Oak leaves in fall
Lissa and I caught the tail end of fall colors on a drive in the mountains east of Albuquerque today. I wonder why these oak leaves are waiting until the last minute? Phenology.
Archive of posts filed under the science category.
Science knowledge and policy support
[W]idespread knowledge and well-informed citizen support are not necessarily required for implementation of effective climate policies. From “Does effective climate policy require well-informed citizen support?”, Rhodes et. al, Global Environmental Change, Volume 29, November 2014, Pages 92–104
For this one tree, autumn
What makes the first tree decide, “OK, now’s the time to turn.”
Driving the seam of the North American continent
One of my treasured memories of college thirty-plus years ago is the mornings spent in Bob Carson’s geology classes learning the physiographic provinces of the North American continent. It was a beautiful slide show combined with a deeply meaningful (to me) new set of organizing principles for looking at the landscape around me. I wasn’t …
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The turkey vultures of Mesa Verde
Five years ago, Lissa and I stopped to talk to a ranger on the Petroglyph Point Trail at Mesa Verde. We’d been admiring the turkey vultures soaring above the canyon, and the ranger clued us in. If you like turkey vultures, she told us, go to the Spruce Tree House overlook at dusk tonight and …
Someone built this a long time ago
Back from Mesa Verde and filing my pictures, there is this: More impressive to me, in some ways, than the big stuff. Eight centuries ago, some people went to a lot of trouble to climb up to that upper alcove and build a little wall. Maybe they built more. I don’t know.
“Mummy Lake” – we always want it to be about water
Lissa and I stopped this morning at Mesa Verde’s “Mummy Lake”, more recently renamed “Far View Reservoir,” on account of apparently there was never any mummy. Now we learn, thanks to science, that there was probably never a reservoir or lake, either: The structure at Mesa Verde National Park known historically as Mummy Lake and …
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A river underground
You’ve seen lots of pretty pictures of the Colorado River flowing anew into its delta, right? But one of the most interesting things going on is the movement of water out of sight, beneath the ground (see “hydrology at the end of a river” for some background). I had a chance this morning to visit …
Before there was Wikipedia….
For Christmas, my friend Alison gave me the 1928 Popular Science Monthly “Pocket Guide to Science.” It’s a treasure, including things like this: What produced the Grand Canyon of Arizona? It was cut down, during millions of years, by the Colorado River which still flows in the bottom of it. The sand and clay cut …
Tree Rings’ Vegas Tale
James May explains why you can’t use tree rings to date the age of a Las Vegas casino (and some other dendro science): Learn more: The Tree Rings’ Tale: Understanding Our Changing Climate (Worlds of Wonder)