Don't Panic Geocast

By John Leeman and Shannon DulinScience Technology Education Natural Sciences

Don't Panic Geocast episodes

September 25, 2015Episode 36 - "We're looking at something the size of Connecticut" with Prof. Charles Ammon
This week special guest Prof. Charles Ammon joins us to discuss the recent magnitude 8.3 Chile earthquake. We then talk about coffee and how it can move your body clock around.
Show Links
USGS Earthquake Page
Shaking from several views (YouTube)
IRIS Teachable Moment PDF
USGS Finite Fault Model
PAGER for this Event
@CharlesAmmon on Twitter
Prof. Ammon’s Epicentral Blog
Epicentral (iPhone App)
Epicentral+ (iPad App)
Earth Motion Monitor (Mac)
Fun Paper Friday
Burke, T. M., Markwald, R. R., & McHill, A. W. (2015). Effects of caffeine on the human circadian clock in vivo and in vitro. Science Translational …, 7(305), 305ra146–305ra146. http://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aac5125
Science Article Summary
Colorado News Release
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
44 min
September 18, 2015Episode 35 - "So often we disconnect these things" Why study geology?
This week we discuss how geoscience can enrich anyone’s life. Join the discussion and then learn about how much cosmic dust falls on us every day!
John was on The Orbital Mechanics Episode 24 talking about SMAP.
Why Learn Geology
Your World Rocked (Slate)
Spatial thinking/reasoning
Thinking in 3D is hard… 4D is harder
3D Mouse
Resources
We need resources for our modern lifestyle
Earth is continuously changing (as pointed out in the article), so preserving it as is should NOT be the goal, but preserving a habitable planet.
Place based knowledge
Connects you directly to the land. Everyone has a “place” and by further exploring it through geology it can create a deeper connection.
Time
“Any good intro geology course is actually a course in time”
Geologic time…it’s really big!
Pale Blue Dot Photo
Puts things in perspective. Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot commentary does a great job of showing spatial and temporal smallness. It doesn’t make you feel small though, it makes you feel free. Chokes me up every time; Watch it here
Fun Paper Friday
How much cosmic dust falls on the Earth everyday? Kilograms, tons? Find out on this week’s segment!
Gardner, C. S., Liu, A. Z., Marsh, D. R., & Feng, W. (2014). Inferring the global cosmic dust influx to the Earth’s atmosphere from lidar observations of the vertical flux of mesospheric Na. Journal of …, 119(9), 7870–7879. http://doi.org/10.1002/2014ja020383
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
52 min
September 11, 2015Episode 34 - "The Earth isn’t a big bar magnet"
Join us to talk about the Earth’s magnetic field. It protects us and has complication on more levels than you think. It produces the aurora and helps us date rocks and structures!
Three Cat.4 Hurricanes in the Pacific
Godzilla El Nino
Magnetic Field History
William Gilbert
On the Magnet
OU Galileo Exhibit
Geodynamo
Dynamo theory
Inner core
Outer core
Magnetohydrodynamics
Geocentric Axial Dipole Hypothesis (GAD)
Glatzmaier-Roberts geodynamo model notes
The Core (movie)
Geomagnetic pole
The Magnetic Field
Magnetic inclination
Magnetic declination
Been around about 3 billion years
Reverses from time to time (some details)
Secular variation
Archaeomagnetic dating
USGS Geomagnetism Program
Find your magnetic field at the NGDC
Aurora
Tesla (unit)
Ionospheric dynamo
Radio propagation
National High Magnetic Fields Laboratory
Magnetic Field Sensors
Proton precession magnetometer
Fluxgate magnetometer
SQUID
Caesium vapor magnetometer
John’s 3D-Compass
@StationCDRKelly
Fun Paper Friday
Studying rockfalls with seismometers and infrasound could save lives and turns out to be both challenging and interesting!
Zimmer, V. L., & Sitar, N. (2015). Detection and location of rock falls using seismic and infrasound sensors. Engineering Geology, 193(C), 49–60. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.04.007
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
54 min
September 04, 2015Episode 33 - "Where's that little nerdy guy?"
This week we thought we would go through our every day carry (EDC) essentials for braving the academic jungle. As most of us go back to the academic year, it’s important to fine tune what we carry to do our job anywhere.
John
Nothing Special
Notebook(s)
Pencil/Pen Bag
iPad
iPhone
MacBook Air
Apple Watch
Unusual
Grid it for cables
USB cables of every type
USB to DC breakout cable
Arduino
Wildfire
Slide Clicker
Every possible video adapter for my laptop (VGA, HDMI, DVI)
Goal Zero Venture 30
Jackery Charger
Swiss army tinker
Folding knife
Wireless headphones
Shannon
Nothing special
Windows 10 laptop (maybe not the best to carry around)
Field notes notebook
Bullet journal
Paper planner
Tablet(s)
Unusual
Leatherman Micra
Handlens
Fun Paper Friday
Do you like beer? This week we discuss how it could be affecting your paper output!
Grim, T. (2008). A possible role of social activity to explain differences in publication output among ecologists. Oikos, 0(0), 080208022927783–0. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2008.0030–1299.16551.x
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
40 min
August 28, 2015Episode 32 - "I mean, they still make rulers with inches too"
Classes are back in session, and we’re back to normal episodes. Join us to talk about Brunton pocket transits, argue about strike and dip, and discuss the zombie apocalypse.
AAPG abstracts are due September 24!
Windows 10 isn’t supporting external USB microphones right now. What?
Checkout Angie’s beautiful photos. Part 1 Part 2
What is a Brunton?
A compass, but a really expensive one with lots of features
Generally referring to the conventional pocket transit
About the size of a deck of cards, but worth $500
It’s a very accurate compass/clinometer combination that we use to take strike and dip measurements amongst others
Can also sight bearings to objections or angle from horizontal by using the sights and mirror
Can set the magnetic declination. Just don’t forget!
Strike and Dip
Two numbers that define the orientation of a plane in 3-dimensional space using an agreed upon handedness convention
Dip direction is the direction water would run if poured on the rock, angle is how steep that rock is inclined to horizontal.
Strike is 90 degrees to dip, but conventions are mixed and messy
Azimuth vs. Quadrant
Compasses are available in two formats.
This has started holy-wars
History of the Brunton
Pocket transit invented by David W. Brunton (1849–1927) and patented in 1894
He was a Canadian mining engineer that was tired of carrying heavy survey equipment… any of us can relate
Neat photo of early Brunton
A bunch of businessmen in WY bought it and started Brunton Inc. in Riverton. (1972)
Silva of Sweden
Fiskars (Finnish company)
Issues
Needs to have the needle weighted when at very high magnetic dip angles.
Cheap knock-off compasses are everywhere
Changed the way the needle is balanced, and oftentimes it comes unscrewed with no way to fix it. This was a change in manufacturing that many people are unhappy about.
Fun Paper Friday
Zombies! This week we learn about mathematical modeling of zombie disease spread an how it relates to real world problems… mainly politics.
Munz, P., Hudea, I., Imad, J., & Smith, R. J. (2009). When zombies attack!: mathematical modelling of an outbreak of zombie infection. Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress, 4, 133–150.
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
50 min
August 21, 2015Episode 31 - "Galveston just gets it" Pt.2
We continue our quest form last week to hit the most interesting mechanisms of catastrophic sedimentation, talk about a new notebook, and learn how to give cosmic CT scans.
Floods
Oklahoma flooded significantly this year!
I–35 Rockslide
Oregon Landslide
Afghanistan river of rock
Colorado Springs, CO flash flooding
Bolide Deposits
Overturned flaps
Meteor Crater
Tsunamis
Alamo impact crater
Breccia
Suevite
Weather Related Sedimentation
Flood deposits
The Emerald Mile - Kevin Fedarko
Hurricane Deposits
Hurricane Sandy deposited 3cm in Delaware Bay
1900 Galveston Storm
Isaac’s Storm - Erik Larson
Fun Paper Friday
This week we learn how cosmic rays can be used to see through buildings, insulation, and concrete to provide easy scans without the need for expensive and complex radiation sources.
Durham, J. M., Guardincerri, E., Morris, C. L., Bacon, J., Fabritius, J., Fellows, S., et al. (2015). Tests of cosmic ray radiography for power industry applications. AIP Advances, 5(6), 067111–9. http://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922006
News Article
Book Block
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
37 min
August 14, 2015Episode 30 - "YouTube is rife with turbidite videos"
This week we start an accidental two-part show on catastrophic sedimentation, John’s drone experiments, and a revisit of some stories from the past. Don’t miss this not so short summer short!
John’s Drone Experiment
EOS Article on Philae probe
Catastrophism
Wikipedia article on catastrophism
Originated with Bishop J. Usher
Mountains, etc. were formed by unknowable, quick cataclysms…
Uniformitarianism
Wikipedia article on uniformitarianism
James Hutton - 1795 Theory of the Earth
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
Turbidites
Lab experiments
Bouma Sequences
Density-flow, not tractional or frictional
Wikipedia article with nice pictures
Landslides et al.
Can be triggered by earthquakes, volcanoes, rain, etc.
Lahars are also density flows
Wikipedia article on landslides
Video of huge lahar in Semeru
Fun Paper Friday
This week we get ready for one of our future topics by talking about bolides and airblasts. Also good timing with the perseid meteor shower!
Kring, D. A. (1997). Air blast produced by the Meteor Crater impact event and a reconstruction of the affected environment. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 32(4), 517–530.
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
32 min
August 07, 2015Episode 29 - "Dear NASA, these are a few of our favorite things”
Intro
The Orbital Mechanics highlighted how little we know about planetary formation, so let’s talk about Pluto and what we’ve learned from the New Horizons Mission.
Pluto Basics
Officially a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt
About 0.18 the radius of Earth
Mass 0.178 of the moon’s
Very low density
Gravity 0.63 g
Neptune and Pluto were both predicted to exist from orbital perturbations of Uranus
Percival Lowell (founder of Lowell observatory) started the hunt for pluto in 1906.
Tombaugh found Pluto using a blink comparison technique
Moons of Pluto
Orbit is chaotic, we can predict forwards and backwards for several million years, but over the Lyapunov time we have no idea.
New Horizons
New Horizons Wiki Page
Launched January 20, 2006
Fly-by July 14, 2015
Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI)
Solar Wind At Pluto (SWAP)
Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI)
Alice (UV imaging spectrometer)
Ralph telescope
Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC)
Radio Science Experiment (REX)
The Glitch
July 4, 2015 the software went into safe mode
Turned out to be a flaw in the timing of the commands in the fly-by prep software.
Full functionality restored July 7
9 hour round trip radio delay
Glaciers/Geology
Bright heart shape observed on the side of the planet during approach is ice (Tombaugh Regio)
Nitrogen ice flows like glaciers on Earth. Water ice is very brittle at surface conditions –390 F (–234 C)
Active surface is exciting, it’s not a dead planet!
Glacier Like Flows News Article from Science
Atmosphere
As UV light from the sun strikes the thin atmosphere, eventually making tholins that color the surface of the planet
Some particles remain suspended, shouldn’t be over 30 km (20 mi) off the sfc.
Particles were found to be up to 130 km (81 mi) above the surface
Atmospheric pressure is dropping
Charon
Space.com Article
Just as geologically exciting as Pluto
Likely atmospheric in origin, but could still be geologic
Low gravity of Pluto means it won’t hold onto its atmosphere…and Charon is near its same size, so it can pick up gravitationally what Pluto is putting down.
Red coating could take less than a million years to form
Near loss of the image
Science Magazine Article
Team opened the image file, but it was of Charon. They momentarily freaked wondering if the spacecraft wasn’t in the right position.
Ended up that they were looking in the wrong directory on a FTP server.
Future
2 months of particle and plasma instrument gathering
Will choose between two Kuiper belt objects and head that way to meet in 2019
Data transmission home for about 16 months
Getting the data back
Tops out about 1 kilobit per second on the 70 m dishes of the deep space network
Can double the rate using different polarization transmissions from the two amps “twittas”, but something else must be shut down to have enough power to run both at the same time
Links
Super Planet Crash APOD
Pluto time tool shows you when your lighting matches that on Pluto. Tweet your photos to us and NASA!
Article Announcing Haze and Ice Flows
Fun Paper Friday
This week’s fun paper sounds a little bit like Jurassic Park to us. What do you think? Blood vessels recovered from fossils.
Schweitzer, Mary H., et al. “Soft-tissue vessels and cellular preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex.” Science 307.5717 (2005): 1952–1955.
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
55 min
July 31, 2015Episode 28 - "You can tag your abstract with emoji. Wait, what?"
This week we get ready for conference abstract deadlines and talk about how we prepare abstracts. Everyone is finally back in town, but not for long!
Pluto show next week!
Abstract deadlines: AGU 8/5, GSA 8/11
GSA, new topical abstracts (search visually by emoji!)
How we prepare to write abstracts
Choosing the topical material. When do you stop reporting on research?*
Think about what session to submit to
Mind maps
Outlines
Stream of conscience writing
Abstract Madlibs
Don’t do this steps hours before it is due. Leave days to mull it over
How preliminary is your data? Is it ready for an abstract?
Writing the abstract
Check the conference guidelines… then check them again.
Open an editor. John uses plain text editors initially.
Send it around for others to look at
Decide on authorship early
Tools for collaborating (a whole other show)
Google docs
Word/dropbox
Evernote (although everyone involved needs premium)
Email… if you do this, please don’t admit it
Other Notes
AGU offering free conference registration
Be sure to submit a 5-minute Pop-Up Talk
Problems
How to pick a session (look for others you know?)
Submission system crashing
Getting people to edit it!
Over-reporting
Fun Paper Friday
This week we read about recovering old sounds from recordings with a microscope. Also hearing cursing at lab instruments in the old days. Nothing changes.
A Sweet Sound: Physicists Reconstruct Primitive Recordings
Applied Science SEM vinyl image
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
45 min
July 24, 2015Episode 27 - "They are terrifying" a volcanic road trip
Shannon hits the road again, so we talk about volcanics, earthquakes, and other disasters that can occur in the pacific northwest. We even talk about native stories of earthquakes and tsunamis.
Mount Rainier
Snake River
Crater Lake
Lassen Volcanics
Craters of the Moon
Capulin Volcano
1700 Cascadia Earthquake
Bonneville Slide
Orphan Tsunami
Story of the Thunderbird and Whale
Hitchhiker’s Guide Whale Scene
Great Basin National Park
Fun Paper Friday
When could Yellowstone erupt again? This week’s fun paper examines magma chamber refueling. Lots of neat geochemical profiles and diffusion techniques.
Till, Christy B., Jorge A. Vazquez, and Jeremy W. Boyce. “Months between rejuvenation and volcanic eruption at Yellowstone caldera, Wyoming.” Geology (2015): G36862–1.
Contact us:
Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]
John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
26 min

About Don't Panic Geocast

From the publisher's feed

John Leeman and Shannon Dulin discuss geoscience and technology weekly for your enjoyment! Features include guests, fun paper Friday selections, product reviews, and banter about recent developments.…