sand - Through the sandglass

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September 2009

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

September 1, 2009 7 min read

books education environment geology history photography sand science travel

Fleeting Fame: "Sand" on "Fast Draw"

Amazon sales rankings are somewhat like Fermat’s Last Theorem - what they’re saying makes apparent sense, but discerning how they work is seemingly impossible....

August 1, 2009 4 min read

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

The mother of all extinctions and the perils of correlation (1)

Nature abhors a vacuum, continuity and the status quo. Variety is the spice of life and change is the order of the day. Such things make life complex for a geol...

August 1, 2009 10 min read

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

The mother of all extinctions and the perils of correlation (2)

The previous post, instalment one of this saga, looked at what a geologist must do, faced with rock exposures in, say, a cliff face, to read the ledgers of our...

August 1, 2009 14 min read

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

The Poetry of Sand: Guest Writer, Richard Bready

Times of Sand Richard Bready In science one tries to say something that no one knew before in a way that everyone can understand. Whereas in poetry . . . - Dira...

August 1, 2009 13 min read

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 geology geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel

A different "beginning" - and a short, off-piste, rant

Sir Laurence Dudley Stamp (my previous post) must be turning in his grave. It’s ironic that, shortly after my modest proposal on the inspirational potential of...

July 1, 2009 5 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