Proposed Geomeme: Signposts!

CIMG3713 — Me posing with many signposts on Martha's Vineyard in 2008.

This weekend I’m spending some time scheduling some things to autopost here on Georneys while I’m in the field. Due to some delays, I’m not exactly sure when I’ll be leaving. However, sometime in the next couple of weeks I’ll be departing for Alaska for approximately 2 months. I may not have much time for blogging while I’m in the field, but I’ll try to schedule enough things to autopost that my blog readers won’t completely forget me. The “Monday Geology Picture” posts will certainly appear as always.

While I was browsing through some pictures for my weekly picture posts, I ran across a few pictures such as the one above. That is, I ran across pictures of me posing with posts covered with signs indicating the directions and distances to various notable locations. Not always perfectly accurate, these features are mostly tourist attractions, I think. I’m not sure what these features are called– does anyone know if they have a name? Lacking another name, I’ll refer to them as “signposts”.

I always enjoy posing with signposts and make a point of doing so. I think they make for fun pictures. Does anyone else have signpost pictures to share? Let’s make a geomeme of it!

Geo-Sites Meme

A few days ago my fellow AGU blogger Callan Bentley reviewed the book 101 American Geo-Sites You’ve Gotta See and posted the list of the 101 Geo-Sites described in the book. Callan encouraged other geobloggers to copy and paste the list and highlight in bold the places they’ve visited. Here’s my list:

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
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
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
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

I haven’t been to very many of these locations. I’d like to visit some more. But I’d also argue that this list is very far from complete– I’ve been to dozens (perhaps hundreds!) of other fantastic geo-sites in the US. There’s just so much fantastic geology in the US!

I think it would be really neat to come up with similar lists for other countries. Perhaps I’ll propose a similar list for my adopted home country of South Africa– there’s plenty of excellent geology here!

Sand Dunes in Death Valley

A sand dune in Death Valley, California. Fall 2005.

I noticed that there has been a sand dune meme wandering around the science blogosphere over the past week or so.

Here is my contribution to the meme– some pictures of sand dunes in Death Valley, California. I visited these sand dunes near sunset after a long day of mapping with my undergraduate fieldwork program in Fall 2005. Our instructors had promised we could visit the dunes once we finished working, but by the time we finished we only had an hour or two of light left. So, we had to race out to the dunes, first by driving and then by walking or running as quickly as we could on the soft sand. We spent a few minutes tumbling and rolling down the dunes then made our way back to the vans as darkness fell.