The Mars Curiosity Rover continues to make its way through the basin of Gale Crater on Mars. I’ve provided periodical updates on its progress as it makes its way toward a large mountain in the center of the crater. For the past six months the rover has not moved much, spending its days using the... Continue Reading →
Imagine a tropic island paradise with beautiful beaches and thousands of plants and birds. Chances are you are imagining an island that formed as the result of volcanic activity. Examples would include the Caribbean islands, the Polynesian islands, and the Hawaiian Islands. But imagine what those islands looked like when they first formed. Rather than... Continue Reading →
Trillions of stone artifacts cover the surface of the African continent. The product of the manufacturing of stone tools by hunters and gathers over long periods of time, these stone artifacts literally carpet the ground in some places in Egypt and Libya. Just how much Stone-Age produced rock could be strewn across the African continent? Trillions and trillions... Continue Reading →
News of evidence that Mars was once host to a volume of water equivalent of the Arctic ocean on Earth has been hitting the newswires. This might sound like new news but this is really just a more comprehensive analysis of work that has been ongoing for several years. Preliminary analysis had already suggested that... Continue Reading →
In November of 2013, over 600 miles south of Tokyo, a volcanic eruption formed a new island. That new island continued to grow for over a year, eventually joining itself to the neighboring island of Nishino-shima, a volcanic island formed long ago. Today, volcanic activity continues to cause this new ocean-island to expand bringing it... Continue Reading →
Diatoms with their symmetrical highly-photogenic glass houses may get most of the attention but the foraminiferans (forams) present some formidable competition. In my recent article (Life in a Glass House) I revealed that the glass-house remains of diatoms are conspicuously absent from the bottom two-thirds of the geological column. This raised a rather uncomfortable question... Continue Reading →
Eleven years into a three-month primary mission the Opportunity rover is still making discoveries on Mars. Talk about exceeding your specs! That is eleven years of observations of rocks, craters, sand dunes, weather conditions and the occasional glance into the skies to do some astronomy. To celebrate its 11th anniversary the rover has just climbed to... Continue Reading →
"Every breaking wave on the shore Tells the next one there'll be one more" Bono and Edge, U2 "Every Breaking Wave" 2014 I was in San Diego a few weeks ago attending the Evangelical Theological Society conference. I will report on that later but today I bring you a few pictures I took before hopping... Continue Reading →
Hundreds of millions and possibly billions of stone artifacts sit just under parking lots and homes in Kathu, South Africa. A small sample of those artifacts were examined a few years ago in a vacant lot scheduled to be developed into a shopping plaza. A simple trench and pits dug in that lot revealed a... Continue Reading →
The Mars Curiosity Rover continues to make its way through the basin of Gale Crater on Mars. I've provided periodical updates on its progress as it makes its way toward a large mountain in the center of the crater. Recently it has driven down almost 1000 feet to arrive at nearly the lowest elevation point... Continue Reading →
While writing about the origins of the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley I was confronted once again with one of the most striking pieces of evidence for an ancient earth that I am aware of. Take a look at the figure below. This figure shows the smoking gun. Smoking gun evidence of what? That the earth's plates... Continue Reading →
Moab will have yet another dinosaur attraction coming this fall. More than 200 reptilian footprints scattered over an area less than a football field have been uncovered after a resident discovered a few tracks while hiking. Dinosaur tracks are known from dozens of locations in this area but this site is unusual because of the... Continue Reading →
The road cut through Sideling Hill in Maryland on I-68 is one of the best displays of roadside geology east of the Mississippi River. Having spent considerable time in the western US it doesn't seem that impressive to me but since I've been deprived of seeing geological strata for the past year I took a... Continue Reading →
Most of us remember our first life-like encounter with dinosaurs sitting in a theater watching Jurassic Park (1993). Although dinosaurs had been very popular in picture books for many years the vivid recreation of them on the screen rekindled a sense of awe of these amazing creatures of a past age. Today, movies with depictions... Continue Reading →
Following up on a new Ichythosaur discovery last week (When Marine Reptiles Ruled the Sea) the fossilized footsteps of a Nothosaur have been unveiled. This time we go to China where a geological surveyor stumbled onto a few fossil tracks on a small ledge. Cutting back into the side of the mountain, paleontologists exposed 350 prints as part of... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 