hydrogen, combined with a nitrogen rich atmosphere (like Earth), are very important to the creation of life as we know it (on Earth anyways), and they just lay around as liquid  (not gas!) on the surface of Titan in rivers and lakes of hydrocarbons. While methane and ethane are produced by living things (e.g. aromatic farts), it can easily be produced through natural geologic processes just as...

While researching dolomite, I read this delightful bit in the journal AAPG Bulletin : "Furthermore, the feasibility of this, or a similar system was recently demonstrated (unintentionally) by a male dalmatian who produced uroliths [essentially kidney stones of the bladder] of ordered dolomite in his urinary bladder." That is a sentence that I never thought I would read in a highly respected geologic research journal. Previously, I would have thought that a dalmatian would exclusively be a subject in either a medical or biological study, not a geological study. I stand corrected. This also raises a series of questions: (1) Was this the author's dalmatian? If not, who's dog was this? (2) What provoked a geologist to look at the uroliths, especially if it was from someone else's dog? (3) How did someone find the stones? Did someone wait for the uroliths to pass, did someone dig around outside (or inside!) in a puddle of pee, or were they retrieved via surg...

    Hidden along the scenic Highway 7 in the community of Marble Falls (formerly called Dogpatch) in Boone County, Arkansas is a small abandoned limestone quarry of monumental proportions (pun intended). Within the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. are three stone blocks that represent Arkansas. These are among 190 other commemorative blocks that were set into the monument during and after its construction. Each state, as well as several organizations and persons, are represented in these blocks. For Arkansas, the State itself is represented, as well as the City of Little Rock, and the Grand Lodge of the Masons. The Masons of Newton and surrounding counties intended to be represented as well, however, their stone's whereabouts are unknown. The Arkansas commemorative stone. Photo from NPS .     The first of the three stones was quarried in Marble Falls in either 1834 or 1836 (two sources have competing years). The year 1836 would have been particularly s...