I've mowed my face down to just the mo now, for the last gasp at Movember. I'd like to thank both of the regular readers who have donated thus far. If anyone else wants to do so, the following link should take you to the donation page:
http://tinyurl.com/6j9jge
Please give generously.
Plymouth Rock, where the Mayflower pilgrims allegedly alighted on the new world, is a large boulder of Dedham granite. Like the pilgrims, this granite has traveled.
It is a glacial erratic, meaning that it was scraped off the ground and picked up by a glacier, and it then dropped into its current position when the glacier melted during the waning years of the last ice age. The Dedham granite from which it is derived is a neoproterozoic intrusive that forms much of the crystalline basement of the Esmond-Dedham terrane.
This terrane forms the bedrock of much of eastern Massachusetts and most of Rhode Island. The 680 Ma granites intrude older clastic sediments, which contain predominantly Grenville-aged zircons. But the basement on which those sediments settled is a mystery.
The Esmond-Dedham does not just have a mysterious bedrock; it has an exotic origin as well. It is an accreted terrane. It is a sliver of the southern supercontinent of gondwana, and only arrived at its present North American position in the last gasp of the Alleghenian orogeny, the last of the three mountain-building events that formed the Appalachian mountains.
So when the pilgrims stepped onto that rock, those transported souls were disembarking onto an erratic dropstone of a microcontinent, which itself had traveled from Africa, back before the Atlantic Ocean even started to form.
Here on planet earth, even the solid ground moves around the globe. Splitting, sliding past, colliding and attaching to each other, these continental fragments travel around the globe at the whims of convection.
In is not in the nature of this planet to be static; we leave that to the dead moons and asteroids of the solar system. But for an evening, tomorrow, we can cease our wanderings, and gather together for company, cheer, chow, and thankfulness. Unlike Plymouth Rock, most of us are not born of lava, witnesses to the birth of mountains and seas, and surfers of continental glaciers. But we can all tell stories, give thanks, and enjoy this great American holiday.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Nobody has requested any science posts, so I guess I should fill in the story of my job quest. I took my Mo on a tour of a prospective employer’s lab yesterday, and it didn’t seem to deter them too badly, which is good. Today, I had lunch with a former student from my lab tech days, who is now working in the geol survey’s geothermal section. This was not a direct job interview- or even a hunt for leads, but rather an information-gathering exercise in order to figure out who does what and how the industry works. Just because a company has a geothermal lease doesn’t necessarily mean that they employ field geologists. Some do, others contract out all of their actual dirt-involving services to service companies. Understanding who does what allows one to target the correct potential employee. And it's always nice to have an excuse catch up with people and see how they're going.
Tonight I need to apply for something for which application was encouraged- always a good sign, I suppose, but it doesn’t do to get too hopeful at this stage.
Below is my short-form resume, so all you Americans can tell me how inappropriate it is. I should get this guy tidied up in case I apply for work back home. Suggestions, compliments, and insults are welcome.
With Movember approximately 2/3 over, my ability to raise funds by looking even uglier than usual has been only marginally effective. While charity is not a competitive activity, I can’t help but point out that of all Australian Mo bros, I am currently the 28,100th most effective fundraiser. There are fewer than 50 towns in all of Australia with 28,000 people in them. So I think it is time for some incentives. For $20, you can nominate an area of facial hair to remove next. For $50, you may nominate a topic to be blogged here at the lounge. And for $100, you may do the same as for $20, but without the constraints of bilateral symmetry. But don’t give money because you want me to look funny. Do it for the depressed prostate sufferers.
Many people advocate putting large solar powerstations in arid regions. The reasoning behind this idea is that the land isn’t much good for anything else, and that the low rainfall will mean few clouds and high insolation. Trouble is, a lack of clouds does not necessarily mean that a lot of light is reaching the ground. For example, see the picture below.
This is a cloudless desert morning, and yet, the poor solar panel shown is producing very little power. The reason, of course, is that a dust storm is blanketing everything in yellow gritty haze. During the winter, the solar panel plus battery kicked the ass of our generator, which is cumbersome, old, messy, and often difficult to start. But after a day of hot dust, we had to recharge the battery from the car, and eat whatever meat had thawed. Cleaning it the next day was a bit of a pain as well.
On the other hand, a wind turbine would have been awesome, at least in the short term. I suspect that the full sized suckers, if installed in this environment, would eventually create dune deposits in their wakes. And the sandblasting probably wouldn’t do the rotors and bearings any favors either.
I formally submitted a job application yesterday to Geoscience Australia. Since the Australian government only hires permanent residents as an option of last resort, I suspect my chances are slim, but it looked like an interesting opportunity and was good practice for the world of official applications, form filling in, and other trappings of big organizations.
We'll see what happens. I won't post many details of job applications while they are pending. Might not be prudent, y'know.
