Synopsis
John Leeman and Shannon Dulin discuss geoscience and technology weekly for your enjoyment! Features include guests, fun paper Friday selections, product reviews, and banter about recent developments. Shannon is a field geologist who tolerates technology and John is a self-proclaimed nerd that tolerates geologists.
Episodes
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Episode 55 - "Every time you clip your fingernails" Plate Tectonics
12/02/2016 Duration: 54minWhy do mountains form, earthquakes happen, and volcanoes form where they do? The answer is plate tectonics. This week we explore the history of being wrong about how the Earth works. Shannon’s Keyboard Plate Tectonics Tectonics is from the Greek tekton or “builder” Ben Franklin’s Letter Alfred Wegener The Origin of Continents and Oceans (Book by Wegener) Mesosaurus Arthur Holmes (1928) NOAA Seafloor Spreading Activity Seafloor spreading proposed by Hess and Dietz B.O.B and NDGT rap battle about the shape of the Earth John Tuzo Wilson Mantle Convection Slab Pull Chain demonstration Plate Boundaries Divergent Convergent Transform Lava lakes as analogs Fun Paper Friday How does cement harden? Does it turn into a continuous material or is it still a bunch of grains stuck together? Find out with this week’s Fun Paper Friday! MIT News Story on Research Ioannidou, K., Krakowiak, K. J., Bauchy, M., Hoover, C. G., Masoero, E., Yip, S., et al. (2016). Mesoscale texture of cement hydrates. Proceedings of the Nati
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Episode 54 - "We use statistics"
05/02/2016 Duration: 49minWe’ve already talked a little bit about the Earth’s magnetic field, but where does that fall in terms of geoscience? Lots of physicists look at the magnetic field, but so do geologists. Not just our current field, but the ancient magnetic field, which is called paleomagnetism. Paleomagnetism Continental Position Video Butler’s Pmag Webpage Apparent Polar Wander True Polar Wander Magnetism in rocks - Dunlop Authigenic Mineralization Pmag Chainsaw Drill PmagPy (Python Software) Super IAPD Zijderveld, 1964 Mu Metal Magnetic Field Shielded Room SQUID Magnetometer Fun Paper Friday What can chopsticks tell us about earthquakes? Find out by reading this week’s fun paper! Tsai, S.-T., Wang, L.-M., Huang, P., Yang, Z., Chang, C.-D., & Hong, T.-M. (2016). Acoustic Emission from Breaking a Bamboo Chopstick. Physical Review Letters, 116(3), 035501–5. http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.035501 Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @
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Episode 53 - "They call it the snowtron"
29/01/2016 Duration: 50minWith the first winter storm of 2016 over with, we figured we would jump on the bandwagon and talk about some different types of winter precipitation. Feedback Bending Spacetime in the Basement (Thanks Mark!) Cavendish Experiment Winter Precipitation Snowtron John’s Drone Experiments Pickle Juice and Cheese brine! Atmospheric Temperature Profiles Freezing Rain Freezing Fog Sleet Ice Storms Types of Frost Hail John’s Article “Highway to Hail" Graupel Inupiat Dictionary - Turn to page 104 in the pdf and you can see all the different words for snow! Many Snow Crystals! Snow Rollers (lots of photos!) NWS Warnings and Watches - Definitions Fun Paper Friday This week we use seismology to find… a burglar? Hinzen, K. G., Reamer, S. K., & Fleischer, C. (2016). Analysis of a Burglargram. Seismological Research Letters, 87(1), 193–195. http://doi.org/10.1785/0220150253 Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin
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Episode 52 - "You pay for significant digits"
22/01/2016 Duration: 01h11minLast week we talked about glaciers, a basic staple of any geology education. That means it’s only fair to talk about a geophysics staple this week. We can measure gravity at different locations and use it to help figure out what’s under our feet. That and another great Fun Paper this week! It’s All About Pentiums (Weird Al) Gravity Basics All geophysical methods are based on measuring some kind of physical property difference. Gravity is sensitive to the density of the material below the measurement. “Big G" gal (unit) Density for any rock varies widely. Gravity from impact structures Measuring gravity Absolute gravimeter Relative gravimeter Zero-Length Springs Differential GPS Corrections Examples of the more common corrections Eötvös effect John’s explanation of Coriolis Force and Toilets Isostasy Bouguer Anomaly FORTRAN Talwani Example Original Talwani Paper Fun Paper Friday Alarcón, Héctor, et al. “Self-Amplification of Solid Friction in Interleaved Assemblies.” Physical Review Letters 116.1 (201
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Episode 51 - "Regelation. I think I had that for lunch the other day" Glaciers
15/01/2016 Duration: 01h08minLast known survivor of the 1906 San Fran. EQ/Fire passes away Ice is a mineral National Snow and Ice Data Center Great USGS informational publication on ice ages Mendenhall Glacier Video of 1 year of Mendenhall melting Chasing Ice Firn Pressure melting point Regelation Video of Regelation Experiment Weertman 1957 (Paper on ice movement) Great Lakes Glacial erratic Ice age Drumlin Esker Moraine Kettle Lakes Subglacial channels Glacial striation Fun Paper Friday This week we learn about low frequency sound waves in the atmosphere and how we can use them to determine the winds at high altitudes and improve numerical weather prediction. EOS Article Arrowsmith, Stephen J., Omar Marcillo, and Douglas P. Drob. “A framework for estimating stratospheric wind speeds from unknown sources and application to the 2010 December 25 bolide.” Geophysical Journal International 195.1 (2013): 491–503. Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeoc
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Episode 50 - "Some serious geometric voodoo" Projections Part 2
08/01/2016 Duration: 53minLast week we told you about many different map projections and talked about why they are all wrong. This week we’ll discuss a few of our favorites, why we like them, and when they fail us. We also have another Star Wars themed Fun Paper Friday! How’s your 2016 so far? (PhD Comics) Nuclear Test John’s Particle Motion Movie How To Detect A Secret Nuclear Test Picking a Projection Consider what you need For dot density plots, equal area is important Mercator projection Gnomonic projection Great circle distance Great circle Our Favorites Compare landmasses to Africa. Mercator puzzle Wikipedia lists over 60 different projections! Strangest: Hammer retroazimuthal projection or Waterman Butterfly Projection Most boring/overused: Mercator Projection or Web Mercator Pleasing whole-world: Robinson , Winkel tripel projection, or Armadillo Polar Regions: Stereographic Projection or Pierce Quincuncial Projection Fun Paper Friday Feinstein, Zachary. “It’s a Trap: Emperor Palpatine’s Poison Pill.” arXiv preprint arX
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Episode 49 - "Would it blow your mind if I told you Africa is 14x larger than Greenland?"
01/01/2016 Duration: 45minMaps are useful things, but it turns out that projecting a 3D object on a 2D map can cause a lot of unexpected problems. They even inspired an XKCD comic. This week we explore maps and map projections. We also chat about machine learning as part of #FunPaperFriday. What’s the big problem? The Earth is a sphere, actually it’s an ellipsoid, actually it’s really bumpy and messy Taking 3D information and pushing in onto a 2D medium means that you must sacrifice something, you are losing a dimension with which you can express information. Projections are a well thought out as researched problem, even in pure mathematics. You have to pick a projection that will tell you want you need to know accurately, and know that you lose some other information. There is even a West Wing clip about this A few examples of projection problems There are geographical properties that we care about: area, shape, direction, conformality, distance, scale… and you can’t get them all at once. In fact, some it’s hard to get more than a
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Episode 48 - "You know you're going to be inspired" AGU
25/12/2015 Duration: 42minWe want to wish you happy holidays and invite you to join us while John was at AGU. This show should have been released a week ago, but John got very ill at AGU and took several days to recover. Thank you for the well wishes and sticking with us! AGU Fall Meeting 5 Tips for Surviving your First Conference John didn’t get to see the Elon Musk lecture. He did get to sit in a car from Tesla Motors though. ObsPy Orbital Mechanics - Check them out! Fun Paper Friday Can plants remember and learn? The answer may surprise you, it did us! National Geographic Article Gagliano, Monica, et al. “Experience teaches plants to learn faster and forget slower in environments where it matters.” Oecologia 175.1 (2014): 63–72. Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
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Episode 47 - "That's nerd points" Holiday Gift Guide
11/12/2015 Duration: 01h53sThe holiday season is approaching and you may be wondering what to get that geoscientist or science nerd in your life. Look no further as we discuss our recommendations on the Don’t Panic gift guide! John’s Picks Gear Pedco UltraPod II AmScope SE400-Z Microscope Shower Mate Speaker MakerBeam Lowepro Extreme Padded Sport Backpack Books Thing Explainer What If? The Annotate Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory, checkout author interview here Seveneves The Three-Body Problem Misc Geology Bed Sheets Audible Membership Dropbox Membership Soft Earth Pottery Geology Tricorder Shannon’s Picks Gear Garmin Monterra GPS Plateau Designs Field Pouch Rite in the Rain pouch and books UV/LED handlens Books and Movies Annals of a Former World Storm Kings Hyperbole and a half Jurassic World! DamNation Misc REI Chacos! Patagonia Messenger Bag Nikon AW110 Field Notes - snowblind! Fun Paper Friday Star Wars! Need we say more? Learn about Dunes and Tatooine with this week’s fun paper! Dunes on planet Tatooine: Observat
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Episode 46 - "The sweet sounds of square wheels rolling" Posters Continued
04/12/2015 Duration: 48minThis week we continue our discussion of posters, presentation, and talk about splashing around with our fun paper Friday! Graphing Software Igor Pro KaleidaGraph Matplotlib Bokeh Veusz Poster Tools Inkscape Adobe Illustrator Adobe InDesign Adobe Color (Formerly Kuler) John’s AGU Talk Fun Paper Friday This week we talk about urine splashing and industrial uses of carbon nanotubes. Abstract: M32.00010 : Creating a urine black hole Phys.org with Videos Vantablack Article Vantablack Video Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
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Episode 45 - Revisit "What if you calibrated your candles differently?"
28/11/2015 Duration: 01h27sThis week we re-visit one of our favorite shows while everyone is outside or in their turkey food-coma here in the US. We also read some listener mail about last week's episode on earthquake magnitudes! Time is a very complex subject that you can devote your entire life to. Today we’ll cover a few of the basics and enough to get your interest up! We’ll see that it’s difficult to know what a second is and how long relative times are, but absolute time is even messier! We also discuss dried coffee and tetris! Importance of Time (and why it’s on a geology show) It synchronizes the world and our human interactions (need minutes - hours accuracy generally) It allows us to talk about events in a common coordinate system Allows synchronization of scientific measurements and comparison of data sources. This is really important for seismometers for EQ location! Let’s us use GPS! 1 billionth of a second (nano second) error in 1 GPS satellite, GPS receiver is +/- 1 ft to satellite, which is 2–3 feet on Earth. Early
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Episode 44 - "It's not Richter magnitude!"
20/11/2015 Duration: 53minThis week we talk about Bill Nye, earthquake magnitudes, and coffee. Bill Nye John got to see Bill Nye (@BillNye) talk at Penn State! News article with photos! Earthquake Magnitudes Earthquake Size (C. Ammon) Challenge is that earthquakes span a huge dynamic range. We measure ground displacements over about 9 orders of magnitude. Largest Earthquakes in the World Since 1900 Kiyoo Wadati Richter magnitude scale Book: Richter’s Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man Wood Anderson Seismometer Body wave magnitude Core Shadow Zone Surface wave magnitude Seismic moment Moment magnitude Example Seismogram Resources USGS Earthquake Notification Service Harvard GCMT emails and catalog Earthquake Storms - Dvorak Introduction to Seismology - Shearer An Introduction to Seismology, Earthquakes, and Earth Structure - Stein & Wysession Fun Paper Friday Do you like bitter tasting things? A study says that it tells something about your personality. Do you buy it? Article about paper “Black Coffee Equals Black
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Episode 43 - “Life should be more than turning off drop shadow defaults”
13/11/2015 Duration: 52minThis week Shannon is grading, John is modeling (numerically), and they both are mad about some graphs they have seen. Data Visualization We are colorblind Tableau20 Colors Rainbow Color Map (Still) Considered Harmful A Better Default Colormap (video) Perceptual Color Maps in matplotlib for Oceanography (video) Evaluation of Artery Visualization for Heart Disease Diagnosis (Borkin et al.) Make everything bigger than you think it needs to be! Resources Edward Tufte Flowing Data Visualize This (Book) Data Points (Book) The Craft of Scientific Presentations (Book) Presentation Zen (Book) Data Fluency (Book) Ask people that make things you like! Fun Paper Friday This week we talk about thundersnow and the Trump tower. How can buildings strike clouds? Warner, Tom A., Timothy J. Lang, and Walter A. Lyons. “Synoptic scale outbreak of self‐initiated upward lightning (SIUL) from tall structures during the central US blizzard of 1–2 February 2011.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 119.15 (2014): 9530–9
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Episode 42 - "Life, the Universe, and Everything"
06/11/2015 Duration: 43minShannon was at the GSA 2015 meeting in Baltimore Maryland. She also won a raffle there for a Rite in the Rain notebook and holder. The meeting app worked well, but we’re both nervous after the AGU app last year. This is episode 42. A very important number to the show! Life Art of the Hadean Era The Hadean sounds kind of like Seveneves Geologic Time Scale Shark Bay Stromatolites Cambrian Explosion Cambrain Arthropod Story (Berkeley) Cambrian Creatures Slideshow Rodinia (“The Motherland” supercontinent) Deepest Volcanic Vent Video Trilobite Guide The Universe Hawking on the origin of the universe Big Bang, Deflated? (livescience) Nuclear Synthesis and Stars Cosmology from quantum potential (Ali and Das) Everything We do a Fun Paper Friday from listener Angie! Heierli, J., et al. “Anticrack model for skier triggering of slab avalanches.” Cold Regions Science and Technology 65.3 (2011): 372–381. Show Pumpkin Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanic
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Episode 41 - "The Nino (Pumpkin Spice Latte Season)"
30/10/2015 Duration: 40minThis week we talk about El Nino, what it is, how it works, and what it means for this winter. We also discuss pumpkin carving injuries on this week’s Fun Paper Friday! Spanish for “the Nino” reference Bill Nye El Nino Skit ENSO The Southern Oscillation and Its Link to the ENSO Cycle (NOAA) ENSO Current Status (NOAA Slide Deck) The ENSO Cycle (NOAA) ENSO Blog ENSO General Info El Nino Indices of El Nino Evolution (Trenberth and Stepaniak, 2000) National Data Buoy Center Current Satellite SSTs El Nino General Info NOAA El Nino Portal Nino Areas Map Consequences Triple Hurricane Picture Hurricane Patricia Exacerbating an already bad drought in the Pacific NW. Helping to alleviate drought in the SW and OK. El Nino years usually mean much lower chances of Atlantic Hurricane development and landfall Fun Paper Friday This week we look at experiments about how safe different pumpkin carving tools are. Not for the faint of heart! Marcus, A. M., Green, J. K., & Werner, F. W. (2004). The safety of pumpkin carvin
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Episode 40 - "Pumpkin Sedimentation"
23/10/2015 Duration: 31minThis week Shannon talks about back to back field trips, broken airplanes, and rain. John relates a story about a strange northeast tradition and shares a traffic related fun paper. Shannon’s Trip Paper about zebra dolomite Sand Bar Videos Glen Canyon Dam Hoover Dam Riffle Lee’s Ferry Kring Paper in Episode 30 Meteor Crater Lowell Observatory Punkin’ Chunkin’ Howard, PA Chunkin’ Website Graupel World Championship Punkin Chunkin Smokin’ Lamas Fun Paper Friday Have you ever been stuck in traffic and wondered why the traffic jam moves like a wave? This week we discuss the dynamics of traffic jams. Giant traffic jam in China Kerner, B. S. (1998). Experimental features of self-organization in traffic flow. Physical Review Letters, 81(17), 3797–3800. http://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.81.3797 Flynn, Morris R., et al. “Self-sustained nonlinear waves in traffic flow.” Physical Review E 79.5 (2009): 056113. Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.j
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Episode 39 - "There are some blow up bubbles" Mars
16/10/2015 Duration: 36minThis week we talk about water on Mars and aeroelastic flutter of bird wings. John got married with drones and garter cannons. Keep an eye on his Twitter feed for more videos soon. We have a GSA poster and AGU Talk! Mars Mars facts from NASA Mars Cultural Fascination The Martian Way Seveneves The Martian Elon Musk Bio Water on mars Recurring Slope Linea (RSL), identified in 2011 by Lujendra Ojha (then student, now at Georgia Institute of Technology) Great pictures of RSLs Recurring slope lineae in equatorial regions of Mars (Nature Geoscience) HiRISE observations of Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) during southern summer on Mars (Icarus) Detection of Perchlorate and the Soluble Chemistry of Martian Soil at the Phoenix Lander Site (Science) Phoenix Lander *Spectral evidence for hydrated salts in recurring slope lineae on Mars (Nature Geoscience) Fun Paper Friday Clark, C. J., Elias, D. O., & Prum, R. O. (2011). Aeroelastic flutter produces hummingbird feather songs. Science, 333(6048), 1430–1433. http://doi.o
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Episode 38 - "I was kind of crafty about it, switching aisles"
09/10/2015 Duration: 56minThis week we interview Kina McAllister to talk about her science activity kits for girls and then talk about the optimal office temperature setting in this week’s Fun Paper Friday! STEMBox Website @STEMBox Twitter STEMBox Facebook Original KickStarter @KinaButterJelly on Twitter Woodland Park Zoo HiveBio EDC Show with Bullet Journal Links Fun Paper Friday This week we have a paper with a horrible title, but a very interesting study of what the best temperature is for an office space. Kingma, B., & van Marken Lichtenbelt, W. (2015). Energy consumption in buildings and female thermal demand. Nature Climate Change, 1–5. http://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2741 Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin
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Episode 37 - "We solved all those problems, for all time" Open Hardware Summit
02/10/2015 Duration: 52minOpen Hardware Summit 2015 Hackable badge! Talks AnnMarie Thomas (Univ. St. Thomas) “Making Makers” Jason Kessler and Jon Ruston talked about ULTRASCOPE Mach 30 president J. Simmons showed new cad/modeling linked tools that they are using to create open thrusters, rockets, etc. Yavin cold gas thruster as test bed Joshua Pearce showed how open hardware in science can save us a bundle think of all the outdated lab equipment sitting around unsupported. Checkout Joshua’s book “Open-Source Lab” and new “Building open source hardware” by Alicia Gibb Bruce Boyes on the Wright Brothers and Patents Open prosthetic development Open fluid chemistry for biology studies with an Arduino shield Open Hardware Certification Fun Paper Friday This fun paper looks at how using ice shells can reduce drag and some of the non-intuitive physics behind it. Gizmodo article Pykrete Vakarelski, I. U., Chan, D. Y. C., & Thoroddsen, S. T. (2015). Drag Moderation by the Melting of an Ice Surface in Contact with Water. Physical Review L
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Episode 36 - "We're looking at something the size of Connecticut" with Prof. Charles Ammon
25/09/2015 Duration: 43minThis week special guest Prof. Charles Ammon joins us to discuss the recent magnitude 8.3 Chile earthquake. We then talk about coffee and how it can move your body clock around. Show Links USGS Earthquake Page Shaking from several views (YouTube) IRIS Teachable Moment PDF USGS Finite Fault Model PAGER for this Event @CharlesAmmon on Twitter Prof. Ammon’s Epicentral Blog Epicentral (iPhone App) Epicentral+ (iPad App) Earth Motion Monitor (Mac) Fun Paper Friday Burke, T. M., Markwald, R. R., & McHill, A. W. (2015). Effects of caffeine on the human circadian clock in vivo and in vitro. Science Translational …, 7(305), 305ra146–305ra146. http://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aac5125 Science Article Summary Colorado News Release Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin