Call For Posts, Accretionary Wedge #37: Sexy Geology

AW #37 has been accreted here.

This topic came up as a result of Dana Hunter's (En Tequila Es Verdad) recent post called The Seduction of Subduction, which used sexual metaphor and puns to describe the excitement of certain geological contexts and certain kinds of rocks. After reading the post, I commented that "Sexy Geology" would make a good AW topic. Since traditionally the host suggests the topic, and conversely, the person who suggests the topic hosts the wedge, I decided to go ahead and host this one myself.

I still think "Sexy Geology" is a good topic, but I think it behooves me to describe explicitly (heh) what I do and do not mean with that description. I mean geology that makes your heart race, your pupils dilate. Rocks and exposures that make you feel woozy and warm. Structures and concepts that make your skin alternately sweaty and covered with goosebumps. Places you've visited, read about, or seen photos of that make you feel weak-kneed, and induce a pit in your stomach.

In other words, it's about sexy geology, not geologically-themed sex. Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition photos that happen to have rocks in the background do not qualify unless you have something substantive to say about the rocks, and that substance is your primary focus. Scantily clad individuals of either sex will not necessarily disqualify a post, but remember that AW tries to be inclusive, and some people's threshold of offense is lower than that of others. I will use my own discretion in moderating this topic, and my decisions almost certainly will be more conservative than my own personal inclinations would dictate. If your post is in ahead of time, and I find it questionable, I will comment or e-mail with my concerns, to give you a chance to edit or defend. Does that sound fair?

I'm going to be out of town from roughly the middle of August until the early 20's, exploring sexy volcanoes and volcanic rocks in central and southeastern Oregon and perhaps a day in northernmost Nevada. I may or may not end up using material from that trip for my own post. So let's set a deadline of Friday, August 26 for this wedge, and I'll put it together over the weekend and post it Sunday or Monday. (As I usually try to do, late entries will be added as convenient for a week or two after the wedge is posted.) In the meantime, here's a post of my own from two and a half years ago to help illustrate the kind of discussion I'm aiming at: Rocks that make me feel all funny inside.

So as we sweat through the dog days of summer (at least in the northern hemisphere- participants in the south can use this opportunity to imagine unbridled heat!), This wedge gives you the opportunity to think about what might conceivably be hotter still: give us all a flash of what you think constitutes Sexy Geology!

Also, we're looking for hosts and topics for the Accretionary Wedge for October and beyond. If you have a blog- and your focus doesn't need to be primarily geology- and you think you have a good idea for a topic, leave a comment at "Who's Hosting the Next Accretionary Wedge."

Note: If and when you have a post ready to submit, please leave a comment and link either here or at the AW home page, so I can find your post when I go to put it all together.

Followup 5:09PM: Almost forgot, this post from a few days ago, at Callan's Mountain Beltway, was a third example of sexy geology I wanted to point to. Paleontology tends to get short shrift at OTI; my undergrad experience with paleo was NOT positive, and I have limited experience with the subject in real life. But if geo-types don't make a strong claim for it, the bio-types are going to try to snatch it from us. It needs to be shared, and I think this post has some particularly sexy fossils. And of course, Callan being Callan, sexy structures are almost always on his mind. I saw a press release once saying there's research claiming Callan is thinking about sexy structures on average every 7 to 8 seconds. As with most press releases, I suspect this one is total BS. I happen to know he thinks about the topic much more frequently than that.