Thursday, November 1, 2012

Looking for publicly available data and a good search engine?

Check out GeoDeepDive and initiative that is part of Earth Cube




Unrelated issue! Barbara Ranson from NSF recently shared this information with the MYRES community:

Announcement: DSV Alvin Science Verification Cruise
Early Career Scientists/Student Opportunity

Invitation to submit letters of interest for cruise participation ~

Early to mid-career scientists, postdocs, and graduate students are encouraged to apply to participate in a unique seagoing expedition with the new human-occupied vehicle (HOV) Alvin. Those selected will a) work with more experienced scientists to assess the capabilities of the new HOV Alvin, b) learn how to design and conduct effective deep-sea research programs and develop competitive proposals, and c) collaborate with seagoing and shoreside scientists to disseminate the results of the assessment and to engage other early career scientists in deep sea research.

Details about the Science Verification Cruise, early career scientist/student activities, and how to apply for this opportunity are contained in the attached announcement and on the UNOLS website at: http://www.unols.org/committees/dessc/EarlyCareer_SVC_Announcement_FINAL.pdf  

The deadline for submission in November 30, 2012.



Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Black Canyon Overlook – West of the Swell!!


More on the MYRES field trip, this time from the western side of the San Rafael Swell! After admiring the amazing geomorphological expression of the San Rafael Swell (see blog entry from 09/07/2012) we drove west through Spotted Wolf Canyon. This is the description that we had on our Field Trip guide (prepared by MYRES organizers):




From http://americanindian.net/utah2006l.html


“This section of the highway was the first road to breach the steep eastern side of the Swell and was not completed until 1970. This rest area provides an overlook of Black Dragon Canyon, with views of the bright red cliff-forming sandstones in the Triassic units in the eastern part of the Swell. As you look into Black Dragon Canyon you are stratigraphically at or very near the Permian-Triassic boundary (~248 Ma), marked by what is believed to have been the most extensive mass-extinction event in the geologic record. The rest area itself is located on the uppermost part of the Kaibab Formation (Permian); this is the same limestone unit that forms the rim of the Grand Canyon, several hundred miles south in Arizona (here the Kaibab Formation is near its northernmost and easternmost extent before pinching out). Below the Kaibab Formation, exposed in the walls of Black Dragon Canyon, is a Permian sandstone known as the White Rim Sandstone. This white to yellow-white cross-bedded eolian sandstone is a terrestrial equivalent of the marine Toroweap Formation in Grand in Grand Canyon, Arizona” 



Thursday, September 20, 2012

Open Access Journals and More Stuff for Free


Many times I have received emails from friends and colleagues asking me to chase a paper (or too many!) for them. You would think that most of these requests come from people that do not belong to academia and therefore do not have access to ‘free’ library services. Surprisingly, many of these requests come from colleagues working in academia who have found out the hard way that their institutions could not afford the affiliation to an increasingly larger number of journals. Not good!

I think I am spoiled since my institution has managed so far to keep up with the cost associated with access to major publications and no so common ones as well. There have been very few occasions in which I have not been able to find something using the online library services and when that happens the main reason is that the material is not in digital format. Imagine! A trip to the library where paper copies of books and magazines reside!

Once upon a time there was something called: A Library, where real books lived and you could cut your fingers with something call paper!
If you are not as lucky as I am or if you do not reside in close proximity to a major university library then you will for sure have a bumpy or very expensive ride to obtain that paper. Online access to individual journal articles is expensive, editorial houses ask people for a $30 fee on average for each article. In my last paper I used 50 references so if I had to pay to get access to them the total cost would have been $1500. Truth is that we need to read more than 50 papers to gather the necessary references, some of the papers we read will be useful and many others will be useless but you still need to have access to the information.

It has been argued that editorial houses are taking unfair advantage of the whole system for a variety of reasons: 1) They do not finance the research or author’s salaries. Often times is the tax payer the one that finances researchers through organizations like the National Science Foundation (NSF) among others, 2) They do not write the papers and they provide very little editorial support (e.g.: graphic design, format, language editors, etc). They actually ask authors to do the heavy duty editing of electronic files so that it complies with THEIR publication standards, 3) They do not even pay a penny for the articles to be reviewed. The scientific editors and the reviewers are asked to perform these duties for FREE, and 4) Times have changed and their printing costs have decreased exponentially with the digital era. Let’s not forget that they do not share financial gains with authors or their institutions. Question: A $30 fee for a single article? Really?

This situation has triggered some outrage among scientists and professionals and there is a movement that is trying to promote the concept of ‘open access journals.’ These journals are created by a group of ad-hoc people that act as editors and gatekeepers of these ‘new’ publications. Then the submitted papers are sent out for review to the same reviewers that look after the papers from the big editorial houses (they slave for free anyways!). The final product is a peer-reviewed paper that is available for free to the wider community. Isn’t that perfect?....Not really!

Free? Not that fast!
Even though I think the movement is valid and we all should try to contribute with this modality, there are a few ‘minor’ details that authors and readers need to take into consideration before fully embarking into the ‘open access’ experience: 1) The majority of these publications are relatively young so what happens if the editors decide that they are not interested anymore on pursuing their tasks? What happens if no one else wants to replace them on their positions? How would you feel if your paper was published in Volume 1, Number 1 of the best free journal of the world and…also its last issue! How do we ensure continuity? 2) Big editorial houses have one thing that these initiatives do not have: Infrastructure! Assuming that the open access journal will last forever. Where are they going to store the data? Who is going to cover for the cost of backups that need to be store on proper servers? Do they have backups? Do they have the infrastructure and personnel to transfer formats once .pdf is not the thing to have? 3) Are the papers really peer-reviewed? How do you know that the editor of a given open access journal is actually sending the papers out for review? and 4) Are the journals indexed? Implying that once your work is published and others start to cite the paper you can track the citations. Very important stuff for academics! 

Don’t get me wrong. I am not an advocate of big editorial houses since I think they have developed a very greedy and abusive system, however, I spend a lot of time an effort on my publications. This is my livelihood, kind of my babies and I can’t let them loose so easily without knowing what is going to happen to them down the road. I cannot afford that risk at this stage on my career. That said, I think there are some partial solutions for this issue and I think academics play an important role in trying to implement them, here my two cents: 

1) Most editorial houses ask you to sign a ridiculous amount of paper work relinquishing copyright of your work so that they can publish it without the risk of future legal action. However, many of them also state on the same paper work that you are allowed to use your paper for educational purposes (including posting a link on your own research webpage). Conclusion: If every scientist or academic would take the time to publish only with editorial houses or organizations holding this policy AND if everyone of them would take the time to keep up with an updated publication list (with links) things would be a bit easier for that scientist in Brasil trying to access a paper on how to prevent malaria in the 21st century! 

And 

2) I won’t mention which editorial houses I do not like BUT I’ll mention my three favorite ones: Geological Society of America (GSA), American Geophysical Union (AGU) and American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). These three organizations have the flexibility that I previously mentioned and I would be absolutely shocked if they dare suing an author for publishing their own work for educational purposes. Besides, these organizations are professional organizations, not mere editorial houses and a big chunk of their ‘profits’ go to support the community through conferences, meetings, grants for students and young researchers, etc. If I have to give my money to someone, I’ll give it to them!

I read and use open access journals and I am sure I’ll publish on those venues once the pressures of academic promotion are lifted off my shoulders. I just wish more senior scientists and professors would take the time and lead the effort to promote open access publications by publishing their own work in these venues. There are many open access journals out there but recently these two caught my eye so I hope you find them useful as well:

The Solid Earth – An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union [Link]

Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geologicas – Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico [Link]

Even better than that, open access heaven here: Directory of Open Access Journals [Link]

Now that you will have access to all these wonderful papers you will need to properly store and classify them so maybe EndNote at $249.95 will do the job for you?! I don’t think so…

Go for ZOTERO!!! Zotero is a FREE, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources [Link]

Finally, my publication list that I promise I’ll keep up to date [here]

Monday, September 17, 2012

A “Free” Graduate Education and More


This is going to sound a bit geeky but after starting my undergraduate degree I knew I wanted to pursue a graduate education. I also knew from the beginning that I wanted to get a PhD degree. I have to confess: I was always some sort of a nerd! I am sure my childhood friends will agree with me. The main motivation/inspiration arrived after meeting an incredible group of people that had already gone through the “graduate school experience” People like Drs. Maria Antonieta Lorente, Jairo Lugo, Rodulfo Prieto, Felipe Audemard, Frank Audemard and many others that were role models for an entire generation of young Venezuelan geoscientists. I am sure I am making some of them blush but I am unapologetic! Anyways, back then I had no clue how I was going to be able to afford a graduate education overseas but then I was lucky enough to meet my future supervisor Dr. Lesli Wood. Through her I had access to the most important thing an aspiring graduate student needs: Information!



The first thing you need to know is that if you are interested in acquiring a graduate degree in the geosciences, you do not need to sell your soul to finance your studies. There are many programs around the world that provide financing for graduate students. The ideal situation, in my opinion, is to find a good program that will allow you to pursue good research (in something you are interested on) and that at the same time can provide with a decent stipend and benefits. Graduate student salaries won’t make you rich but it should be enough so that you won’t have to eat canned tuna every day and when I talk about benefits…I am talking about health insurance! There are also some golden rules about graduate school and your pursue of academic ‘holiness’:
    
1Do not enroll in a program without knowing if you really like the line of research. We are talking about a commitment that will most likely involve more than 2 years of your LIFE! Many people succumb to the temptation of enrolling in a program just for the sake of joining the ‘graduate school club’ to then find out that they are absolutely miserable. A complete waste of time and a very effective prescription for misery!

Get familiar with the program before applying, talk to potential supervisors and their current graduate students. Your supervisor will be the ‘god’ of your world for a while and there are good and bad ‘gods’ out there. Don’t forget that…

Ideally (in my opinion), it would be good to have some previous work experience (~2 yrs) before starting graduate school. The risk is that after you start working things might get complicated, marriage, kids, house, dog and car payments can get in the way BUT if all these things happened and you were not thinking about graduate school when they happened THEN maybe you really did not want to get into graduate school after all! Getting a graduate degree while also having a family (significant others, kids and pets!) is not impossible but it is more challenging because it is not only your sacrifice but also the sacrifice of an entire family.

Graduate school should not be a ‘continuation’ of your undergraduate degree, a graduate student needs to be self-driven and an independent thinker. This is why I think having some work experience might be useful since it can help you shape those attributes and minimize the shock of hearing from your supervisor: ‘Go figure it out on your own kid!’

Graduate school IS NOT a profession! A master’s degree that takes more than 2 years is a waste of time and a PhD program that takes more than 5 years is an abomination. There are differing opinions on this topic but I firmly believe in the previous statement. A PhD in ten years? What is that? Shame on the student and specially…shame on the supervisor (slaver)!

Really think about the master’s versus PhD deal. If you want to join the work force on the private and/or pubic sector, chances are that a master’s degree will serve you well. If you want to write papers, do research for the rest of your life, teach, mentor younger people, have a lot of headaches and live in a salary that will be way inferior than the salary of your own former students and you are sure that life style will make you happy THEN you should go for a PhD. It's not that bad after all and I can wear jeans every day!
   
Remember, PhDs are not smarter than anyone else and embarking on a PhD program so that your mom can proudly say to her neighbors: ‘My son, the doctor, is coming back home to live with us because he could not get tenure’ is not something that you will feel proud of!
From the brilliant site www.phdcomics.com

Sorry you had to endure my preaching before the good stuff: The Jackson School of Geosciences offers a great graduate program in a variety of geoscience disciplines. The first hurtle to prove that you can be part of the graduate school experience is to complete a good application. You can find all the information you need to start the process HERE.

The program is VERY competitive and success depends more on your capacity to pay attention to details and comply with deadlines than anything else. Follow the instructions carefully, get good (to excellent) scores on your GRE and TOEFL, spend time on your statement of purpose since that letter needs to make an impression on the admission’s committee, and get good letters of recommendation. I am just mentioning opportunities at the Jackson School of Geosciences because that is my institution BUT you can find plenty of other opportunities across the globe. A good source of information is EOS the AGU newsletter, they always have postings advertising graduate student opportunities. GSA Today also advertises such positions with the advantage that this periodical from the Geological Society of America is free. Earthworks under the ‘Postgraduate Courses’ tabs is also excellent and most importantly free! 

If you think obtaining a PhD degree is the top of the stair…you are wrong! You can also get a post-doc! I have to confess that after obtaining my PhD degree thinking about embarking on something call ‘post-doc’ would make me sick! However, these are real research positions and in places like Europe it would be very difficult to obtain a permanent academic job without having a post-doc (or two! Better if you have three!). PhDs interested in settling on academic jobs have a challenging ride ahead of them (us!) since these positions are very competitive so a good post-doc can really give you a competitive advantage. Talking about post-doc opportunities, this one at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies looks like a good one [Link]

Now, if you are seriously thinking about embarking into the graduate school experience and you really want to know what awaits you then you need to read PhD Comics…It is all true! Seriously!

Friday, September 7, 2012

San Rafael Swell – A fake but Spectacular Reef!


Last couple of weeks have been a bit crazy! Plenty of things to do and a wonderful visitor to take care of but I am back! Today I thought I would share some pictures that I took as part of the MYRES field trip. This time I am showing images from the San Rafael Swell near highway I-70 in Utah. I highly recommend stopping at this location if you happen to be visiting Utah (see maps). 

Click image to enlarge 
Click image to enlarge 
Here I include the description from the MYRES field trip guide (copy and paste because I can’t describe it better than they did!):

“The San Rafael Swell is an elongated anticline that formed during the Laramide Orogeny; it is 80 miles long and 30 miles wide at its widest point. The steeply dipping eastern limb of the anticline forms a monocline that offers some of the most dramatic tectonic expression in this area; the white cliffs of Jurassic Navajo Sandstone that dominate the skyline as you drive west on I-70 are locally referred to as the San Rafael “Reef”, though this is used as a geomorphic term and does not imply carbonate structure.


This is indeed a dramatic tectonic view! The high dips to the west (Navajo Sandstone) sharply contrast with the almost horizontal beds to the east (Morrison Formation?). How do you accommodate all this deformation in such a small distance – from almost flat to almost vertical? How did that happen? I am just a humble stratigrapher! Photo by Lorena Moscardelli  [LINK to higher resolution]
Traveling west, the highway crosses flat terrain underlain by the Mancos Shale. The highway cuts almost perpendicular to the strike of the monocline going downsection as you proceed west; near mile post 150 the base of the Mancos shale is crossed. A sandstone ridge of the underlying Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone is visible near mile 149.5, and west of that are sandstones of the Cedar Mountain Formation. Stratigraphically below the yellow and brown Cedar Mountain Formation sandstones, red, gray, and green sandstones and shales of the Jurassic Morrison Formation begin to outcrop. The Morrison Formation is exposed along I-70 between miles ~147.5 and ~149. West of mile post 147, sandstone and shale outcrops of the Entrada Sandstone and Carmel Formation tilt sharply upward with beds dipping to the east, defining the monocline at the eastern margin of the San Rafael Swell.


Inset 1 above: In this picture, I am standing on top of the Entrada Sandstone. On the background, you can see the monocline and the reddish Carmel Formation on top of the Navajo Sandstone. Photo by Penn State graduate student

At The Rest Stop (see maps)

This rest stop offers a view of the eastern side of the San Rafael Swell, with its abrupt monocline forming the steep “reef” topography. The hill of red sandstone and shale at the rest area is part of the Jurassic Entrada Sandstone, the same unit from which the arches of Arches National Park are formed. In this area, however, the Entrada Sandstone is less resistant than it is to the southeast, and has eroded to encircle the main topography of the San Rafael Swell at a lower elevation. Beneath the Entrada Sandstone are sandstone beds of the Carmel Formation, Jurassic near-shore marine and tidal-flat sediments, which occur as purple, red, and tan sandy beds that dip steeply to the east immediately above the white, cliff-forming Navajo Sandstone.


Inset 2 above: In this picture the contrast between the steeply dipping beds associated with the San Rafael Swell to the west and the almost horizontal beds of the Morrison Formation (?) to the east is astonishing 

As you continue west on I-70; the road leads you downsection into the center of the San Rafael Swell. The road passes through the Jurassic Carmel Formation, Navajo Sandstone, Kayenta Formation, and desert-vanished sandstone cliffs of the Wingate Formation, then through bright red sandstones and shales of the Triassic Chinle and Moenkopi Formations. Just east of mile post 144, the road crosses into limestone of the Permian Kaibab Formation (immediately west of the Triassic red beds)”

So if you are in that part of the continental USA…go check it out! It is really spectacular! 

Monday, August 27, 2012

The Castlegate Sandstone and The Miners


On my recent field trip to Utah with the MYRES group we also visited an outcrop of the Castlegate Sandstone (Book Cliffs – click here for more information). This particular section shows fluvial sandstones that are intercalated with abundant coal intervals. Hajek and Heller (2012) described this units as follows : “The Castlegate Sandstone was deposited in a foreland basin by rivers that flowed eastward off of the adjacent Sevier Orogenic Belt into the Cretaceous Interior Seaway (Fouch et al., 1983). The base of the section is considered to be the Castlegate sequence boundary (CSB), across which fluvial Castlegate Sandstone deposits are juxtaposed atop fluvio-deltaic sandstones of the Blackhawk Formation (Campanian; Fouch et al. 1983). In its type section just north of Helper, Utah, the Castlegate Sandstone is divided into three informal units (Fouch et al. 1983): the lower, cliff-forming sandstone-dominated interval, widely interpreted as resulting from braided-river deposition (e.g., Chan and Pfaff 1991; Miall 1994; Adams and Bhattacharya 2005; McLaurin and Steel 2007); the middle mudstone-dominated interval with isolated sandstone channel-belt deposits, interpreted as sinuous single-thread river deposits (e.g., Chan and Pfaff 1991); and the upper “Bluecastle Tongue” of the Castlegate Sandstone, a sandstone-dominated, cliff-forming interval. In general the Castlegate Sandstone in its type area is wholly fluvial in origin; however, evidence of tidal and brackish water influence has been reported in the middle Castlegate interval in the type locality (McLaurin and Steel 2000).”

MYRESV participants attacking the outcrop! Picture by Lorena Moscardelli

Castlegate Sandstone - Fluvial sandstones intercalated with abundant coal intervals. Picture by Lorena Moscardelli


Hajek and Heller (2012) used LIDAR images of fully preserved bar clinoforms from the Castlegate Sandstone to measure clinoform heights and used these measurements as a proxy for paleoflow depth.

This particular outcrop is located near a power plant and several coal mines that have been operating in this region for decades. Obviously, the Castlegate Sandstone with its abundant coal intervals is an important component of the energy and economic equation in this region. However, we should not forget that the coal business is not only dirty (from an environmental perspective) but also dangerous (in a more tangible way). On March 8, 1924 an explosion occurred in the Castle Gate No.2 Mine that instantly killed 171 miners and one emergency worker. The majority of the miners were immigrants who left 241 children behind and 25 expectant mothers. Unfortunately, this was not the last tragedy in this region and on July 31, 2000 an explosion on the Willow Creek Mine took the lives of 2 miners sending 8 more to the hospital. After this last explosion, the Willow Creek Mine was closed for good. Energy has a price that sometimes is just too high.

Memorial Willow Creek Mine Explosion - July 31, 2000

Castle Gate Mine Disaster - March 8, 1924 


References:

Hajek and Heller (2012) Flow-depth scaling in alluvial architecture and nonmarine sequence stratigraphy: Example from the Castlegate Sandstone, Central Utah, USA. Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 82, 121-130

Thursday, August 16, 2012

The Thistle Landslide


I was recently invited to attend the MYRES 2012 meeting. MYRES stands for “Meeting of Young Researchers in Earth Sciences” This is a “community building effort dedicated to young scientists in Earth Sciences. The effort is centered on a biannual meeting during which various interdisciplinary approaches are presented to try to solve a common geological or geophysical problem.” This year’s theme was “The Sedimentary Record of Landscape Dynamics” and it was organized by a group of very smart/cool/young scientists working for a variety of academic, governmental and private institutions. The meeting was hosted by the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where we spent several days listening to presentations and brainstorming about the future of our respective disciplines. We also spent a lot of time talking about community efforts and how to integrate sub-disciplines to try to solve the ‘bigger questions’ of the source-to-sink conundrum (I’ll be posting more about this later). At the end of the week, we embarked into a wonderful field trip through Utah and my summarizing comment is “there are a lot of exposed rocks in that part of the world.” We were looking at the stratigraphy as well as to modern surface processes and since I have a special passion for all things mass-wasted, I’ll start by sharing with you information about the “Thistle Landslide”.

Thistle landslide, August 2012 (Photo by Lorena Moscardelli)

According to the Utah Geological Survey, the Thistle Landslide was the most costly landslide in U.S. history (at least before 2005): “Record-breaking precipitation in the fall of 1982, followed by a deep winter snow pack, then warm spring temperatures and rapid snowmelt in 1983 set the stage for the Thistle landslide. Once triggered, the slide reached a maximum speed of 3.5 feet per hour and dammed Spanish Fork River within a few days.” You can read more about this landslide here. It’s a really fascinating story since it allows us to appreciate the real impact of geological process in a very human time scale! The other thing that I think is fascinating is the fact that in the equivalent time of “less than a second” (geologic time scale!) this particular process generated a deep scar on the landscape and a deposit that has a good chance of preservation (maybe? partial preservation?). It makes you wonder, how much of the geologic record is dominated by short-termed lived catastrophic processes? I am a catastrophist by nature but I am just saying… 
  
If you want to see more of the geology of Utah download this plug-in for GoogleEarth!


Update:

After I posted this entry, I saw a video of a mudflow that took place last week in Austria - click here to watch video. You will see that the nature of this event is more catastrophic than the Thistle Landslide since the last one only traveled at maximum speeds of 3.5 feet per hour. The original rheology of the failing material has a great deal to do with these differences. Really amazing!