Ask Me Geology Questions!

I’ve got ambitions, people, and I must have your help with them. Don’t worry: this will ultimately benefit you!

I need to write a huge lot of stuff by the end of this month. My current plan is to get almost all of my blog posts written in advance for the summer, leaving me free to concentrate on Mount St. Helens stuff and fiction. And I want to write more about geology. Hence, I’d love for you to ask questions.

I’d especially love if a bunch of those questions had nothing to do with volcanoes. Don’t get me wrong: I loves me some volcanoes, too! But Rosetta Stones is meant to have a broader focus. There’s so much more to earth science than asplodey things.

My editor at SciAm would especially love it if those questions had nothing to do with Washington State, unless it’s to illustrate a broader principle. (For example: in my I-swear-I-will-write-it-this-summer article about large igneous provinces, I’ll be using the Columbia River Basalts as an example, and that is completely legit.)

ADDITIONALLY: If you send me really nice photos you’ve taken of some geology and ask me to write about them, I can totally do that if you’ll sign a form permitting me to use your pics. It’s completely free and easy. I’ll take stuff from anywhere in the world. Yes, even volcanoes, if you must.

Image shows me standing beside a huge pillar of basalt dropped by one of the Missoula Floods. It is about 13 or 14 feet high, and much wider than that, although only a portion of it shows in the photo. The rim of the coulee is behind me in the distance.
Moi with maclargehuge chunk of Frenchman Coulee’s wall.

Furthermore: If you want me to show you round Mount St. Helens personally, let me know so we can arrange something. If you feed me and pay for gas, I will be totally happy to Vanna White all over the national volcanic monument for your benefit.

Leave your questions in comments. You can send photos and requests for volcanic touring to dhunterauthor at gmail.

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Ask Me Geology Questions!
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5 thoughts on “Ask Me Geology Questions!

  1. 1

    I don’t know if this counts as geology or not:

    Is it likely that earthquake predictions will get more accurate? Or are they about as accurate as they’re ever going to be?

  2. 2

    1. (Volcano question) Pliny records that Vesuvius blew out sideways (like Mount St. Helens), burying Pompeii and Herculaneum. Until St. Helens erupted in a similar way, this account was not taken seriously by vulcanologists. Why not?

    2. What’s the story with Ayers Rock (aka Uluru) here in Australia? You have mile after mile of flat desert, and then this damn big rock. Is that simply where they dumped all the dirt from digging the Grand Canyon, as some claim?

    3. The city I live in, Sydney, has a lot of sandstone. Near the beaches one will often come across outcroppings of sandstone that have been weathered to form a honeycomb-like pattern. I suppose the missing bits must have been softer or more soluble inclusions that were worn away by waves or tides, but what were these inclusions made from? How did they get in the rock?

    4. How much pressure does it take to crush sand and turn it into sandstone, anyway?

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