Cenral Arizona Geology Club

The recently formed Prescott Geology Club has become the Central Arizona Geology Club with a website/blog at http://centralarizonageologyclub.blogspot.com/

They are organizing a gold panning field trip this Saturday [right: Lynx Creek withdrawal area, credit US Forest Service]. Trip leader Roy Row describes,

"Water level in Lynx is dropping fast, however, I believe we will have sufficient water for Saturday.

I want to pan in Lynx Creek @ Stoneridge Dr.

We will meet @ Hwy 69 & and Stoneridge. Make the turn, S, onto Stoneridge and proceed about 200 yds to a street that turns, R , into the new Crossroads. I will be waiting there in my 1993 Green Toyota Land Cruiser ( which is well AZ pin stripped). Once all have assembled we will make the short drive to the parking area. There will be a short hike down to the creek, maybe 5-600 yds from where we park. All should be able to negotiate.

I suggest wearing rubber boots or "crik shoes", bring along a pill vial or similar small container to capture your Gold. For those who wish to "dig", bring a shovel.

I anticipate this outing to be no more than 2 hours. Due to the warmer weather, we will meet @ 8:00 am."

USGS director bemoans loss of knowledge infrastructure

USGS Director Mark Myers is worried that the loss of the nation's knowledge infrastructure over the last 40 years has damaged our ability to make good public policy based on sound science. He made this and other wide-ranging comments at an informal breakfast meeting this morning at the USGS offices on the UA campus in Tucson.

He also expressed frustration with the lack of incentives and the uncertainty facing students who might consider science careers. Business and banking are attracting the nations 'best and brightest.'

A third note is the transfer of responsibility for many of the nation's domestic issues from traditional government agencies to the Dept. of Homeland Security, driven by budget constraints in agencies like the USGS, while large new resources go to DHS and related programs.

UA President Robert Shelton and a small number of UA deans, department heads, and leading researchers were also in attendance. Mark is in town to tour the USGS operations and meet with staff, then will speak at the Arizona Geological Society dinner meeting tonight (I'll blog about that talk tomorrow).

Ancient landslide described northeast of Phoenix

The Marcus landslide, one of the largest such features in Arizona, is described on a new webpage on the AZGS Phoenix office site by AZGS geologist Brian Gootee.

Brian writes that about 500,000 years ago, a portion of the east-central summit of the McDowell Mountains about 20 miles northeast of Phoenix, suddenly collapsed into a catastrophic rock avalanche, moving an estimated 16-44 miles per hour downslope, carrying 5.5 million cubic meters of rock and soil. The energy released was roughly equivalent to that of an atomic bomb.

The slide was only discovered in 2002 by Dr. John Douglass and Dr. Brian Gootee.

There is also a fantastic virtual field trip to the Marcus landslide in the McDowell Mountain Regional Park put together by John Douglass of Paradise Valley Community College. Links to this and more photos are on the AZGS Phoenix office page.

Will water be the new oil?

There's a fascinating report on global water supplies in the Christian Science Monitor. Global water markets are a $500 billion annual business and growing. Forty six nations are susceptible to violent conflict over water by 2025. Canada, which holds 20% of the world's fresh water, voted to take water out of NAFTA, to prevent thirsty Americans from piping it south. [right: Crescent Lake, AZ; copyright Michael Collier]

Geotimes: "Geology Bloggers Rock"

The online version of Geotimes published a story on geobloggers this weekend, that includes this one, along with summaries of six others. It's nice to be included with these very talented folks. Two of them are new to me, and are excellent. I encourage you to take a read. Some of the blogs, like Clastic Detritus, have extensive links to a other geo-blogs and online resources. It's a dynamic community. [right: clasticdetritus.com, one of the highlighted geoblogs]

A second story in the Geotimes 'Geomedia' section, right below the geo-blogger story is one entitled, "Science Bloggers Question Their Role," about commentaries in Nature Geoscience in April that questioned if blogging is helping or hindering the field of geosciences. It's generated a fair amount of debate and comments, especially in the geoblogosphere.

Greetings from Mars

Excuse me, I've got a call from Mars.

The Phoenix Mars Lander is twittering - sending out micro-messages via cell phone and computer about its activities and progress - to more than 9,000 listeners last week. And a lot more signed up after today's New York Times story about it. At 6pm today, another 5,000 are following Phoenix's posts. It's actually a NASA staffer who ghost authors the messages, but they read as if coming from the Lander itself. [right; credit JPL/NASA, UA]

If you had logged in on Sunday as the craft started its landing, you would have gotten a series of "tweets", including:

Atmospheric entry has started. time to get REALLY nervous. Now I’m in the “seven minutes of terror.”

parachute opening is scariest part for the team.

parachute is open!!!!!

come on rocketssssss!!!!!

I’ve landed!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers! Tears!! I’m here!

Ice table under Mars' Phoenix Lander?

Photos from the Phoenix Lander on Mars the past two days offer tantalizing suggestions that ice lies just below a thin soil layer directly under the spacecraft.

This picture [credit: NASA/JPL, UA, Max Planck Institute] of the "Snow Queen" feature taken by the robotic arm camera shows smooth, rounded surface that appears to be ice swept clear by the landers rocket engines during landing, according to UA. I wonder if the cavities might be a direct result of the retro rockets melting or blasting out ice or ice-rock mixtures?

The Lander made it's first test scoop of the surface yesterday. The next few days should be exciting.