Feathery Basalt

~1mm wide cross-polarized image of a portion of the groundmass in Apollo 17 high-Ti basalt 71157 (thin section ,8). The "feathery" texture results from the intergrowth of pyroxene (brown), plagioclase (white/gray/black), ilmenite (black), and some glass (black). The other major phase is olivine, which is present on the image borders and forms the plus-shaped cluster at right middle. There are several early literature (pre-1980s) references to feathery intergrowths, but the associated images have degraded in quality (many articles appear to be scans of photocopies).

AW#45: Geological Pilgrimage

The 45th Accretionary Wedge is hosted by the life as a geologist blog, which asks us to share “the sacred geological place that you must visit at least once in your lifetime…a single place, which is ‘geologically’ unique, relatively remote, and requires some difficulty to get to”. Now, pardon me while I take some liberties with the English language to write about the Moon.

That’s right, the Moon. Geologically Unique? Check. Remote? Check. Difficult to get to? Indeed. So much so that a mere eighteen have made the journey to lunar orbit, and only twelve of those have made the descent to the surface. It remains amazing crazy insane to see images and video of the Apollo missions. Human beings! On the Moon! Walking, driving, discovering, singing, and golfing on the Moon! Which brings me to the “once in your lifetime” part of this pilgrimage. The last footsteps on the Moon were made 40 years ago (this December). Back when Nixon was president. Back when there were almost half as many humans on the planet as there are today. Back before I was born. Taking the liberty to use the royal “you” in the call for posts, I would say that yes, the Moon is a place you/I/we must visit at least once in a lifetime.

Every mission was just a few small steps (or drives), but the science grew by leaps and bounds. The final mission, Apollo 17, had the longest surface stay, the first geologist, and the most returned samples, including the highest-Ti basalts in the solar system. Nowadays we’re making progress by taking a step back, with satellites characterizing the Moon from orbit (surface, gravimetrics, ionosphere, etc). Still awesome, but we need a human presence up there to continue exploring and inspiring.

Is the Moon not specific enough? Perhaps…OK, let’s focus on the Aristarchus Plateau. Why? Because it’s there.

The Moon. Aristarchus Crater is an easy-to-spot lunar feature, made even easier by a giant arrow. (Photo by me; 250mm, f/5.6 @ 1/2500s, ISO400; Dec 1, 2009)

Above, Aristarchus Crater is a beacon of light in the low-albedo mare of Oceanus Procellarum. Viewed in another ‘light’, the below RGB image highlights the diversity of features accessible in the region.

Clementine RGB false-color ratio of Aristarchus Plateau, including Aristarchus Crater (bright blue-green, 40km diameter). Image is ~500x500km. Colors are based on UVVIS reflectance spectra ratios (in nanometers) where Red = 750/415; Green = 750/950; Blue = 415/750. See Pieters et al. (1994) for more details on spectra.

False-color ratios are used to demonstrate soil and mineralogical differences, and there are subtle variations that I’m not familiar with to explain concisely. At any rate, the Aristarchus Plateau contains a variety of colors features that we geologists should get a chance to see in our lifetime. To name a few: Pyroclastic deposits, sinuous rilles (collapsed lava tubes?), exposures of cryptomare, highlands, unique volcanism, and possibly the youngest surface basalts¹. For more information on the A.P., start with one of the many LROC featured images of the Aristarchus Plateau.

Resources:

LPI Clementine Mapping Project: Source for the RGB false-color ratio image. Request your own map of Clementine satellite spectra! Make a custom spectra map, or request standard RGB false-color ratios, FeO, TiO₂, or topography maps.

¹Hiesinger, H., et al. (2003) Ages and stratigraphy of mare basalts in Oceanus Procellarum, Mare Nubium, Mare Cognitum, and Mare Insularum. Journal of Geophysical Research 108, E7, 5065, 27pp.

Four years of research poster design

Science conferences are ubiquitous components in research. What are you working on? What are you interested in? What do you want to tell us? Maybe you are allowed to read slides at us for twelve minutes (plus three for questions). Maybe you’ll bring twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is. More likely, however, you’ll have a dozen square feet of real estate on a tack-board. That is enough room for thirteen or so eight-by-ten color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is, but the more commonly employed medium is that of the research poster.

The form and function of presentations and posters have their respective merits and drawbacks, and you can find ruminations extolling both of these somewhere else. I am a no preference kind of guy. To wit, I have one of each to present at this year’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in March. The LPSC is the main conference our entire research group attends every year. I have had at least one poster at each of the previous three LPSCs, plus two posters at other conferences. With three years under my belt, it should be easy to make a poster, right? Heck, you might say, after three years you should have a Masters of Poster Science! Well…no, it is not that simple.

substance without style is truth without beauty

Communicating science is hard, and only more difficult if conveyed boringly. Whenever it’s time to start making a new poster, my search history fills up with terms like “poster design”, “award science poster”, and “awesome research poster” (see here and here to start). The essence of a research story doesn’t change; My substance is the scientific method. But substance without style is truth without beauty. And with 700 other posters to choose from, would you stop to check this out?:

2009: Fear my wall of text! Size: 42"x34"; Title: Times New Roman 72pt; Body: Times New Roman 30pt

Nope. The color scheme is all right, but there is no hierarchy. What is important here? Graphs are all about the same size, there is no central point of focus, and look at all that text! This was made after 6 months of grad school, so I vowed to focus more on results the next time around, resulting in…

2010: Color explosion! Size: 44"x44"; Title: Times New Roman 72pt; Body: Times New Roman 28pt (Intro/Methods) to 40pt (Conc/Future Work)

I tried to make it a bit more obvious what was important. Methods were squished up top – still far to text-rich – and the analyses and observations were spread out between different basalt types in the middle. Unfortunately, this time I went too far in the opposite direction and didn’t include enough text in the “discussion” area. Without me by the poster it would be difficult to understand what the story was, and why those images were important. And good heavens, the arrows!

Later that year, I had a (terrestrial) side project to present at the Goldschmidt conference…

2010 Goldschmidt award winner! Size: 48"x36"; Title: Futura 72pt; Headers: Futura 60pt; Body: Adobe Caslon Pro 36pt

This poster won best student presentation in my poster section! I am still not entirely sure why it did so, but some observations and comparisons to the previous posters:

• Different sections are denoted better with color
• Instead of walls of text, the results section is only figure and table captions
• This study was also essentially complete (except for one analysis issue later resolved)
• Sans serif body font makes for cleaner text

I thought I had it all figured out, and vowed to improve my LPSC posters, but then disaster:

2011; Size: 44"x36"; Title: Futura 78pt; Headers: Futura 60pt; Body: Adobe Caslon Pro 36pt; Tables: Gill Sans MT 28pt

The week before the conference, my computer temporarily died and I had to resort to PowerPoint to make this poster (I prefer Adobe InDesign). The large poster dimensions and graphic-heavy design ended up bogging down PowerPoint. In addition, the PDF file size made for printing was so large that Kinko’s had issues during printing and had to resort to lowering the print resolution. I think the poster itself is well-organized, but still lacks something and as always is too text-heavy. It’s also just so bubbly and colorful; It does not seem terribly professional to me.

A few months later, we attended a lunar-specific conference (the Lunar Science Forum). The resulting poster is my current favorite:

2011; Size: 36"x48"; Title: Futura 100pt; Header: Futura 60pt; Body: Helvetica 30pt

I spent significantly more time thinking about the design for this one. The Methods section is the smallest ever, and the overall results (Petrogenesis section) are right below the Overview. Observations/measurements/calculations are divided among each basalt sample by color. Perhaps the section headers could be a bit more distinct, but overall it flows pretty well, in my opinion.

Hopefully this post will be useful as a real-world example of suggestions you might find elsewhere. So, are you a master poster designer, or, like me, do you still struggle to concisely convey your message? I like to see other poster designs, so let me know if you have any current favorites!

EDIT March 27, 2012:
Another LPSC, another poster (and a talk this time again as well). I fell back into old habits and this poster ended up feeling rushed.

2012; Size: 4"x44"; Title: Gotham 100pt; Header: Gotham 60pt; Body: Adobe Caslon Pro 36pt (intro), 30pt (body), 24pt (refs)

The larger body text did make it one of my more easily-readable posters. And until just now, I did not realize the “Whole Rock” (a.k.a. introduction) section was 36pt while the rest was only 30pt font. Not sure why I did that…

Six days in the crater, day two

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6

This post is part of a slowly unfolding saga of my experience at the Meteor Crater Field Camp that was held from October 17-23, 2010. The field camp was run under the NASA Lunar Science Institute and headed by Dr. David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Everyone is surprisingly awake at 7AM, considering the hard sun yesterday. Maybe it’s the brisk 50°F October air, or perhaps everyone had a long sleep (one pro of a dry campsite). My hunch, however, is on the catered breakfast of fruit, eggs, coffee, juice, oatmeal, and scones that awaits us. A local Flagstaff catering company will be bringing us breakfast and dinner each day, and no one wants to miss out after our first taste yesterday. Even without the extra incentive, the 21 other field camp attendees are highly motivated, intelligent and capable researchers from around the world. And then there’s me, just writing accidental haiku in my field notes…

base of mining slope;
two tear faults up wall expose
best Coconino.

The Coconino is an eolian quartz sandstone; white, fine-grained, occasionally massive but often with cross-beds. If you’ve never heard of it, perhaps you’ve seen the Coconino cliffs of the Grand Canyon or Zion National Park. At Meteor Crater, the Coconino is the lowest unit excavated by impact, extending from 90-300 meters below the surface. The crater center is buried under ~100 meters of lake sediment, and a mine shaft is the only portal to the original crater floor. Remnant mine talus piles on the crater floor hint at the intense shock buried 100 meters below, where some sandstone was altered to vesiculated glass; It floats! The major occurrences of Coconino ejecta still present around the rim are generally not shocked to glass, but are no less interesting. The Coconino in the photo below is ‘fuzzy’ because it has been pulverized to rock flour, though relict bedding is preserved.

Overturned Coconino SS 'rock flour' with relict cross-bedding in northwest wall of Meteor Crater. This coherent ejecta block was originally 90+ meters beneath the surface and now rests ~15 m above the surrounding terrain.

Over on the south side of the crater, heterogeneous shock distribution resulted in relatively unshocked Coconino in contact with the rock flour variety. A useful reminder on the importance of context!

Accretionary Wedge #42: Countertop Geology of two marbles

The Accretionary Wedge is a semi-regular collection of geoblog posts that follow a common theme. Ian Saginor is hosting AW #42 at his volcanoclast blog with the theme of Countertop Geology. For my first ever Wedge, Ian has tasked everyone to:

• Find great countertops or decorative/building stone, as long as it’s been “separated by humans from it’s source”;
• Post some pretty pictures;
• …And maybe hazard an interpretation or two.

Good thing Ian expanded this topic to include decorative and building stone, because it opened up the opportunity to show off two awesome pieces from around the Notre Dame campus. First up is the Kugel Fountain in one of our student centers, the Coleman-Morse building.  The Marble, as some call it, “contains a 30-inch solid granite sphere which weighs 1,300 pounds and floats on 7 lbs. of water pressure” (via the ND website).

Notre Dame's Kugel Fountain. The granite sphere constantly rotates - 'clockwise' during this 1-second exposure - due to minor differences in supporting water pressure.

Take a closer look…

Unlike most granites, you have to hold this one steady to get a decent photo! Large ovoid alkali feldspars (pink) enclose opaques (dark minerals, mostly hornblende), and in some cases plagioclase feldspar (gray) form rims on alkali feldspars. Click any photo to enlarge.

Low-T, high-P rheology of a Nalgene water bottle

Callan’s post on the rheology of an overheated water bottle reminded me of a little experiment from before I started this blog. I had not thought to share the results with y’all until now!

This post in a nutshell: undeformed and deformed Nalgene water bottles

This is, of course, all John’s idea. “John” is in the engineering side of our department, and he does a lot of work with concrete and steel to accomplish undoubtedly ingenious engineering…schemes. One piece to the puzzle lies in designing buildings and bridges that do not break or fall down at the drop of a hat. This involves much testing of tension and compression yield strengths of industrial materials; tests which utilize the awesomely named universal testing machine (UTM) and other implements of destruction. Our UTM can apply a force up to 600,000 pounds (300 tons; about the weight of a Boeing 747).

The ND112 Complex

INTRODUCTION

A recently developed field area, designated “ND112″, exhibits a fascinating assemblage of geologic environments reflected in a myriad of deskcrops. We have identified 14 unique geologic horizons occurring over an area of 4.5 by 6 meters. In this report we briefly describe, map, and give preliminary interpretations on the history of the ND112 region. Relative ages of deskcrops are based on historical records and oral histories of the indigenous peoples of the area.

ND112 is a geographically isolated region, only accessible via a single restricted access route. No other environments are visible from the confines of ND112, which has resulted in a significant loss of inhabitants (50%) in recent months.The population reduction has allowed the remaining locals, or Grads as they call themselves, to flourish and has the added bonus of making deskcrop access easier. However, we learned in the course of our investigation that mass wasting during the exodus caused the loss of several deskcrops in the SW, including coal, olivine sand, vesicular basalt, slag, and cobbles of quartz sandstone and agate. The loss of these invaluable deskcrops severely limits our investigation of ND112′s southwest.

GEOLOGIC SETTING

Geophoto: petrified wood

Segmented petrified log in the Blue Mesa Member, Petrified Forest National Park 2010

What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs? That’s right kids, it’s Log! This half-meter diameter log was buried some 200 Myr ago and its organic content was replaced by silica (a process called permineralization). One thing I’ve always wondered: If we split wood parallel to the long axis, why is it so common for petrified wood to break along such nice planes perpendicular to the grain (as it is here)?

Enjoy the rest of the great photos that are sure to come on the last day of Geology Photo Week! Visit the Georneys post that started it all, or view my previous photos from this week (click thumbnails to view post + description):

Get your own Blammo! Log here:

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Miss the reference? Watch the commercial

Geophoto: Antelope Island

Antelope Island from the air, Salt Lake City, Utah 2007

Today’s contribution to the geology photo week geomeme is Antelope Island. This shot was taken on approach into Salt Lake City. Antelope Island is one of the ranges that makes up the Basin and Range Province of the western United States. The island is particularly photogenic as it is surrounded by the Great Salt Lake, which makes for fantastic plays of contrasting colors. Turns out it’s a state park as well!

Take your own photo on approach:

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Geophoto: pink salt

Pink salt exposed in wall of mine tunnel operated by American Rock Salt Co., Geneseo, NY 2006. Outcrop is ~1 meter high (apologies for lack of scale!).

Round three of this week’s geomeme of a picture-a-day (previous entries here and here) features halite, a.k.a. rock salt! Pink (or pinky orange) halite, to be more specific. The mine, run by American Rock Salt, is the largest operating salt mine in the United States (3+ million tons annual production). This pink halite is located in the mine wall ~1,400 feet underground, where it remains minus the football-sized chunk we removed for display in our department collection!

Get a tour and take your own photo!

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