I want two things: what kind of feature this is, and where this particular one is. If I can’t have both, I’ll take the kind of feature and how they form. But I’ll bet one of you can pinpoint its exact location.
Ready? Go!
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For those who wish to donate themselves, the button still works fine:
If I don’t respond or fish a comment out of moderation quickly, forgive me: my internet connection is playing silly buggers off and on today. Your time stamp still counts, so no worries.
Cole Kingsbury won Challenge #3, putting another $10 in the SSA’s coffers in his honor. On to #4!
I’m gonna kick it up a notch: name the location, and what geologists suspect created it.
Geology Challenge Photo #4
Schott Rule in effect: Cole has to sit this one out until 5pm. Ron’s back in the game, though, so be fast, my friends! Hints at 4:30 if no one guesses before then.
Ready? Go!
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For those who wish to donate themselves, the button still works fine:
If I don’t respond or fish a comment out of moderation quickly, forgive me: my internet connection is playing silly buggers off and on today. Your time stamp still counts, so no worries.
Ron Schott pegged Challenge #2 as Wizard Island, Crater Lake, Oregon. He even got the exact viewpoint it was taken from. He is a Google Earth-fu Master. He’s also brought us up to $20.
This next one is some geology by air. Name the fascinating geologic location framed by the window and the wing, and you’ll be the next to get a $10 donation to the Secular Student Alliance in your honor!
Geology Challenge Photo #3
If no one identifies it by 3:30pm Pacific, I’ll start posting hints in the comments. I’m also putting a Schott Rule in effect: other folks will get a chance, but if no one’s identified it by 4, Ron can take the crown once again. Believe me when I say there’s no picture I can post that will stump him for long. That’s true for Earth, and I suspect that if I flew to Mars and posted a photo of some previously-unknown-to-humankind location, he’d have it pinpointed in about 10 seconds. Maybe 20.
Ready? Go!
***
For those who wish to donate themselves, the button still works fine:
If I don’t respond or fish a comment out of moderation quickly, forgive me: my internet connection is playing silly buggers off and on today. Your time stamp still counts, so no worries.
All right. So I saw people blogging into the wee hours of today and thought the SSA Week challenge lasted all day. I was wrong. It lasted until yesterday. So our SSA Week Geology Challenge has now become our Post-SSA Week Geology Challenge. Which is completely okay, because there’s still a $250,000 matching donation offer going on, through the end of the year, and that means that when you help me get to $50, you’re really helping me get to $100. Plus, whatever you decide to donate yourself doubles.
Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.
So here’s how this works: I’ll post a picture of some nummy geology, and ask you to identify it. Be first person who can identify the location or the feature (depending on whether the picture’s of a locale generally or a specific geologic feature), and I donate $10 to the Secular Student Alliance in your honor. Cynthia won the first challenge, which went up on G+. We’ve got four left!
All right, here’s our first. It’s a famous locale, so I’m only going to give you a tiny bit of it. This is supposed to be challenging, right?
Geology Challenge Photo #2
For this one, I want to know where it is, and what formed it. If we don’t have a winner by 2pm Pacific, I’ll start posting hints in the comments, but I think this one’s going to be a cake walk for most of you.
Okay? Go!
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For those who wish to donate themselves, the button still works fine:
Right. So. There’s this group called the Secular Student Alliance, which is a fantastic group and deserves support. You might have noticed many of my fellow FtBers doing insane things like blogging twenty-four hours straight for the cause. Jen and Natalie are in the final stretches of their respective blogathons as I write this. If you’re wondering why you should support the SSA, all you need to know is right here.
Now, I’m not capable or crazy enough to blog for 24 hours. Nor am I going to shake you down for cash. You absolutely should donate if you would like. But I still owe folks stories for Donors Choose (they will happen, just as soon as I get my Muse to return), so I’m not going to promise you future rewards this time. No, what I’m going to give you is some instant gratification, and it won’t cost you a single, solitary dime. How awesome is that?
Here’s how it will work: we’re having a geology challenge. Throughout the day, I’ll be posting pictures of various geological points of interest and/or features. We’ll have a total of five. I’ll donate $10 to the SSA in honor of the first person who correctly identifies the location and/or feature.
I did a trial run on G+, so we’ve got our first honoree. Cynthia correctly identified this image as Snoqualmie Falls, WA:
Snoqualmie Falls
I’d throw in a UFD for the challenge, but all we managed today was the arse end of a robin, so never mind. We’ll stick to rocks this time round. Don’t worry if you’re not an expert geologist, though: some of the challenge pictures will be locations that are fairly well-known, so you’ll have a chance to make me cough up cash on your behalf.
The goal is $100,000. We’re just a smidge over $10,000 away. My $50 may not go all that far towards completing the last 10%, but small donations add up. So, if you have a few pesos of your own you’d like to contribute, toss them at the Donate button below.
We’ll get properly started this afternoon. Ready, set…
My cat turned orange Friday morning*, so my day got off to a bit of a rocky start. Between that, intensive Mount St. Helens research, and the ongoing shitstorm caused by women asking for something as simple as harassment policies at conferences, I’m in the mood for something light and lovely.
Let’s turn the sky.
One of the first photos I took after moving to Seattle was the sky. People in Arizona didn’t believe me when I told them it didn’t rain all the time. My roommate and I were out in Discovery Park on a cloudless day, and so I shot a photo that was nothing but deep blue sky.
I’ve usually got my eyes on the ground (less so, now that you lot have gotten so excited over birds), but I’ve turned the sky into a backdrop on several occasions. I love shooting up into the sky. Everything looks rather different that way, sometimes dramatic, sometimes just beautiful.
I took this shot at North Creek Park last week. I like it quite a lot, with the seed heads on the grass waving to the clouds.
Grass and sky at North Creek Park, June 2012
That’s what the skies typically look like round here. You either learn to love clouds or you go mad. I quite enjoy clouds. They have interesting patterns and textures, and sometimes they frame things just so, or the light hits them just right, and they fascinate.
Of course, blue skies are even more fascinating up here on the coast of the Pacific Northwest, by virtue of their rarity. Chances at observing astronomical phenomena, no matter how ordinary, must be seized.
Moon over Madrona Park, July 2011
I love it when the moon appears in the daytime. Even close to sunset, there’s just enough light in the sky for my camera’s sensor to balance everything nicely, so I don’t end up with solid white blobs. One day, perhaps, I’ll have a camera that does all sorts of fancy things like filtering and other things I’m not well versed in. For now, I work with what I’ve got, and I haven’t any complaints.
Moon and pine, Olympic National Park, August 2010
The moon used to be the main reason why I shot the sky. But one spring, we took a walk in the neighborhood looking at all of the fruit trees abloom, and I shot up into the branches, against a cloudy sky, and discovered I liked that angle.
Blossoms against clouds, Bothell, March 2011
I figured they’d look magnificent against a blue sky, as well, so I awaited my chance this spring and seized it when the clouds were off doing something else.
Blossoms and blue sky, Bothell, April 2012
I love aiming up. Things look different, framed against the sky. Even ordinary little things look quite wonderful.
Pine cone sky, Olympics, August 2010
Tiny things that would be lost against a busy background stand out brilliantly against the blue.
Dragonfly Sky, Summer Lake, Oregon, August 2011
Colors blaze brighter. It doesn’t take a sunset to turn the sky scarlet and gold. Just a Japanese maple.
Maple blaze, Rhododendron Park, Kenmore WA, May 2012
And while I prefer natural subjects for my sky shots, there are times when old architecture cries out for the same treatment. When the setting sun sets the seminary bricks aglow, and the sky has barely a wisp of cloud, how can you resist?
St. Edwards Seminary, Kirkland WA, October 2010
You can turn the sky to a canvas, and paint such scenes on it.
*The cat’s fine, incidentally. The orange streak she’d left behind washing her little white chest wasn’t caused by some horrible medical condition. She’d gotten in to a bowl I’d left the night before, lapped up the remaining sauce, and then attempted a bath. This was a silly thing to do, as her tongue was coated with a paprika-spiced red wine and olive oil sauce. She looked ridiculous. I’d have shot a picture, but I didn’t have time before work, and now she’s back to ordinary tuxedo colors. Silly beast.
There will be a transcript soon, and then I will resign myself to being thoroughly outraged and disgusted. The Conversation has inevitably led to insane and sometimes vicious pushback against the women who are merely requesting mechanisms to enforce civilized behavior. And then the women and their male allies are excoriated by others for getting upset. They’re sideswiped by people who haven’t paid any damned attention to The Conversation and its long history, but think they know enough to pronounce judgment. I’m sick of this shit. And though I don’t want to do it, I shall take the Smack-o-Matic down from the wall and unleash it upon some deserving bottoms.
I’d rather be talking about rocks, and mystery flora, and UFDs, and all of those things. I’d rather not have to talk about something that should be remarkably fucking obvious to anyone with an ounce of human decency. I’d rather not risk tearing open old scars. And although I haven’t yet been subjected to the volume of abuse my fellow feminists have endured, I’m sure that day is coming. I don’t want to have to clean misogynists and accommodationist fuckwads out of my comments section, then listen to them whine about how oppressed they are because I won’t let them shit on my carpet. I don’t want to spend time forwarding rape and death threats to the police. But I refuse to stay silent.
You lot are going to hate me for calling this beauty “schmo with stick,” so let me begin by explaining why. It involves a cruise through Memory Lane with the top down, and my friend Neil sitting in the passenger seat. What can I say about Neil? He was utterly awesome. He and I had many deep conversations about life, the universe and everything. We were geeks. We beat each other with sticks. No, seriously. One of my fondest memories is when we were in our living room whaling on each other with sticks, my one against his two. This was a legitimate thing. He was helping me act out a fight scene so I could write it properly. In the middle of the melee, someone called. So there Neil is, phone tucked on his shoulder, still wielding a stick in each hand, and we continue our battle. At some point, the person on the other end must have asked what he was doing, because he said, “Oh, beating my roommate with a stick.”
I adored Neil. He was one of the most fun people I’ve ever had in my life. And he had the greatest business cards in the universe.
Neil's business card. Specific identifying information removed, but otherwise just as he made it.
So, you see, “schmo with stick” is a title of honor round here. I’m happy to bestow it upon this UFD, which is one of the most awesome I’ve ever had the pleasure to photograph.
The bad news is, y’all don’t get to play extraterrestrial geologists anymore. The good news is, I could dispense with the playacting because events on the volcano have become intense. Go find out how the 1980 eruptions began.
And check out these before-and-after photos I found, but didn’t use in the Rosetta Stones post. The difference is just a bit dramatic.
Here’s the summit on March 24th:
Oblique aerial photographs of the Mount St. Helens summit area showing historic thermal areas. Distance from False Summit to summit about 600 m. Viewed from north, thermal area A, near The Boot, is covered by snow, but its location corresponds to shallow dimple in snow surface. Photo by D. Frank. Skamania County, Washington. March 24, 1980. Portion of Figure 149-A, U.S. Geological Survey Professional paper 1250. Image courtesy USGS.
And on March 27th:
Oblique aerial photograph of summit of Mount St. Helens, looking south. Location of thermal area A indicated. Note that the new fractures cross ice and rock areas with no apparent change of style, indicating the fractures are deep seated. Photo by D. Frank. Skamania County, Washington. March 27, 1980. Portion of Figure 150, U.S. Geological Survey Professional paper 1250. Image courtesy USGS.
I’m having no luck tracking down the exact species, and I haven’t got time to pursue it. Hopefully, someone here will recognize which these are, and then we can entertain ourselves with trivia. I did, however, find several species that like basalt flows, so it looks like a trip to eastern Washington in search of monkeyflowers is in order. I also wish to track down our rare native species, Mimulus washingtonensis.
Monkeyflower hunters might want to peruse this site for our current suspect.
Mimulus III
Yes, I went a bit nuts photographing these. I love them. Love love love. I love their shape, and their strange leaves, and their red spots, and their little hairs. I love how different they are from the usual types of flora. I love how macro mode loves them.
Mimulus IV
They’re slightly exotic, yet quite friendly. And they certainly add interest to a place filled with green everything.
Mimulus V
And they seem rather sociable. Well, I suppose most wetland plants have to be. Everything’s crowded in, ten thousand things trying to grow in one spot, so you don’t tend to get loners. And sometimes, three sorts of flowers at once budge in petal-by-sepal, like friends crowding into a photo booth.
Tres Amigas
Okay, yes, they’ve kinda squashed our Ranunculus down towards the bottom, there, but still, everybody’s in the frame. And moments like this, when you find a tangled bank of endless forms most beautiful, you really have one of those sublime moments where hanging out with the results of billions of years of evolution make you delighted to be alive.
Unless, of course, you suffer from allergies, in which case, you might want to admire from afar.
