Sunday Funnies: Cautiously Re-Testing the Waters Edition

It's been quite some time, but this electronical difference engine is (for browsing purposes anyway) much faster than my old one, which with respect to the web, was more of an abacus than a computer. This one has a glitchy screen, and I don't think it will be as good with media, but I've been able to get through quite a bit more than usual today. I've gotten out of the habit of setting funnies aside for Sundays, so this actually is a compilation of the things I've marked since early May. We'll see if I can fire that habit back up again.

Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr

Pundit Kitchen

Surviving the World

Bits and Pieces

Savage Chickens

"Captain Canada: so Canadian he pisses maple syrup" Sofa Pizza

 Sober in a Nightclub

Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr

 

Very Demotivational

Sober in a Nightclub

Wil Wheaton's Tumblr

So Much Pun

Married to the Sea

RoflRazzi

Bizarro Blog

Very Demotivational

Bizarro Blog

Sober in a Nightclub

"Looks like Boo grew up." RoflRazzi

Comixed

I Can Haz Cheezeburger

I Has a Hotdog

Engrish Funny

I Can Haz Cheezeburger

Bizarro Blog

Julia Segal Time

Cyanide and Happiness

If only she was running... Epic4Chan

...and on a good day, it took half an hour to download a 100K jpeg. Comixed

Fake Science

Blackadder

Very Demotivational

Bits and Pieces

Picture is Unrelated

Wil Wheaton's Tumblr

Bits and Pieces

I can Haz Cheezeburger

...and that's why I love teaching, and teaching geology especially (click over to read the hovertext). xkcd

Willamette Valley Geology Online Resources

Last Saturday I presented for a workshop on Willamette Valley Geology for the Oregon Master Naturalist Program (henceforth OMN), an outreach program by Oregon State University. I'm now switched over to my new (to me) rebuilt computer, and while I'm not very accustomed to it yet, browsing and reading is definitely going faster than on my old machine, and it looks like I'll have more time to blog.

One of the components I was requested to submit was a list of online resources, and there's no doubt in my mind that first among those are posts by our wealth of PNW geobloggers, so that makes up the bulk of this list. Note this is not organized by topic, but primarily by blog and the order in which I found them.

In other notes, I'm initiating a label for OMN, to indicate topics that may be of interest to that group- I'll be primarily focused on earth sciences, but will likely include broader science topics dealing with Oregon's fabulous natural history.

Uncovered Earth (Michael Klaas, Portland, Oregon) http://uncoveredearth.com/

• Silver Creek Falls http://uncoveredearth.com/2012/03/06/take-a-hike-silver-falls-state-park/
• Fossils in CCC building at Silver Creek Falls http://uncoveredearth.com/2011/09/27/where-the-mundane-is-anything-but/
• Geo History of Sullivan's Gulch & Alameda Ridge, Portland http://uncoveredearth.com/2011/10/06/a-geological-history-of-sullivans-gulch/
• Picturing Columbia River Basalt Eruptions http://uncoveredearth.com/2011/10/04/hawaiian-fissure-eruptions-then-now/
• From this post http://uncoveredearth.com/2011/09/26/geek-art-lidar-nice-enough-to-frame/ , a LIDAR image of Willamette channel meandering near Corvallis (Older channels are darker blue, current channel darkest) http://www.oregongeology.org/pubs/ll/p-posters.htm#Willamette
• Run-down of PNW Geobloggers http://uncoveredearth.com/2011/09/05/geoblogging-the-northwest/

En Tquila Es Verdad (Dana Hunter, Seattle area) http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/

• Learning from Lockwood (a very flattering post that made me blush) http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/2012/07/23/learning-from-lockwood/
• Fun photo of Dana and me at Erratic Rock Wayside http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/2012/07/10/im-back-feeling-a-bit-erratic/
• Our visit to Silver Falls in March http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/2012/03/15/the-scenes-we-saw-day-four/

Got The Time (Aaron Barth, recently moved to Eugene, Oregon, just moved from VA) http://iapetancaptain.wordpress.com/

• McKenzie Crossing http://iapetancaptain.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/mckenzie-crossing/
• Skinner's Butte http://iapetancaptain.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/skinners-butte/

Outside The Inerzone (Lockwood DeWitt, Corvallis, Oregon) http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/

• Gold in Oregon (Not much, but more than most realize.) http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2011/04/adoregon.html
• I Slept Through the Big One http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-slept-through-big-one.html
• Reverberations of the (Tohoku) quake in the PNW, partway down this post: http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2011/03/cobbles-and-gravel.html
• Lotsa Water http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2011/01/lotsa-water.html
• Being Careful What I Wish For http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2010/12/being-careful-what-i-wish-for.html
• The Geo Biz http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2010/10/geo-biz.html
• Show me your sidewalk http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2009/06/late-week-geo-meme-show-me-your.html
• The Great Flood http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2009/08/great-flood.html

Fluvial (stream) Geomorphology (landforms)

• General overview of "mature" stream landforms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meandering_river#Associated_landforms
• Nice clear introduction to fluvial geomorphology http://www.scienceclarified.com/landforms/Ocean-Basins-to-Volcanoes/Stream-and-River.html
• Source for Willamette Valley stratgraphic columns and cross section: www.wou.edu/las/physci/.../willamette_geo_field_guide.pdf
• Source for images of meandering stream, oxbow formation: http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/scripter/geog100/lect/11-rivers/11-rivers.htm

New things- posted or found since the above were submitted in August:

• http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120909/OUTDOORS/309090058/1103
• http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/2012/08/29/how-would-you-like-to-take-a-hike-across-a-geologic-diagram/ (Dana Hunter's other blog- she started with Sci Am fairly recently)
• http://www.flashearth.com/
• Natrolite http://www.sandatlas.org/2012/03/natrolite/

The Little Robot That Could... Visits Miranda!

Note: This wedge has now been accreted at En Tequila Es Verdad.

This month's Accretionary Wedge (#49) theme is "Out of this World," hosted by Dana Hunter at En Tequila Es Verdad. A similar theme was done four years ago in September of 2008. We've tried to avoid repeating themes that are similar, but this one troubles me not at all, for several reasons. First, it's a little startling to realize just how much has been done and accomplished in four years- that's four extra years of Spirit and Opportunity tooling around in the Martian desert, Curiosity is getting geared up, calibrated, and checked out for its own Martian odyssey, Dawn exploring one asteroid and preparing a voyage to a second, four more years of Cassini exploring the Saturnian neighborhood and moons, and Messenger arriving, doing initial higher orbit observations of Mercury, then descending and starting higher resolution observations in a lower orbit. And THOSE are just the big name probes. Second, the geoblogosphere has seen quite a few new members (including Dana herself), so at this point, I have no problem with repeating or doing similar AW editions to earlier ones. New members, new perspectives. Third, the earth is plenty big, but the solar system is inconceivably huger. There are quite a number of bloggers out there who post almost exclusively on planetary geology (as I grew up calling it) or exogeology (as it seems to be most commonly called now). (Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blogs is my favorite.) So it's not as if one AW post on Out of This World Geology was going to put more than a scratch on the countless subjects that could be addressed.

In my post four years ago, my first participation with the AW, I addressed the broad topic of cryogeology, and the idea of how alien it is to us to think of ices as lithic material. While it is quite literally alien from our perspective to think of water and other ices as making up a large or even dominant portion of a large solid body, that is in fact exactly the composition of many bodies in the mid- to outer portion of the Solar System. I mentioned Miranda in that post, and I featured that Uranian moon in my first Moonday post (and the APOD upon which that post was based), but it's my favorite known moon, so forgive me for returning to it yet again.

35 years ago yesterday (September 5, 1977), Voyager 1 was launched into space. Oddly, Voyager 2 had been launched on August 20- if I recall correctly, the reason they were numbered "backwards" was that Voyager 1's path would quickly put it ahead of Voyager 2, even though the latter had a 16-day head start. Voyager 1 was thus able to scout the way at Jupiter and Saturn, and give scientists a better idea of how to target their observations when Voyager 2 passed through those systems later. At launch, Voyager 2 was expected to visit Jupiter and Saturn; extending its planetary mission was contingent on further money being budgeted by Congress, always iffy. However, the budget was extended, and Voyager 2 was pushed deep into Uranus's gravity well, to give a final gravity assist "kick" to also intercept Neptune.

The dive in to Uranus meant that some of the outer moons, which initially were more interesting to planetary scientists, would not be as well observable as had been hoped. And since there was no "scouting trip" by Voyager 1, there would be one chance and one chance only to see what that planetary system had offer. Miranda was not expected to be as interesting as other targets might be, but the path of the probe, and sun/moon illumination aspects would give ample opportunity to study that object. Good thing. Here's a whole-disc image:

At some point in its past, Miranda must have been one of the most geologically active bodies in the solar system. Early speculation was that the moon had been severely impacted, perhaps a number of times, with enough force to disaggregate it, but not enough to cause the pieces to fly apart. That was the story I repeated for roughly 15 years. Then I saw somewhere a new theory that it was impacts and melting, which didn't make as much sense- complete melting would allow segregation of lithics/silicates from ices- and at a density of ~1.2 grams per cubic centimeter, Miranda looks to be a mixture of both. In reading up for this post, I find a much more appealing explanation, which is that Miranda went through a period of orbital resonance with Umbriel, which could have warmed its interior enough to trigger diapirs to develop in the equivalent of its mantle. This would involve solid ice deforming plastically, not melting to liquid. But whatever the explanation, the sense I've always had is that we're seeing enormous depth, compared to the radius of this body, turned over on its side. That fascinates me.

Central in the image above is the feature referred to as the "chevron," and on the right, structures that, as far as is known, are unique to Miranda and Venus, coronae. Looking at the heavily cratered terrain in the upper portion of the image, and down the lower left middle, one can infer you are seeing an ancient, mostly undisturbed surface- much at odds with the dynamism apparent on so much of this small moon. At less than 500 km (300 mi), Miranda would fit easily within the borders of a number of US states.

 

Above, from a NASA image gallery, shows three different terrain types, from left to right, ancient cratered terrain, linearly grooved terrain- an example of a corona- and complex terrain, in which grooves and folds abruptly terminate into each other. Speaking of abrupt, the transition from one terrain type to another is strikingly sudden. Another striking feature pointed out in the Moonday and APOD posts linked in the second paragraph above is the tallest known cliff in the solar system: Verona Rupes, a 20 km fault scarp. At more than 8% of Miranda's radius, an equivalent cliff on Earth would be over 300 miles tall: bigger than Miranda itself! I think the APOD is a zoom and crop of this image, which shows how completely disrupted the terrain is in the neighborhood of that enormous cliff.

I commented to Dana in a recent note, that in each page I had found worthwhile reading while brushing up on this topic, I was amused to see some variation of the comment, "...but, really, no one knows for sure." When I was young, in middle school, I was under the impression that essentially all the questions in science had been answered. And while I loved science, I didn't really grasp what scientists *did,* beyond just "knowing things." Without that context, I don't suppose you'd be able to grasp the childlike glee that the phrase "...but, really, no one knows for sure," gives rise to in my heart. Knowing is wonderful, but coming to know is even more wonderful. And recognizing what one does not know is the first step in that process.

New Horizons is on its way to Pluto, with passage through that system expected in 2015. Based on the Voyager missions, as well as innumerable other planetary science missions over the last few decades, I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be things there that will blow me out of the water. But I will always have a special fondness for Miranda, a tormented child of the the solar system. There are no further missions planned to Uranus, and it's unlikely any great strides in understanding exactly what caused that chaos will occur during my lifetime. I'm okay with that. I wouldn't want to live in a universe where's there's nothing to point at, and with a note of wonder and awe, say, "...but, really, no one knows for sure."

#FakeElements

I've mentioned how Twitter hashtag games work before- sometimes, as with that example, they're meant to be satirical. Other times, they're just for fun. Today's was, as the title of this post suggests, #FakeElements. And the gist is exactly what it sounds like. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

First, the ones I came up with...

• The element of style: strunknwhitium
• Anti-nitrogen tentatively named daytrogen.
• Likwise, anti-hydrogen tentatively named lowdrogen.
• The element of suspense: bungium
• The element of surprise, booron
• The basic unit of stupidity: bozonium
• The smallest indivisible particle of music is auram.
• Of course, there's always the criminal element, hoodlium.
• Fundamental building block of modern journalism: echonium.
• Most dangerous element: conservatonium.
• Criminal who becomes successful comedian while in prison: sillycon.
• Main element of bullying: tauntalum.
• Important element of sporting events: hooraynium
• Elemental basis for economy without currency: antimoney.
• Element often spotted on summer porches: geranium.
• Element of outrage: scandalum.
• Most precioussss element: gollium
• Element responsible for pine smell in sunshine: solfir

...then some favorite others, with attributions:

• @TonyNoland Element found in shining armour: knightrogen
• @TonyNoland The element orthopedic surgeons love: kneeon
• @TonyNoland Element found in most antibiotics: healium
• @TonyNoland Most essential element in taxidermy solutions: hiderogen
• @UncleJago  Belgium
• @eroston Material for sculpting heroic statues left to ruin in deserts: ozymandium.
• @TonyNoland The key ingredient in linoleum polish: floorine
• @DrMRFrancis The element that hogs all the electrons and doesn't bond with anything else: aynrandium
• @DrMRFrancis The heaviest element: yomamium
• @4ndyman Kardashium (formerly Hiltonium) is seen all over the place. It's a beautiful element to look at but serves no useful purpose.
• @jon_e_7 #FakeElements Bury 'em: an element found mainly in the American west and Clint Eastwood dialogues

Now oddly, a game that I played both as a high school student and as a student teacher was pretty much the opposite of this. The teacher gives a list of punny descriptions, and the student is supposed to figure out what *real* elements fit the descriptions. For example, "Member of Troy's after-dark guards" would be night Trojan, or nitrogen. A member of the same city's tower watch would be a high Trojan, or hydrogen. "What doctors do with their mistakes" is bury'em, or barium- which in fact shows up above.

Either way you come at it, it's a fun game.

Have a Miserable Wednesday Wednesday

It's pushing mid-nineties here in Corvallis, with the next two days forecast to be nearly one hundred. Bif is not liking this at all; I have the sense he's more miserable than I am. Filled his bowl with refrigerated water last night. *That* he liked. On the other hand, while Ozma was a huge fan of the frozen damp towel trick, Bif didn't much care for it.

So we're both pretty miserable, even without a nice girl. (Photo from JULIA SEGAL TIME)

Quartzville Road Log

Two and a half weeks ago, Dana came into town. Sunday, essentially a half-day, we went up Marys Peak; she'd not been to the summit, and while the view was largely obscured by haze, I think she did get the overall sense of awe at being able to see the general area of the subduction zone, forearc ridge, forearc basin, and volcanic arc, all from one spot.

Monday, which I'll elaborate in a moment, we went into the Western Cascades, to the Quartzville mining district, with Callan Bentley's former student Aaron Barth. Tuesday we went over to the coast to the Agate Beach tsunami dock, north to Depoe Bay, then back to the valley by way of Erratic Rock Wayside.

My intent today is to simply lay out mileages for the Quartzville trip. The original article upon which this log is loosely based is here, but should be taken with a shaker of salt; there are some rather egregious errors. A previous post for the Accretionary Wedge on the area is here. I've omitted a number of stops in the original guide, and added a number of others, to create what amounts to my all-time favorite field trip, one that I've led between 40 to 50 times.

A bit of background is in order. Due to a number of factors (heat, rambunctious cat, downstairs baby squalling from about 4 AM on), I got no sleep Sunday night, so when we left Corvallis at 6:30 Monday morning, I was already pretty brain-dead. I spent the day mostly making sure I was making sense to Dana and Aaron, and way too little of it documenting what we were seeing- so those two are the ones who will have a lot of the best photos. I got some, and some samples, but not nearly what I had intended. I knew it would be a long day, but it ended up being even longer than I'd imagined: we got back to Corvallis at about 11 PM, and I was very nearly hallucinating from exhaustion at that point.

But on to the content: following are the mileages to various stops, and very brief descriptions of what we saw at each.

Mile 0.0: Green Peter Dam (Flash Earth location)

Mile 0.2: vesicular basalt, zeolites and amygdules

Miles 0.7. 0.9, 1.0, 2.0: colorful clays, first stages of hydrothermal alteration (drive-by geology)

Mile 7.7: calcite veins emplaced in fault, casts of slickensides

Mile 7.8: slickensided face, with volcanic neck towering above.

Mile 11.2: debris flow deposits overlain by water-sorted sediments and paleosol. Permineralized charcoal. (Intro here)

Mile 13.2: rest stop, restrooms

Mile 14.9: Quarry- rhyolite dike into intermediate(?) volc rock, heavily mineralized with pyrite. Be careful about safety here: do not approach walls- rocks fall off frequently. In addition the rocks are quartz mineralized- very hard and tough- and break with sharp edges. This is an easy spot to gash yourself open, if you're not careful. If you walk up the road and around the corner (~0.1 miles), there is a badly weathered/altered exposure of a bizarre tourmaline-pyrite breccia. Not easy to find good samples, even harder to find collectible examples, but very cool and weird stuff.

Mile 15.1: Boulder Creek Bridge- leave main road, cross to drive up Boulder Creek

Mile 16.7: Hydrothermal Breccia with lots of pyrite crystals
- turn around and head downhill to main road again

Mile 17.2: during floods of 1996, debris flow came down stream across the valley, wiped out Boulder Creek road from Mile 17.3 to 17.5. Road was gone to cliff face.

Mile 18.3: back on main road, turn up stream.

Mile 18.7: confluence of Boulder Creek with Quartzville creek, eponymous boulder probably emplaced by debris flow.

Mile 21.8 Yellowbottom facilities/restrooms- Yellowbottom campground across road.

Mile 22.0: As corridor of Dougfirs turns into alders, pull off on right (there are a number of pull-outs; the one with best/easiest access to creek is the last one) and walk to stream and Yellowbottom Falls- granodiorite and basalt dikes. Granodiorite is 18 Ma, and believed to be driver of hydrothermal system in this area.

Mile 23.2: Canal Creek 4-way intersection- one road turns perpendicularly up Canal Creek, main road continues along Quartzville Creek. Take the road the runs between the two, diagonally up the hill, toward the Quartzville town site.

Mile 24.2: Cinder cone deposits on right- anomalously young, on top of glacial deposits, so 2 Ma or less- despite the fact that Cascade volcanism had mostly been restricted to narrow modern axis by Pliocene.

(town site wasn't marked on this trip; we slowed down briefly, but didn't get mileage. There is an interpretive sign that comes and goes sporadically, recounting the history of the town, but it wasn't there on this trip.)

Mile 26.0: Snow Storm Tunnel- Gated off now, for reasons I don't understand, but used to use as outstanding example of a safe mine to visit and enter.

Mile 28.2: Red Heifer Pass- road continues through pass, but turn to follow logging access road to right left, [apologies to @GeoHols for this thoughtless mistake] or park here, and walk in. (There *is* room to turn around farther in, but it *does* look tight). The road is purposely blocked and closed about 0.1-0.2 miles in. Maybe a quarter mile or less from intersection, watch for a "fin" rising from the hillside uphill from the road- this is a quartz vein, about 8-10 feet thick, that's resisting weathering and erosion more effectively than surrounding rocks. Nice quartz crystals can be found in the talus pile down onto the road. Even better- and some beautifully colored examples, stained with Fe and Mn oxides particularly- can be found on the hillside at the base of the vein, but it's a scramble and a bit hazardous to get up there, so be careful if you choose to try. (We were hot and tired, so we didn't try.) I've also found barite here a couple times, but it's not common. In addition, there are a number of interesting spots walking along the road- in particular some very nice Liesegang rings, maybe 0.1 mile later, on the right (uphill side) of the road.

-turn around, head back downhill toward Quartzville Creek once again.

Mile 33.3: bridge across Dry Gulch. If you're here during dry season- and you are, otherwise you wouldn't have made it to this point- there's no water flowing. With Dana and Aaron, there was a pool on the uphill side, but no flow. (looking at these mile numbers, I think I may have messed something up, but Dry Gulch is between cinder cone and town site, and the only bridge along this stretch of road.) [addendum- I'm not going to change the numbers I recorded, but it just dawned on me, distances from last stop and to next stop would make much better sense if this was actually Mile 32.3.]

-return to 4-way intersection, and turn sharply right to follow Canal Creek upstream. (Again, I'm thinking I may have messed up the mileages somewhere in these last few stops, but...)

Mile 34.5: Lower bridge across Dry Gulch- again, note there is no flow here, but during peak runoff- warm rain on snow during late winter and during spring melt, there clearly is significant flow in this channel.

Turn around and back track a tenth of a mile to the Cheshire Cat outcrop- an abandoned quarry in columnar jointed basalt that looks like a smile without a cat. A grove of alders has sprung up between the road and the columns, but they're high enough now that if you're watching for it, you shouldn't have any trouble finding it- on hill side of the road (left, as you head back toward 4-way intersection), not the Canal Creek side.

*END* (Return to four-way intersection, turn downstream at Quartzville Creek, and drive back out past Green Peter Dam, to Sweet Home.)

Obviously, I've said very little in terms of details, and really, not much even about generalities. I'm simply laying this out now as a frame. Hopefully, Dana, Aaron and I can fill this in more completely in the weeks to come. I've linked Dana's reports thus far in the individual stops.

Wednesday Wednesday

From Skull Swap, one of my favorite replies in film of all time.

National Buttocks Day

So actually, I've been "celebrating" this tongue-in-cheek commemoration of Shrub's 66th birthday (the greatest ass in American history), along with Darius Whiteplume, since I got in today, mostly posting buttocks photos on twitter. Unfortunately, few if any others that I've seen are joining in, though that's okay. It took a while for "Talk Like a Pirate Day" and "Towel Day" to take off as well. And since the idea was first proposed here at OTI, I feel I'd be remiss in not reposting my selected photos and comments here, too.

 In honor of National Buttocks Day, here's a Buttato.

 Continuing our celebration of National Buttocks Day, it wouldn't be complete without some assless chaps.

And I guess this would be a chapless lass... with or without the leading "L" in the second word

On National Buttocks Day, we take a moment to celebrate a t-shirt that somewhat alleviates the issue of plumber butt.

Buttocks can also be an asset (heh) in legal practice.

Likely the most famous buttocks in America today, though I've never figured out exactly why.

Hope your Buttocks are having a good day, too!

Followup: Forgot to mention it, but one synonym for "buttocks" is "fundament," from the same root as "foundation," which, of course, they are when you're seated. Neither here nor there, but an amusing new way to think about Fundamentalists, no? Also, as mentioned, my partner in crime is Darius Whiteplume; his blog, Adventures in Nerdliness, also has a post in tribute to the human posterior, and if your patience still isn't at an end his Tumblr, Tumbling in Nerdliness, has even more.

Wednesday Wednesday

Haven't done one of these for a long time, but I really couldn't pass this one up, could I? You rock, Wednesday!

Oregon Geo-sites: Comments and a Request for Help

I've started listing out Oregon sites of particular geological significance, and am beginning to realize it'll be no small task. In terms of reaching 100, no problem. In terms of ranking... well... problem. In terms of "uniqueness," again, problem. I think what I'll do is aim at 150 to 200 sites, which will take some time in and of itself, then cull the list down to 100. I'll list them by physiographic province, then follow with my own personal ranking. In other words, if I was to recommend to a geologically interested person sites to visit, the order in which I would recommend a site, assuming travel schedule, distance, and time were not issues (though of course, they always are). I will list all the sites that don't make the top 100 as unranked runners up.

Despite how it may seem, there are lots of places in Oregon I've never been, including places with great geology. Off the top of my head, a few examples include:

• Crest of Steens Mountain
• Smith Rocks State Park
• Leslie Gulch and Owyhee Canyon
• Jordan Craters
• Saddle Mountain
• Richardson's Rock Ranch

...and I don't doubt there are many more. As I said, those are just a few great spots that popped into my head in a few moments of thought, which I'd like to visit, but have never quite worked into other trips. I'm aiming at particular, rather specific spots, though some areas, such as Crater Lake and Newberry Volcano have dozens, if not hundreds, of noteworthy sites in and of themselves. Given the futility of trying to list all the important features of areas such as those two examples, I'll just list them as single locations.

This is prompted, in part, by Callan Bentley's geomeme of two posts back, and in particular by my exasperation at Lava River Cave as one of only two Oregon sites listed. There's nothing wrong with Lava River Cave, and it will definitely make my list. It's the longest tube in Oregon, it's developed, so anyone in moderately good physical shape can enjoy it, and it's easy to get to and find. On the other hand, I can think of three other lava tubes that I think have more to offer than this one (I will be including these in my final list as well). They are, in descending order, Derrick Cave, Wind Cave, and Malheur Cave. The first has an amazing slew of cool features, the second is breath-taking in its sheer size/cross-sectional area, and the third has an underground lake as its terminus. If I had to pick my top two Oregon sites, I would cheat and pick three, with Newberry Volcano and Crater Lake in a tie for first, and the Columbia River Gorge in second. NV and CL are, in broad terms, very similar. Much of what one can see at CL can only be seen at a distance, though there are things to see there that aren't visible at NV. On the other hand, there's plenty to see at NV that's not at CL, and it's easier to get hands-on there. Toss-up. (Honestly, though, if I wasn't inclined to cheat, I'd have to give CL the nod on the basis of its scientific importance.)

The reason I'm posting this heads-up, though, is to request help. I'll probably spend a couple of weeks or more working on this. Maybe much more. If you've spent time geologizing in Oregon, please leave a comment on this post, or @ me on Twitter (@lockwooddewitt), with sites that struck you as particularly geologically awesome, important, or beautiful. As I said, there are plenty of Oregon spots I know are important, but nevertheless have not had the opportunity to visit. I'll be relying on Geology of Oregon to fill in some of the gaps, but I am curious to hear what others have to say, and it will help me avoid missing sites that deserve to be included.

Thanks ahead of time for any help given.

Saturd80's: I've Got the Vapors! Edition

"Turning Japanese" was their big hit, but I was very fond of the entire album, "New Clear Days." It would definitely rank in my top 100 rock albums- the phrase "waiting for the weekend" in previous meme post put me in mind of the group- perhaps in the top 50. I'm always frustrated when a "one hit wonder" group's other music is overlooked despite the fact that it's pretty damned good. Turning Japanese:

Waiting for the Weekend:

Letter From Hiro:

101 Geo-sites Meme

Callan Bentley started this meme a few days ago, and I've been waiting for the weekend to take a stab at it. More accurately, I'd been hoping to clean out my RSS feed, but that's beginning to look like a lost cause. I'll mostly withhold comment on the quality of the list; I haven't read the book on which it's based, and the author may have justification for his choices. However, in a lot of ways, this strikes me as a rather hit-and-miss representation of what the US has to offer, geologically. I'm half tempted to create a list of 100 must-see geo-sites in Oregon, just to show where I'd rank Lava River Cave. It would certainly be on the list, but it would be half way down or more. All that said, the rules are typical: bold the ones you've visited. I'll only bold the ones I'm absolutely certain I've been to, and append a comment to ones that I'm either uncertain of, or don't really remember.

1. Wetumpka Crater, Alabama
2. Exit Glacier, Alaska
3. Antelope Canyon, Arizona
4. Meteor Crater, Arizona
5. Monument Valley, Arizona
6. Prairie Creek Pipe, Arkansas
7. Wallace Creek, California
8. Racetrack Playa, California
9. Devils Postpile, California
10. Rancho La Brea, California
11. El Capitan, California
12. Boulder Flatirons, Colorado
13. Interstate 70 Roadcut, Colorado
14. Florissant Fossil Beds, Colorado
15. Dinosaur Trackway, Connecticut
16. Wilmington Blue Rocks, Delaware
17. Devil’s Millhopper, Florida
18. Stone Mountain, Georgia
19. Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii
20. Borah Peak, Idaho
21. Menan Buttes, Idaho
22. Great Rift, Idaho (Possibly... is this the Great Rift in the Craters of the Moon? If so, yes)
23. Valmeyer Anticline, Illinois
24. Hanging Rock Klint, Indiana
25. Fort Dodge Gypsum, Iowa
26. Monument Rocks, Kansas
27. Ohio Black Shale, Kentucky
28. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky
29. Four Corners Roadcut, Kentucky
30. Avery Island, Louisiana
31. Schoodic Point, Maine
32. Calvert Cliffs, Maryland
33. Purgatory Chasm, Massachusetts
34. Nonesuch Potholes, Michigan (I know I've been very close, but not sure)
35. Quincy Mine, Michigan
36. Grand River Ledges, Michigan
37. Sioux Quartzite, Minnesota
38. Thomson Dikes, Minnesota
39. Soudan Mine, Minnesota
40. Petrified Forest, Mississippi
41. Elephant Rocks, Missouri
42. Grassy Mountain Nonconformity, Missouri
43. Chief Mountain, Montana
44. Madison Slide, Montana
45. Butte Pluton, Montana
46. Quad Creek Quartzite, Montana
47. Ashfall Fossil Beds, Nebraska
48. Scotts Bluff, Nebraska
49. Crow Creek Marlstone, Nebraska
50. Sand Mountain, Nevada
51. Great Unconformity, Nevada
52. Flume Gorge, New Hampshire
53. Palisades Sill, New Jersey
54. White Sands, New Mexico
55. Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
56. Shiprock Peak, New Mexico
57. State Line Outcrop, New Mexico
58. American Falls, New York
59. Taconic Unconformity, New York
60. Gilboa Forest, New York
61. Pilot Mountain, North Carolina
62. South Killdeer Mountain, North Dakota
63. Hueston Woods, Ohio
64. Big Rock, Ohio
65. Kelleys Island, Ohio (I have been told I visited here, but I was too young to remember)
66. Interstate 35 Roadcut, Oklahoma
67. Mount Mazama, Oregon
68. Lava River Cave, Oregon
69. Drake’s Folly, Pennsylvania
70. Hickory Run, Pennsylvania
71. Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania
72. Beavertail Point, Rhode Island
73. Crowburg Basin, South Carolina
74. Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
75. Mammoth Site, South Dakota
76. Pinnacles Overlook, South Dakota
77. Reelfoot Scarp, Tennessee
78. Enchanted Rock, Texas
79. Capitan Reef, Texas
80. Paluxy River Tracks, Texas
81. Upheaval Dome, Utah
82. Checkerboard Mesa, Utah
83. San Juan Goosenecks, Utah
84. Salina Canyon Unconformity, Utah
85. Bingham Stock, Utah
86. Whipstock Hill, Vermont
87. Great Falls, Virginia
88. Natural Bridge, Virginia
89. Millbrig Ashfall, Virginia
90. Catoctin Greenstone, Virginia
91. Mount St. Helens, Washington
92. Dry Falls, Washington
93. Seneca Rocks, West Virginia
94. Roche-A-Cri Mound, Wisconsin
95. Van Hise Rock, Wisconsin
96. Amnicon Falls, Wisconsin
97. Green River, Wyoming
98. Devils Tower, Wyoming
99. Fossil Butte, Wyoming
100. Steamboat Geyser, Wyoming
101. Specimen Ridge, Wyoming (Not sure... I've been to the place where there's a petrified, upright tree trunk at YNP, but dunno if that's the same place.)

So that's a total of 16... a pretty weak showing. But as I said, it strikes me as a pretty weak list.

Saturd80's: Creepy Kate Bush Edition

I adore Kate Bush, and have ever since I first heard her music. Part of what I really like is her ability to hide the creepy and macabre under a veil of beautiful music and vocals. For example, Experiment IV: "They told us what they wanted was a sound that could kill someone at a distance. So we go ahead, and the meters are over in the red." (BTW, that is indeed a very young Hugh Laurie)

Under Ice: "It's wonderful
Everywhere, so white
The river has frozen over
Not a soul on the ice
Only me, skating fast
I'm speeding past trees leaving
Little lines in the ice
Cutting out little lines"

and Waking the Witch: "What say you, good people? Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"

How The Internet Works

It's very, very silly. That's fundamentally what you need to know. The back story is that a female representative in the Michigan House was banned from speaking on the floor yesterday after using the word "vagina" in criticizing and opposing a particularly nasty piece of legislative work that would tremendously restrict women's ability to make their own choices regarding reproductive health. Now the way the internet works, is that this is an opportunity to engage in relentless mockery of the Michigan House conservatives... in particular, by gratuitous overuse of the word "vagina." There were a number of very good zingers and funny lines. I especially enjoyed a short bit from the Portland Mercury: Vagina is the new Voldemort, along with this picture:

RT @portlandmercury "In Michigan, you can't say "vagina" anymore. Good thing this is Oregon. Vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina and vagina!" 

Finally, a meme/game emerged, which on twitter is often signified with a hashtag, like so:

#VaginaMovieLines

Partly to archive these for myself, and partly to share with others who for whatever reason aren't on twitter, the following were my contributions to this meme, along with the ones I retweeted.

• "Follow the vagina....Just follow the vagina."
• - "Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no vagina left." - "Yes I have." - "Look!" - "Just a flesh wound."
• "Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?" "These go to vagina."
• "You keep using that Vagina. I do not think it means what you think it means."
• "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my vagina. Prepare to die!"
• - "Hey, Houston, we've had a vagina here." - "Say again, please?" - "Ah, Houston, we've had a vagina."
• "The first rule of vagina is you do not talk about vagina. The second rule of vagina is you do not talk about vagina."
• "You make me want to be a better vagina"
• "They may take our lives, but they will never take our vagina."
• "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a vagina."
• "One does not simply walk into vagina."
• "Vaginas? Where we're going, we don't need vaginas."
• "Show me the vagina!"
• "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little vagina too!"
• "Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your vaginas extraordinary."
• "Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former vagina, now, about to become the Masters champion."
• "A vagina. Shaken, not stirred."
• "Open the vagina bay doors, HAL."
• RT ‏@drskyskull: "Is this going to be a stand-up fight, or another vagina hunt?"
• "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the Vagina Room!"
• RT @dvnix: "I am a Vagina on the Wind; watch how I soar…"
• RT @blakestacey: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of vagina?"
• "Vagina, for lack of a better word, is good."
• "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice vagina."
• "I'm going to make him a vagina he can't refuse."
• RT ‏@drskyskull: "You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the vagina goes."
• "Bond. Vagina Bond."
• "Have you ever been mistaken for a vagina?" "No. Have you?"
• Hey, maybe you haven't been keeping up with current events, but we just got our vaginas kicked pal!
• "I feel a great disturbance in the vagina."
• RT @drskyskull: "Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating a vagina is approximately 3,720 to 1."
• (My reply:) "Never tell me the vagina!"
• Via @CaldenWloka "I'm taking us closer to one of the big vaginas..."
• Followup from @CaldenWloka "Weirdly, I think it would probably be possible to do the whole movie this way and still have it intelligible."
• RT ‏@GynoStar: Of all the vaginas, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.
• "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a vagina."
• RT @phive0phor: "We're off to see the Wizard. Maybe he can get you a vagina."
• "Vagina!? You can't handle the vagina!"
• "Vagina. Definitely vagina."
• "Paint me like one of your vaginas."
• "Back off man, I'm a vagina."
• "Apparently she saw a vagina once."
• "I coulda been a vagina!"
• "I'm as mad as vagina, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Having spent a good part of the day mocking the MI GOP, I think that last one is a dandy quitting place. Because vaginas everywhere *should* be mad as hell, and they *shouldn't* have to put up with such BS.

Followup: Lisa Brown, the Michigan Representative, has some choice words about the incident that are well-worth reading, among them, "Shouldn't we be able to discuss body parts if we're going to pass laws about them? Am I really to believe that my opposition is undone at the mere mention of a woman's anatomy?"