The Appalachians are older than the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies, but they are not the oldest mountain chain in North America. All the mountain chains older than the Appalachians have long since eroded away, their remnants mostly leveled by glaciers and buried by sediments. Massive mountains chains like the Himalayas have formed in North America more than a dozen times, but the only evidence they ever existed are the rocks that were morphed by the high pressures and temperatures miles beneath the peaks that formed billions of years ago. Mountain chains form as rocks are compressed between c ..read more

It is not fun to experience a natural disaster. It is scary and overwhelming, intense & terrible. Yet the world we love would not exist without the countless disasters that have created our home planet. Can you imagine a world without mountains and valleys? If there are no mountains, then rivers do not exist either. The world would be a vast ocean, any land would be washed away by the power of ocean waves. Without uplift caused by earthquakes we would have a water world. The terrestrial landscapes we love would not exist, because mountains form when earthquakes uplift them or volcanoes bu ..read more

For those of you who live along the coast of Central and Northern California, you likely live in the California Coast Ranges and on top of the Franciscan Complex, a chaotic mix of rock that started to form when the dinosaurs were walking on Earth. What makes it complex is a large number of ingredients and the intense degree to which they have been mixed. The assemblage of this rocky chaos is a 200 million year story of tectonic collision, volcanic eruptions, the formation of the San Andreas Fault, and the rise of the California Coast Ranges. California’s coastal mountains are not the Himalay ..read more

Where is the Tethys Sea? I was lucky enough to spend time on one of the last vestiges of the Tethys Sea this summer as a heat wave baked the land and sea and me. I floated in the bathtub-warm salty waters on the edge of a once-ocean, knowing that beneath me was the oldest oceanic crust still residing beneath the waves. For millions of years before it was a sea it was an ocean, and it encircled the entire Earth. So why don't people know about it today? We call the last remaining vestiges of the Tethys the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian, & Aral Seas. The Tethys Ocean dominated the tropical l ..read more

How do you interact with the Earth? Humans have an intimate connection with the Earth, all plant and animal Earthlings do - we evolved to survive on this planet. But humans can consciously hone our connection to our planet by developing our observational and experiential skills. As a geologist, a yoga teacher, and a fitness instructor, I have chosen paths of knowledge that hone my body & mind for Earth observation, which has served to deepen my appreciation for our planet. How do you sense your location on Earth? Consider how you know that you are moving up or down hill, or that you are w ..read more

Imagine, you are in a space ship. Below is a world with oceans and land, volcanic eruptions, swirling clouds, dust storms, and carpets of green where plants thrive. You prepare to send a shuttle to the surface to explore this new world. What weather will you encounter? What conditions might you have to survive? How will you prepare for the range of conditions you observe from above? How fast might those conditions change? The longer you can observe the surface spectacle from above the better you understand the chaotic conditions you might contend with upon landing. Humans and all other Earth l ..read more

There are ~1,350 potentially active volcanos on Earth. In 2022 people flocked to see the spectacle of volcanic eruptions in Iceland, Hawaii, Tonga and Indonesia, 4 of the 74 confirmed eruptions of the year. Earth has been volcanically active since it formed 4.6 billion years ago. In the tumultuous origins of our Solar System Earth was a giant sphere of magma tens of millions of kilometers from Sol (aka the Sun, our star), and it slowly grew and cooled forming a crust that trapped heat deep in the core of the planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhy1fucSRQI Earth's molten core continues to c ..read more

Develop survival habits now All natural disasters make you highly aware of how you interact with & are at the mercy of the environment. Whether it is a geological, meteorological, or biological natural disaster, it threatens safety and well being, and we have to react quickly to keep ourselves and love ones safe. How do YOU react to a natural disaster? Is there anything you need to change to be more prepared for the future? Natural disasters are times of rapid and sometimes catastrophic changes that naturally occur on planet Earth, and directly affect the survival of humans. They range fr ..read more

The winter solstice is the first day of winter & the shortest day of the year in Earth's northern hemisphere...and the longest day of the year in the Southern hemisphere. It occurs annually between December 20th and December 23rd, depending on if it is a leap year among other factors. The Gregorian calendar that we use daily doesn't line up with astronomical cycles perfectly.   Earth's seasons, equinoxes, and solstices are the result of Earth's revolution/orbit around the Sun. In December the North Pole is pointing away from the Sun so the Northern hemisphere gets less light & exp ..read more

Today (Tuesday, September 22nd) is the first official day of autumn for the northern hemisphere. The word autumn simply indicates the season following summer. The origin of the word is lost to time as far as I can tell, but this day marks the moment when the Earth's orbit causes the Sun to cross Earth's equator, and the southern hemisphere's spring season begins, and the northern hemisphere's winter season commences. This year the Autumnal Equinox occurs at 6:30amPST. On the autumnal equinox, the ever moving boundary between light and dark on Earth cuts right through both the north and south ..read more