environment - Through the sandglass

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

August 2009

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

August 1, 2009 9 min read

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

USGS beach health advice - but let's hear it for meiofauna

The US Geological Survey newsroom has just put out an advisory on the importance of washing your hands after playing in the sand on the beach: By washing your h...

August 1, 2009 7 min read

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

"Giant sand worms lived in Torbay"

What a headline - how could I resist? It’s from the UK newspaper, The Telegraph, earlier this year - it’s not the paper I read, so I only just came across it on...

July 1, 2009 5 min read

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

Rivers Run Dry - but why?

This map shows the change in runoff inferred from streamflow records worldwide between 1948 and 2004, with bluish colors indicating more streamflow and reddish...

July 1, 2009 5 min read

books climate_change coastal environment history photography rivers_water sand science travel wildlife

The sandfish - "like a man diving into water"

My aspiration for the book and this blog, beyond the hope that they would be read at all, has always been that readers would be surprised. This arose simply bec...

July 1, 2009 6 min read

art books environment geology history photography rivers_water sand science travel

Thinking like a pile of sand

It sometimes seems to me that managing my thoughts (and memories) resembles trying to control a pile of sand grains as they sift through my fingers. Now, new ne...

July 1, 2009 4 min read

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

July 2009

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

July 1, 2009 5 min read

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

Granular segregation and the Gold Rush

Anyone walking on the beach or through the dunes will often notice areas of dark gray smeared across the surface, often outlining ripples, as if an artist had h...

June 1, 2009 15 min read

art climate_change environment geomorphology history photography sand

On the road in California 3 - tafoni yet again

I’ve done a couple of posts on tafoni, the exotic and wonderful natural sculpturing of, commonly, sandstones. As I was putting together the piece on the ways in...

June 1, 2009 2 min read

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

Streams of grains - some more amazing granular research

As I’m sure I’ve said before, to watch the sands of an hourglass in action is to observe all kinds of natural phenomena at work - and all kinds of questions to...

June 1, 2009 6 min read

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

June 2009

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

June 1, 2009 6 min read

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

Beach Nourishment and Sediment Budgets

I’m in the US at the moment (outside Philadelphia to be more precise), visiting family and preparing to give a talk in a couple of weeks time at the aquarium in...

May 1, 2009 6 min read