I realise that, in the grand panoply of the global blogosphere, this is but a mote of dust, on a scale more diminutive than a grain of fine sand tossed into the vastness of the universe. BUT, if you had asked me, some three-and-a-bit years ago, as I hesitatingly tapped out my first post, to visualise 200,000 visits to this blog, I would have laughed at the preposterosity of such an idea. However, yesterday evening (Jakarta time), the image above appeared on my Typepad dashboard.
I still can’t quite believe it. I know that this milestone is, in large part, the result of repeated visits by a small number of dedicated readers, and to all of you, my eternal gratitude. The remainder of this statistic is made up of the serendipitous visitors – and, should you be one of those who happens on this post and lingers long enough to read it, thank you. It’s a pleasure, for example, to see how the activity drops off during school holidays, leading me to conclude that I am somehow helping someone out with something that they wanted (or at least needed) to know. It’s a periodic fascination to look at the “keywords” analysis that shows me how a particular search term has led someone here – a selection from the last couple of hours:
- Coastal tourist complexes
- sand grains which have been magnified
- You have a 7-minute sand timer and an 11-minute sand timer. How can you use them to cook a piece of…
- global sediment discharge
- murano glass factory in venice
- permo-triassic event
- bacillus pasteurii uses
- alcanivorax borkumensis oil spill
- 2004 tsunami
- pink coral with tentacles
- verkhoyansk mts map
plus, of course, the ever-popular “Andrew Clemens.”
It’s not that I scrutinise and analyse these things on a daily basis, but it’s intriguing, to say the least. So there we are, enough introspection – but all this brings an added dimension to life that I never anticipated, and which is very much appreciated.
Comments
As a new geomorphology grad student, I’ve appreciated your passion for a certain category of sediment grains and the knowledge of it you’ve imparted to us via your book and blog.
Malcolm, thanks, your comment is very much appreciated.
Congratulation Michael, your blog has been a great resource for me in the past and I am sure it will do much more in the future…onward!
Hurrah! As a small token in celebration of this, your bloggy milestone, I offer some recent finds. Perhaps they are not something which you have encountered already. ;)
http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/faculty/stierman/oakopen/gsa/P05.htm
GEOPHYSICAL AND GIS INVESTIGATIONS OF THE OAK OPENINGS SAND RIDGE
http://www.geology.ohio-state.edu/~vonfrese/gs100/lect18/index.html
Scroll down almost to the bottom to see the missing sand and shoreline, figs 18.31 & 18.32.
Cheers!
Congratulations, Michael! A milestone well worth noting, on a sedimental journey. “Even small quantities…rapidly start amounting to significant numbers” (Sand, p.68), and yours are now positively Archimedean. What a fascination, to see those query terms, one after the next as though you could watch the trickle through a sandglass, grain by grain. And all drawn toward you by the skill and dedication of your efforts. As a dedicated reader, I look forward to many more posts, many more search hits, myriad after myriad.
Thanks, Richard, as always.
“A sedimental journey” - why didn’t I ever think of that???
F: thanks for the comment, and the links. No, I hadn’t picked up on them - coastal management and barrier islands again (see the latest post)!
congratulations Michael - hope many more sand grains wash up to your web shores!