history - Through the sandglass

art books geology geomorphology history photography sand science travel

February 2010

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

February 1, 2010 3 min read

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

Two museums and the Fontainebleau glass sand

A few weeks ago, the art museum in Montpellier provided a welcome refuge from torrential rain (of course, I was planning on visiting anyway, but the weather dro...

February 1, 2010 5 min read

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

Reports from the Solway Firth (2): Guest Writer and a Submerged Forest

My kind hosts for the Café Scientifique event were Ann Lackie and her husband, John. They had set up the group originally and are to be commended for their devo...

December 1, 2009 15 min read

art books coastal education history photography sand

An anniversary

The Nima Sand Museum on the coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu contains the world’s largest sandglass. Six meters in height, it is ceremonially turned at mi...

November 1, 2009 6 min read

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

November 2009

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

November 1, 2009 6 min read

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

Too much, too little, and often in the wrong place

It rose out of the omnipresent sand of a natural island, and there remains a thin layer of the ocher substance almost everywhere: on the canopied grandstands, o...

November 1, 2009 8 min read

geology geomorphology history photography sand travel

A different kind of sand - on the road again in the volcanoes of the Auvergne

I’ve just spent several days rambling around the geology of the Puy de Dome and the surrounding volcanoes in the Auvergne region of France’s Massif Central. The...

October 1, 2009 1 min read

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

October 2009

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

October 1, 2009 7 min read

art coastal education geology geomorphology history photography sand science travel

Two tourist lessons in sand dynamics

A few days ago, I described the fractal sand landscapes on the beach of Cap Ferret on the Atlantic coast west of Bordeaux. The swirling sand banks that shape-sh...

October 1, 2009 2 min read

art coastal education geology geomorphology history photography sand science travel

Arenophile genetics, Jedi, and another submarine canyon

Geology doesn’t exactly run in my family. My parents weren’t geologists, I married someone to whom dip and strike will eternally remain an arcane concept, and n...

September 1, 2009 6 min read

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

Mont-Saint-Michel: a massive sedimentology experiment

The bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, in the coastal corner of France between Normandy and Brittany, boasts the fourth-largest tidal range in the world – up to 14 meter...

September 1, 2009 7 min read

art coastal environment geology geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel

Nature's patterns, fractal landscapes, and a beach laboratory

The termination of the seemingly endless stretch of beach and dunes that forms the Atlantic boundary of the Bordeaux region is Cap Ferret, a constantly changing...

September 1, 2009 2 min read