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.

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” 

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]

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!

2 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…

3 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.

4 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!’

5 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)!

6 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!

   

7 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!

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! 

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

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!

Sweating the Data!

As some of you know I have been offshore for the last 20 days collecting seismic data in the Gulf of Mexico. It is starting to feel like a lifetime! I was lucky to be invited as part of a scientific team led by Dr. Tip Meckel from the Bureau of Economic Geology and Dr. Nathan Bangs from the Institute of Geophysics to acquire some data using a relatively new seismic acquisition system (P-Cable). This has been my first experience offshore and it has proven to be both rewarding and challenging. The rewards come from the opportunity to learn about the whole process that involves offshore seismic acquisition operations. The challenges come from living conditions on a small and old boat.

Sun set from a vessel that should not be named somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico

As a seismic interpreter I saw acquisition operations from a distant fence. Those geophysists do their thing and I get the processed data. Not a big deal. Many years ago I went to an onshore seismic acquisition project in eastern Venezuela as part of a training program. That previous experience looks now a bit distant and I was too young to fully appreciate the magnitude of what was happening around me. From now on I’ll be more appreciative of each seismic line I see because it’s taking us ~2.5 hours to acquire each of them on this cruise (if everything goes as plan). I am also starting to think that some geophysists are trained to become “masters of the universe” because they know everything! How I was supposed to know that the 60 Hz noise on the data was coming from the ship generators? Maybe a microwave? I also learned that grounding equipment is very important!

Geophysists working in acquisition projects seem to develop some sort of a special spiritual aura that allows them to stay cool on situations that can look to the rest of us as absolute chaos. Nathan: “Every problem has a solution” and sure enough the solution was found at some point. These guys are incredible sources of knowledge. Experience counts! They actually have a brilliant sense of humor, even though it takes a while to tune into their very nerdy jokes.

I hope we can soon share results from this adventure with the wider world. I would definitely repeat the experience (on a different boat!). For those of you interested on the system, I recommend you check out the P-Cable webpage. We have the equipment! Let me know if you want to invest in our next expedition.

Unrelated issue, I think you should all read this wonderful article. I deserve to be allowed to a bit of egocentric extravaganza after all these days out here!

Close to loose our minds sometimes but never our sense of humor. That would be the end us!

Technology is a Bless!

As you probably already know, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is “an international research organization that conducts seagoing expeditions to study the history of the Earth recorded in sediments and rocks beneath the seafloor.” I am sure I am not adding anything new here. This program makes available their scientific findings and data to the public through their webpage but sometimes finding what you are looking for can be a bit of a headache. The good news is that they have improved their “Google Earth Scientific Borehole map” and this tool really makes the difference. There are instructions on how to download and install the Google Earth plug-in in the following web address: http://www.iodp.org/borehole-map/ 

This is my short version of how to do it:

1.  You need to have Google Earth on your computer. This is free software and you can download and install the package using this link http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html
2.  Open Google Earth
3. Go to Add on the main menu
4. Select Network Link
5. A window will pop-up
6. On the ‘Name:’ field type IODP
7. On the ‘Link:’ field copy and paste the following link: http://campanian.iodp-mi-sapporo.org/google/data/iodp.kml
8. Voila! You should be able to see the IODP directory on the left column under places so make sure that the box is checked

Keep in mind that you will be able to see the location of the boreholes but once you try to access the data trough the links you will need to create an account with IODP. Creating this account is pretty simple and it gives you automatic access to reports and other useful data. Some information, like images for bathymetric maps will require additional authorization and they provide a contact email address to request access. There you go!

IODP Data on the GOM using Google Earth - active links will allow you to access data and reports

Since we are talking about cool sites, then let’s also talk about mareano! This webpage contains bathymetric maps and a series of tools that allow you to see information about sediment composition, biotopes and habitats in Norwegian waters. An online GIS interface makes it very easy to select different layers of information and to navigate trough the data. Highly recommended!

MAREANO has an online GIS tool that allows you to display lawyers with different data types

MAREANO maps also have active links that provide access to higher resolution images that you can download

The Ocean Explorer webpage from NOAA is also an online gem with lots of updated information  about ongoing offshore exploration around the world. Check it out!

Atlantic Canyons Undersea Mapping 2012 Expedition

Well! I shall go and prepare for my own offshore exploration adventure. I’ll be out at sea with a team of scientists who will be acquiring seismic data in the Gulf of Mexico for the next two weeks. There are three things that concern me: 1) hope hurricanes stay away from the area, 2) hope I do not get seasick since I’ll be the only woman onboard and “I’m no chicken!” and 3) hope we have internet access, otherwise this might become the biggest of challenges. No Internet? Really?

Busted!

I was reviewing the work of someone who shall remain nameless and who happens to be a good technical person. This individual is pretty young and had never written a paper before. I was looking at the first draft of the document and I was editing the technical aspects of the paper when I found the following reference:

X-Author (in press) Title about something geologic: Bulletin of Something Important

This individual had pursued this work in ‘2001’ as part of an unpublished report (I’ll keep the real dates obscured for the sake of ‘privacy’) and I thought that maybe this particular reference might have been already published by the time I was reading this draft (2002). I decided to go to my favorite database ‘Science Citation Index’ also known as ‘Web of Knowledge’ and search for this reference. This is what I found:

X-Author (1991) Title about something geologic: Bulletin of Something Important, v. 7, no. 8, pp. 123-143

See what I am talking about? This reference was published 10 years before this author wrote the original unpublished report and 11 years before the first draft of the paper got to my desk. Busted!!!!!!

By this time my evil switch went to the ‘ON’ position. I went further and found out that most of the references on this draft were pretty old. I also found that ALL the references, including the ‘in press’ article, were contained in the most recent paper listed on the author’s reference list. Conclusion, the author only read one paper, copied all the references from that publication and didn’t even bother to recheck the accuracy of the reference list on Google Scholar.

A complete shame because I found the paper to be pretty good. The data was new, the analysis seemed to be consistent and well presented but then you always wonder about the technical integrity of everything else. What was the accuracy of most of these statements? Can I thrust all the other stuff as well? Are the scales accurate? (You know scales always torment me!).

My intention with this comment is not to scorch this particular author but to reflect about how we all put our reputations out there when we write something. It is very easy to see us embarrassingly naked if a reviewer actually does his/her work properly. An honest accidental mistake can be forgiven and forgotten even after publication (I must have several of those!), but an intentional offense like this one sticks on people’s minds (at least mine! not that it matters!). Maybe I am too old...

Finally, I was reading this entry from Wired Science last night: “The Classic, Beautiful and Controversial Books That Changed Science Forever” Really cool, hope you enjoy it too! 

Could you please give me some free data?

Academics who are heavily engaged in research are always scrambling to obtain two things: 1) Money and 2) Data. The process involves writing proposals, sending tons of emails and there is always a certain element of just…begging! It is sometimes a very stressful and frustrating endeavor.  This is the reason why I find it absolutely refreshing when certain institutions and governments just provide data for “free” or almost “free.” These are some of my favorite sites:

Norwegian Interactive Offshore Stratigraphic Lexicon (NORLEX): Hosted by the University of Oslo it “provides a relational stratigraphic database for the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, Barents Sea and Svalbard.” This online tool also allows users to “instantly access updated formation and member tops or microfossil events in all wells, plus a map contouring routine for unit thicknesses and depths.” One of my students pursued her master’s thesis in offshore Norway and this tool proved to be remarkably useful. Norwegian legislation (Norwegian Petroleum Directorate) requires companies to release subsurface data (including seismic) to the public domain after certain number of years and therefore this multi-billion dollar database is available to the wider world. Isn’t that brilliant?

Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous syn- rift wedge in the Heidrun Field, offshore Norway. Well log and seismic data courtesy of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. Well tops and lithological information from NORLEX (Sarika Ramnarine’s master thesis)

The Online Exploration Database from the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development also allows users to search their database to find a variety of subsurface information. Similarly to the Norwegian legislation, New Zealand grants access to data after certain number of years. We have been able to obtain seismic data from the Taranaki Basin for a PhD project under this scheme.

Taranaki Basin, seismic and well data base map. Study area PhD candidate Migdalys Salazar.

The Department of Mines and Petroleum from the Government of Western Australia also implements a similar approach through their Petroleum and Geothermal Information (WAMPIS) system. Geoscience Australia also allows users to search and request access to subsurface data. Most of these entities only charge fees for transferring data to your institution. I’ll take that!

I think the United States should implement a similar approach. There are probably hundreds of seismic volumes sitting unused in servers all over the place. It would be also useful to mandate companies to release the first few seconds of data from seismic surveys. The first hundreds meters of data often times do not contain sensitive information of commercial interest but tons of good science. Don’t get me wrong; companies and individual “champions” do a great deal of effort in trying to release as much data as they possible can under tight restrictions and mountains of paperwork. A good example of that, not the only one, is the recent data donation by BP and partners of shallow high-resolution geophysical data from the GOM to academic institutions (we got that one too!). However, the lack of governmental regulations and requirements to release data make this process cumbersome, this drains resources from the companies and from those of us trying to access data to study some esoteric topic. This was my whining paragraph!

BP and partners data release in the Gulf of Mexico. High-resolution geohazard surveys in Holstein, Mad Dog, Atlantis and Thunder Horse. Study area PhD aspirant Maria Isabel Prieto.

Last but not least (even though it needs some refresh! I wonder why?). Codigo Geologico de Venezuela was created on the 90s by the research branch of the then National Oil Company of Venezuela. It contains a lot of good information about Venezuelan geology, even though it could use a bit of an update?

 “We have got all the value out of this data, so it seemed ideal to give it to students and researchers who will be able to extend its use. We see it as a way of supporting academic research and developing the specialized skills to improve understanding of geotechnical, geological and engineering concepts in the deep water” Jim Thomson, BP Senior Geohazards Specialist