books - Through the sandglass

art books climate_change coastal education environment geology geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel

Sandstone-making microbes, tafoni - and an extraordinary design idea

I love connections. Those unexpected and wonderful threads of stories that link and flow from one subject to another, subjects that would have seemed to have ha...

April 1, 2009 9 min read

art books climate_change coastal education environment geology geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel

April 2009

Musings and news on the extraordinary stories sand has to tell of our planet and daily lives

April 1, 2009 8 min read

art books climate_change coastal education environment geology geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand travel

Clogged Arteries - natural and unnatural rivers

Rivers are vital but also complex and dynamic systems - vital for the planet and vital for us. Civilization has always had an intimate relationship with rivers....

March 1, 2009 6 min read

art books climate_change education geomorphology history photography sand science travel

March 2009

Musings and news on the extraordinary stories sand has to tell of our planet and daily lives

March 1, 2009 5 min read

art books coastal education geology geomorphology history photography sand science travel wildlife

From Bogart to Bugs - the Angle of Repose

I try to make a point of watching all movies that feature sand in a significant role (probably the subject of a future post), and my 88-year-old father-in-law w...

February 1, 2009 6 min read

art books climate_change coastal education geology geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel

Magic Crystals - Tales Zircons Tell

The picture on the left is of our oldest earthly possessions. They are sand grains, but special ones, each an individual crystal of zircon, the silicate of the...

February 1, 2009 8 min read

art books climate_change environment geology photography sand science travel

Granular stuff, earthquakes, and power laws - again

Back in November, in my post on the sandglass, I commented that watching avalanches of sand in a sandglass is to witness one of nature’s most fundamental laws i...

January 1, 2009 4 min read

art books coastal education geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel wildlife

The man who figured out how deserts work

Among the many things that are intoxicating about the desert, the things that draw us back, I find the silence perhaps the most compelling. In a world where noi...

January 1, 2009 16 min read

art books climate_change coastal education geology geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel

Sand, Earth Systems, and the Importance of Size

Now, back to the subject of this blog, but still following the global theme. In the course of researching and writing the book, I learned a lot and came across...

December 1, 2008 8 min read

art books climate_change education environment geology geomorphology history photography sand science travel

December 2008

Musings and news on the extraordinary stories sand has to tell of our planet and daily lives

December 1, 2008 6 min read

art books coastal education geology history photography sand science travel

Tsunami forensics - sand helping save lives

I was enjoying the cultural splendours of St Petersburg when the devastating tsunami of December 2004 hit. Since the only source of information that CNN news co...

December 1, 2008 6 min read