Geoblog Resources for Geology Undergrads

Follow up: Before you even read this, go read this addendum on WHY you should read this.

I promised this to a student who was along on the trip to Sand Mountain a couple of weeks ago, and I've been kind of tangled up thinking about what criteria to employ. I'm still not entirely settled, but roughly in order, here's what I'm going with:

• Focus heavily, though not necessarily exclusively, on geology and related earth sciences 
• Ones that I personally enjoy on a regular basis
• Ones that post new bits fairly regularly
• Don't involve too much in the way of advanced concepts- that is, appropriate for those with less background.
• Have a "voice" that sounds accustomed to helping out beginners

In no particular order, here are some suggestions:

• Outside the Interzone (but of course, if you're reading this...)
• Geotripper- has been doing a series of posts on the Colorado plateau this summer.
• Mountain Beltway- Heavy on structural geo, but wide variety of topics
• En Tequila Es Verdad- Dana Hunter's geology, with outspoken social issues mixed in.
• Rosetta Stones- Also Dana's:"Adventures in the good science of rock-breaking"
• Highly Allochthonous- Co-bloggers Chris Rowan and Anne Jefferson take on rocks and water
• Looking for Detachment- Travel and exploration geology, most often in Nevada.
• Emily Lakdawalla at The Planetary Society Blogs- a number of bloggers here. Some get pretty technical, but Emily's contributions are particularly fascinating and accessible.
• Eruptions- The go-to blog for current volcanism and volcanology generally.
• The Landslide Blog- Pretty much exactly what it says. Frequent awesome video clips.
• Glacial Till- Ryan Brown is an undergrad at Portland State, who has become involved with meteoritics.
• Cascadia Blog- Inactive since January, but the best list of PNW geobloggers is near top of the right sidebar. And I suspect he'll be back sooner or later.
• The Accretionary Wedge- The geobloggers' semi-monthly "festival." It's behind, but the AW still limps along. See the "Who's Hosting page" (button upper right) for what's going on where, and read some older entries for the general gist.
• Geology is Hard- The lighter (and MUCH funnier) side of being a geo student. Caution: addictive.
• And finally, All-Geo, Chris Rowan's geoblog aggregator, is a good one for finding other geoblogs.

Suggestions for others are welcome in the comments. Most blogs also have lists of blogs the author(s) follow. It should be no surprise most geobloggers have lists of geobloggers they suggest. I do too, somewhere down there, but mine really needs to be updated.

I also want to make a case for Twitter, in addition to the geoblogosphere. There are quite a number of geologists on Facebook, but that stream is "cluttered" with people I know from actual meatspace, and events or publications in the geo on-line community are more likely (for me) to be caught either through my RSS service or Twitter. Furthermore, I and others frequently come across random articles relevant to geology that *I* might see in RSS, but others won't. I'll then post it to Twitter. Here's an example from earlier today. There's no way I can post a good list of who to follow; there are just too many options. My suggestion would be to look through the list of who I follow (Click "Following" in the upper left), jump over to timelines that look interesting to see if they are, then follow that person or not, as you see fit. Twitter is by far and away the best way to keep your finger on what's happening right now, often with people you follow close to the scene. Following the real experts also means you don't have to worry whether they've mucked up the facts, which you do when following MSM science reporting.