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2013-06-16 02:02:17 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

Another bit of Oakland geology.

2013-06-14 03:08:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Opening the Gene Box of a Key Ocean Species

"This week in the journal +Nature Publishing Group, a worldwide team of 75 scientists revealed the genetic blueprint of the one-celled alga Emiliania huxleyi, which may be the most important species you’ve never heard of. The genomes of the domestic dog and cat are interesting, but the E. huxleyi genome is a much bigger story. Some day this organism may become another of our partner species, as vital to us as yeast."

Read more from +Andrew Alden: http://goo.gl/ctHkz

2013-06-01 04:56:50 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I feel the absence of a certain theme in the new Gallery of California Natural Sciences at OMCA. Can you guess what it is?

2013-05-31 17:17:35 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Oakland Museum’s Nature Section Is Back in Business

+Andrew Alden took a backstage tour this week of the Oakland Museum's newly revamped California Gallery of Natural Sciences - read more about the transformed gallery.

2013-05-25 23:10:11 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Where I spent last Sunday: rummaging among thousands of bones in the backstage archive of the Fairmead Landfill collection.

2013-05-18 00:12:47 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

NASA spots an especially bright Moon impact

2013-05-13 04:18:16 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Another puzzle in Oakland's geology that may not really be a puzzle.

2013-05-05 00:09:21 (13 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Get to know your local fault before it comes knocking on your door.

2013-04-26 00:27:17 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

That $200 million adjustment to the Calaveras Dam project? I looked into the geology involved.

2013-04-24 02:46:58 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

This place seems to be a neighborhood secret. Make it yours.

2013-04-18 20:12:13 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Fremont was a leading wine region for a while, but its foremost winery was built right on the Hayward fault. The S.F. Earthquake, 107 years ago today, destroyed it. But as I was writing this piece I started fantasizing what kind of wine region the East Bay might have been if a few things had gone differently. Oakland might have been a noted sparkling-wine appellation, with all those Bay-cooled sand dunes in today's downtown. And the Fruitvale reds might have been world-famous. If only...

2013-04-17 16:10:52 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2013-04-11 20:18:47 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

What I did on my field trip yesterday.

2013-04-03 00:29:36 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

They're alike in that our ideas about them are changing. Careful students will consider them separate species of idea.

2013-03-28 21:09:09 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

The Rocks of Devil's Slide

Lovers of #geology look forward to inspecting the roadcut along old Route 1 at Devil's Slide next year.

Read more in today's post from +Andrew Alden: http://goo.gl/BnY1y

2013-03-27 00:29:04 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Like the giant said in "Twin Peaks": it's happening again.

2013-03-23 05:09:23 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

2013-03-22 00:13:10 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

"Do right by the fish and the air and other laws that protect them, no need to do it again in CEQA, assalamu alaykum"

2013-03-21 20:16:44 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Scientists Celebrate a Long-Dead Whale

A new paper describes the slowly rotting skeleton of a whale on the seafloor near the South Sandwich Islands, between South America and Antarctica. Why is such a thing exciting to geologists?

Find out in +Andrew Alden's newest blog post for +KQED SCIENCE: http://goo.gl/us7Mi

2013-03-19 03:17:00 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Shut up, G+, I don't want to change my cover photo. Don't remind me ever again.

2013-03-14 20:08:28 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Argentine ants are transforming our local soils. Maybe Earth sees us the same way: an aggressive invasive species that's wreaking havoc in the global ecosystem. Remember, Anthropocene starts with "ant."

2013-03-12 05:11:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

More in sorrow than in anger, I must say, because I dearly love the USGS.

2013-03-07 23:07:17 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Still Mining Gold in the Golden State

California is not yet finished producing the gold that made it wealthy and famous - read more in today's blog post from +Andrew Alden: http://goo.gl/P5Kf7

2013-03-06 04:28:06 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Testing my blog -> G+ button from my Oakland Geology blog.

2013-02-21 23:29:19 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Obscure, schmobscure!

2013-02-15 00:27:31 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Love Rocks!

Our geology blogger, +Andrew Alden, says #geology is a perfect pastime for dates. Here’s a list of romantic spots for Bay Area geologists (and those who love them). 

2013-02-09 02:00:46 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Hey, I would like to collect some romantic stories involving geology from any of you folks reading my posts. Did you tie the knot in a cave? Pop the question on a lava flow? Get giggly on a glacier? I'm thinking that the fling you had once at that big overseas meeting might be kind of generic, though, unless you can work a fossil species into it or something. Post here or write me at geologyataboutguidedotcom. TIA.

2013-02-07 19:30:41 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

What sounds have you heard from the Earth?

Learn about geological sounds in today’s post from +Andrew Alden at KQED Science.

2013-01-28 19:12:18 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) says, "A fully developed earthquake early warning system would provide Californians critical seconds to take cover, assist loved ones, pull to the side of the road, or exit a building."

2013-01-24 21:35:49 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Geological Outings Around the Bay: San Bruno Mountain

There is no Bay Area peak more central than San Bruno Mountain, and it's remarkably unspoiled.

Take a visual #geology hike with +Andrew Alden in today's KQED Science blog post: http://goo.gl/lZXvX

2013-01-19 19:59:56 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I see that a local middle school, Claremont Middle School, had a Science Night that featured an "Earth Science Dinner." Anybody know what they served?

2013-01-18 00:44:47 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Placing a Bet on the Surface of Mars

Curiosity, the most recent robot rover, has especially piqued +Andrew Alden's curiosity as a geologist.

"I think there are two reasons: the darn thing has finally become a decent field assistant, and +NASA is sending it to some of Mars' most Earthlike places. So let me channel the late Huell Howser here and share some of what makes me go, "That's amazing!"

2013-01-16 19:39:00 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Just a reminder.

2013-01-14 01:54:44 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I was taken aback, in a discussion on Salon, when a commenter said, "Look, [so-and-so] is a geologist," by which he meant to say (I think) that so-and-so could only be a blinkered dupe of the oil industry. So I'd like to hear some examples of weird and even dangerous ideas that people have about geologists.

2013-01-10 23:47:39 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Geological Outings Around the Bay: Las Trampas Regional Wilderness

"Each day thousands of people take the back road between Castro Valley and San Ramon through Crow Canyon. They all pass the road up Bollinger Canyon. A handful of people take that road to an unassuming park that holds the highest hills between Mount Diablo and the Bay. Here the rocks between the Hayward and Calaveras faults have been pushed together and rumpled upward into chaparral-covered ridges laced with smaller faults. Both quiet and rugged, Las Trampas Regional Wilderness is an archetypical California place."

Read more from +Andrew Alden in today's #geology  post.

2013-01-04 23:26:14 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Woo-hoo, is this Forbes writer getting roasted after she cut-n-pastes a "jobs survey" finding that professors have the most stress-free job of all.

2013-01-03 21:17:43 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

It's THIS close to being our next National Park.

2013-01-01 03:44:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

2012-12-31 18:53:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Answers are now up for my Bay Area Holiday Geology Quiz, the one I do for KQED Quest Science Blogs.

2012-12-31 04:37:26 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 2 +1s)

Johannes Kepler tried to understand his cosmos through mathematics and music. The music of the spheres he came up with inspired this set of chamber pieces that has been an earworm in my household for several years and counting.

2012-12-27 21:31:23 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The 2012 Bay Area Geological Holiday Quiz

How much do you know about #geology in the Bay Area? Test your knowledge with this quiz from +Andrew Alden. 

2012-12-25 22:31:46 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

The 2012 Christmas Geology Quiz is up!

2012-12-21 03:00:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

My post today for KQED Quest Science Blogs: Remember that meteor fall in the gold country last spring? Here's what we've learned so far.

2012-12-14 01:41:40 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Help Find the Healdsburg Tektites

Half meteorite, half Earth rock, tektites are geological oddities that may be part of a new strewnfield in the northern Bay Area. Keep your eyes open for them!

Learn more from +Andrew Alden: http://goo.gl/WpYxC

#geology  

2012-12-08 04:36:05 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Side Trips from Interstate 5: The Eastern Klamaths

"This is an ambitious side trip that you might try on your next trip north to Portland. At Redding, you turn left off the freeway and instead of the 70-mile burn up I-5 to Weed, you take about 120 miles and 3 or 4 hours extra to meander through some of California's most unusual country: the peridotite lands of the eastern Klamath Mountains."

Read more from +Andrew Alden in today's #geology  exploration.

2012-11-29 23:51:04 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

The Mighty Monterey Formation: In Your Future

"The Monterey Formation has more than 15 billion, about two-thirds of the whole nation's quantity. Love it or hate it, the Monterey is important for everyone in this state. And parts of it—not the most oil-rich part, mind you—are in the Bay Area."

Read more from +Andrew Alden in today's  #geology  blog post.

2012-11-15 23:23:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Geological Outings Around the Bay: Los Trancos Open Space

“Due south of Stanford, way up in the high hills, Los Trancos Open Space Preserve offers an excellent place to study the San Andreas fault. The preserve has a well-annotated trail that will show you good examples of the odd landforms and disturbances found all along the fault from Point Arena to the Salton Sea. Craig Rosa presented this trail for KQED QUEST a few years ago, and I can’t improve on that. But since that time, geologists have gained a thrilling new tool for seeing landscapes: lidar mapping.”

Learn more from +Andrew Alden in today’s KQED Science geology blog: http://goo.gl/UDXCQ

2012-11-03 02:24:08 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Dang, I'm going to miss my Google background image.

2012-11-01 21:15:40 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Watching the Atmospheric Rivers Flow

"Atmospheric rivers are important research topics for both scientific and practical reasons. How do they interact with El Niño/La Niña cycles? How will climate change affect them? How can we better protect ourselves from them?"

Learn more from in today's blog post from +Andrew Alden.

2012-10-25 23:37:27 (3 comments, 3 reshares, 7 +1s)

Did you know that sand sings?

"Singing sands, also known as booming dunes, were once the stuff of legend. Marco Polo reported them from the steppes of central Asia. Nineteenth-century travelers and scientists, including Charles Darwin, observed them. Twentieth-century researchers recorded them, played with their sand in the lab, and tried mathematical models on them. This week a new paper is coming out in Geophysical Research Letters that marks a new proposition in the genteel argument among scientists over singing sand."

Read more from our geology blogger +Andrew Alden and check out several cool videos of singing sand within the post.