@birdbrainweekly / birdbrainweekly.tumblr.com
Yesterday, after months of craving matcha, I broke down and make my self indulgent purchase
Because it’s spring break, and tea is one of life’s greatest pleasures
So the next morning I am excitedly making THE NECTAR OF THE GODS… only to see the dingy green color to the water in the first step.
I gaslight myself… no, it just looks dingy because I haven’t added milk yet… it’s ok
I add my splash of milk and to my horror, it turns a ghostly green color, all color disappeared right before my eyes…
It was a bit of a heavy pour… I’ll add more matcha, I know it might clump a little, but I can make it better tomorrow, it’s better than having bland tea…
The color never improves and my eyes, which have been avoiding the packaging since the beginning, begin to examine it.
A trusted brand… with a slightly different look. Perhaps I didn’t look in the beginning because I had known all along… this matcha was… culinary grade.
Absolutely sobbing, a disaster of a Monday, I was so happy thinking about myself writing my proposal and sipping my tea all week.
I know we have a pretty decent group of geologists active on Tumblr, but I don't know what everyone's research/work is on.
So I thought it would be fun to do introductions and also satiate my curiosity! (So I would love if people would participate)
Template:
Research? (what you are working on or if you haven't started research yet, what you are considering)
What got you interested in geology?
Favorite Rock?
Favorite subject you've taken so far?
Coolest geologic experience?
Future plans? (Can be loosey goosey of course!)
I can go first! I'm Bird, I actually have 2 accounts, this one which is for whatever is on my mind, and justanotherbirdbraingeology, which is meant for more well thought out posts.
✨My research is on subduction zones, I work on understanding the PTt (Pressure Temperature time) paths of eclogites, as well as studying the fluids that cause metasomatism (element transfer between rocks) within subduction zones.
✨I was always kind of curious about geology vaguely, like I thought it was cool that I could find seashells so far from the ocean, and I thought gemstones were pretty.
✨What really sparked interest was going to Yellowstone for the first time when I was 12, and I found a piece of agate and thought it was so weird looking and so cool. I had no idea what it was and I think not knowing and having to search to learn about it was a driving force of my interest.... But I was still going to be an author, that had been my dreams since I was like 7 or something until I was 17.
What changed my mind? I went to a STEM day and they told me you could travel all the time if you pursue geology. I WAS AN EASY SELL OKAY???? I was from a rural location and I really really wanted to travel.
✨My favorite rock is a blueschist. It should be eclogites, but honestly I feel blueschists are just prettier (don't tell my advisor)
✨My favorite subject I had ever taken was regional geology, I think it really helped me realize why I liked geology so much, which is its storytelling/detective like opportunities.
✨Coolest experience? I got to do fieldwork in Italy! It was literally so gorgeous, and it wasn't for my research so it was pretty stress free, I was just a mule. (THE OUTCROPS WERE PRISTINE)
✨I want to stay in academia, I like the detective work... Probably not at an R1 university though. I have heard R2 universities have great work/life balance though.
I am bad at keeping New Year's resolutions, so I rarely even try to make them. However, recently I realized there was a lot of really cool shit I never saw because I never made an effort to try. So I made a New Year's resolution to act more like a tourist in places I have become too familiar with (Midlands area, South Carolina and Northwestern PA).
On to the main point, I started thinking hard all the iron bridges that are in the Northwestern PA area. I was always really fond of them and decided to see if I could find anything out about them.
So, I found this website called historicbridges.org, and reading about the bridges was a fun way to spend my evening. I found the writing about the bridges really passionate, and funny at times when they were clearly frustrated.
It was also interesting to know that most of the bridges I barely thought about as a child were mostly built between 1870-1910 and were truly unique historic features!
This morning I woke up wanting to capture some of the designs of some of the either lost or uncared for bridges and made this. I thought they were honestly perfect for knitting colorwork, embroidery, borders for cards, quilting, or honestly anything else.
I cannot take credit for drawing up the more intricate patterns on the left those are sourced from the library of congress website.
The bridges that have the most intricate designs that I featured on this are all from Crawford county. In fact, within Northwest PA, Crawford seemed to be the only county that had these ornate designs on the entrances of some of their bridges. Here is where they are located and how old they are!
Mercer pike bridge: 1888
Miller Station Road: 1887
Wightman Road Bridge: 1897
Mead Avenue Bridge: 1871
Also here is an excerpt from the website that made me cackle:
There are so many comments like this, and while it is sad, it was also very amusing.
I have no idea what to title this, because I feel like I am writing this out as a reminder for myself, and if it reaches some other people, that would make me happy too.
Anyway, here are things that have helped me while being in grad school. But is good for anyone who just has trouble maintaining their schedule
Focus tips (kinda just a flow chart)
Work tips
The Solarpunk "fantasy" that so many of us tout as a dream vision, converting golf courses into ecological wonderlands, is being implemented across the USA according to this NYT article!
The article covers courses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, and New York that are being bought and turned into habitat and hiking trails.
The article goes more into detail about how sand traps are being turned into sand boxes for kids, endangered local species are being planted, rocks for owl habitat are being installed, and that as these courses become wilder, they are creating more areas for biodiversity to thrive.
Most of the courses in transition are being bought by Local Land Trusts. Apparently the supply of golf courses in the USA is way over the demand, and many have been shut down since the early 2000s. While many are bought up and paved over, land Trusts have been able to buy several and turn them into what the communities want: public areas for people and wildlife. It does make a point to say that not every hold course location lends itself well to habitat for animals (but that doesn't mean it wouldn't make great housing!)
So lets be excited by the fact that people we don't even know about are working on the solutions we love to see! Turning a private space that needs thousands of gallons of water and fertilizer into an ecologically oriented public space is the future I want to see! I can say when I used to work in water conservation, we were getting a lot of clients that were golf courses that were interested in cutting their resource input, and they ended up planting a lot of natives! So even the golf courses that still operate could be making an effort.
So what I'd encourage you to do is see if there's any land or community trusts in your area, and see if you can get involved! Maybe even look into how to start one in your community! Through land trusts it's not always golf course conversions, but community gardens, solar fields, disaster adaptation, or low cost housing! (Here's a link to the first locator I found, but that doesn't mean if something isn't on here it doesn't exist in your area, do some digging!)
The PA park cited in the article is in New Garden Township, Chester County!
Photo by Kate Raman for Natural Lands. Source is the link above!
Fuck peppermint and spearmint (not actually), but!
lets replace our peppermint extract desserts with teaberry (American Wintergreen) extract!
give me teaberry mints, teaberry bark, teaberry fudge, etc...
I was buying this for my mom as a surprise to make mints (because we both really love the flavor) only to find it was extremely hard to find, and I got this feeling of just, not wanting to lose this flavor to time because it is regional and not like... industrialize-able.
If you need sources of places to obtain this magical flavor,
LorAnn oils makes an artificial flavor version of this: here
All Star makes an extract that uses artificial and natural flavors: here
And I found this place on etsy that does all natural flavors: here
If you have a known patch of this and you want to make the extract yourself, I will also link a recipe on how to do that here
if you want to try this flavor before committing to buying an extract, I used to buy teaberry gum as a kid. and apparently there are some hard candies you can buy as well!
Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.
In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.
We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.
There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).
INaturalist is a great tool to use to begin learning to ID things, also, if your IDs are considered 'research grade' it allows scientist to use it in their research. It is a great tool that can have a big impact.
I am procrastinating on doing my actual work and wanted to do something fun.
I ski (or at least used to before I moved) and honestly, a lot of times it was just sticks and sticks and sticks, which is fine, but today I am making an imaginary ski resort and these are the main plants I would include in it to make it ✨aesthetic ✨ only using natives! There is something so refreshing about the idea of designing something for just one season.
Ok, so first things first! lets talk evergreens! Obviously, the time people are visiting a ski resort is in dead winter, so we want to cater to it.
Eastern Hemlocks:
The eastern hemlock is struggling in a lot of regions due to an invasive bug right now, but I list it in hopes of a swift recovery and because they are one of my favorite conifer trees. They have soft short needles and tiny pinecones. They tend to keep lower branches also, which gives them a very Christmas tree shape.
Eastern White Pine (or any other pine that is native is fine):
There are a lot of pines that are very pervasive, but I think the appeal of them is there larger cones and their long needles. In the winter it is always so beautiful to see them coated with ice!
Red Spruce or Black Spruce (black spruces have cooler looking cones) :
While further south spruces are harder to find native populations, I still include them in this list because I am ADAMENT that at my imaginary ski resort there would be specialty spruce tip soda and beer, but I want them to be native not planting invasive for the commodity.
Eastern red cedar:
not actually a cedar, it is actually a juniper. They get these beautiful blue berries on them (I think just the females though). And their bark is very pretty!
Now we can't just plant conifers, biodiversity is the spice of life, so for other trees, I think the thing most important in the winter is what is bark looks like or is it holds fruit/color:
first on the list is obvious, The American holly:
this plant actually leans pretty southern and hugs the coast the further north you go, so because of that I can say eh, depending on the ski resorts location I could lean toward excluding it (unlike the spruce).
winged sumac and staghorn sumac:
they have bundles or cones of red berries though out winter, enough said.
next it is addressing interesting bark starting with...
yellow birch:
we have a pretty hefty population of yellow birch trees in my families woods and they have a very pretty coppery bark that peels.
Paper birch:
This one is just a classic when we think of birch trees and unique bark, but I feel like I would mostly plant these by the lodge because it might be hard to see while skiing. Although if we planted enough of them maybe we could tap them and make a ski resort special birch syrup (less sweet than maple syrup, but a little sweeter than molasses).
Sycamores:
Stunning, every time.
Alright! enough with trees, lets talk shrubs/ small trees.
Canadian Yew:
red berries and evergreen? Hell. Yeah.
Winterberry holly and viburnum:
There was one of these growing on the side of the road on my route to my university and I would enjoy looking at it every winter.
American Barberry:
red. berry.... I tried eating one because it said they were edible... was not a fan honestly. Is it wrong to put this one in a sky place if it is thorny?
snowberry:
A white berry this time! we are switching it up
Red-osier dogwood:
I see these everywhere, and I still love them, so! here they are, literally just red sticks.
and then more evergreens!
northern white cedar and common juniper:
northern white cedars are a tree actually and probably could have gone in the tree section but I was mentally picturing them as more decorative. And then common juniper to take up some ground cover space.
Alright! I am feeling pretty good about this, now time for some misc. items. These are for ground cover, while snow can be generated for the slopes, a lot of times you get a warm spell that will melt and expose the ground. In times like that, we still want things to look festive!
Partridge berries and Pine moss:
Eastern teaberry and American Cranberry:
I wasn't going to include these.... but I have to. Teaberry plants smell so good, an absolute must have. Maybe at the lodge we could offer a special teaberry tea. Or teaberry hot cocoa?! Yum.
And cranberries would be such a fun thing to say you are growing idk.
I would also like to note that my imaginary ski lodge takes great pride in the native wildflowers we maintain in our ski lanes over the summer months.
Well anyway! I had a good time, there are definitely more plants that I didn't feature because I felt this was already an infinitely long post, like spicebush, American strawberry bush, etc. and more. I encourage you to add to this post if you want to.
While I did this entirely for fun, I do recognize some of these species prefer more shade, or more wetness than may be possible at my imaginary ski lodge. Also, always be sure to check the native ranges of plants before purchasing them to get the most benefit from planting natives.
But! it is good to highlight all these beautiful winter plants.
**Final note, I am by no means an expert! I am a geologist, but in undergrad I took a couple environmental classes because I am also very passionate about it. I grew up outdoors, I still love outdoors, but I can still be very ignorant about it.**
i just want to learn more about plate tectonics and whether or not russia will collide with alaska and if so when...and yet when i search for information..it is only war....science loses....
Hello! Please excuse the word vomit, but I would love to give you a run down about plate tectonics! First let us start with a map!
This map shows all the different plates that we are sliding all around on, and it shows you the boundaries between the plates in dark.
When we are taking about plate tectonics, the places where the most excitement happens is along these boundaries and how these plates are moving relative to one another.
We have three movement options: convergence (plates coming together), divergence (plates pulling away), and transform (the plates are sliding past each other).
Those are the absolute basics we need to know before we can dive into the topic of Alaska and Russia. So now lets make this topic a little more local. Geology is a visual science so I will begin with a map!
A little overwhelming to look at initially, but lets see what it is telling us! The bold dark line is showing the plate boundary (ignore the blue dashed line it isn't important), the white arrows with numbers beside them are indicating the direction the pacific plate is moving, and then we have these colors that are indicating something called 'slab depth'.
Slab depth is referring to something that can happen at convergent boundaries when one rock is more dense (heftier) than the other. When two rocks of different densities are being pushed together the more dense one will slide underneath the other one creating something called a 'subduction zone'. So what these colors on the map are indicating is how far underneath the surface the denser rock is!
(As an aside oceanic rock is on average denser than continental crust)
That tells us a lot about the relationship of these plate boundaries! For most of the map above we can see clearly that the pacific plate is pushing upwards against the north american/bering plate. Although, the closer we get to Russia, the more these plates appear to be sliding past each other, showing a more transform movement!
So after looking good and hard at this map lets revisit the question "is Alaska and Russia going to collide?"
Nope!
Alaska and Russia are sitting on the same plate! The only plate motion happening is subduction of the pacific plate underneath Russia and Alaska.
Could I have given you a shorter answer? Absolutely, but the boundary in that location is really unique because of the shift from subduction to transform boundaries. It gives us a hint of what initial subduction might look like, which is super exciting!
If the entirety of Earth's history were a year, we have finally got to the Sturtian Glaciation in the latter half of the Proterozoic.
Lasting for a whopping 57 million years (4.6 days at this scale) there is evidence for the Sturtian Glaciation on every continent, and nearly as much coverage by the shorter lived Marinoan Glaciation (roughly 22.2 my or 1.79 days) that followed soon thereafter. The two collectively define the Cryogenian Period and stretch on our calendar from November 4th to November 10th.
My favorite deposit from this time is actually in Death Valley, CA of all places.
Image Credit: Marli Miller
Notice how there are these big rocks just in the middle of this really fine grained mudstone? How did they get there?
THEY WERE CARRIED OUT TO SEA!
As the glaciers reached the ocean, some of the rocks they plucked up were taken along with. When the ice melted, they were just left on the ocean floor surrounded by fine mud as a submarine glacial erratic.
Things really start accelerating on the calendar after this week, because next up is the Ediacaran.
TIS THE SEASON!!! Give it up for snowball earth everyone, HELL YEAH, some festive ass shit.
