In Terra Veritas

you're absolutely right about the Hsu paper .....

2011-03-28T11:52:42.424-06:00

you're absolutely right about the Hsu paper ... another one that goes very nicely w/ it is the Gretener (1967?) paper called 'Significance of the Rare Event'.

Oops. Thanks cjones, my mistake is corrected. As ...

2011-02-03T12:55:41.267-07:00

Oops. Thanks cjones, my mistake is corrected.

As far as which apps require a network link, I didn't think of that. But you are correct that both "iGeology" and "Earth Observer" require network access.

"Skeptical Science" does as well, to an extent. It can operate without network access, but only with information it has already downloaded within its updates.

"iSeismo" works without network access, and I would imagine that the compass apps work the same way (but I haven't downloaded them, I just know they exist).

As far as taking things like my iPad or an iPhone in the field; I, personally, am just not comfortable with the concept. I don't even take my cell phone out of my car when I am in the field and it is basically an old "candy bar" style phone.

One day I think the technology will be durable enough for me to drag it over hill and dale, but right now I am concerned it is just too fragile.

There is one mistake here, it is Earth Observer, n...

2011-01-24T13:29:59.374-07:00

There is one mistake here, it is Earth Observer, not Earth Observatory (which points you at some satellite image tools). It would be nice to point out which of these require network access (Earth Observer does, and I'll bet the app for Britain does too).

A whole separate series of state-by-state GISes that include geology exist that can be used offline (like in the field)--Integrity Logic's suite of Geograph State apps. Not quite the same as Earth Observer, and they cost cash, but can work offline. Sadly at the moment not upscaled for iPad.

Hey! This is an AWESOME post. I don't even hav...

2011-01-14T23:53:35.400-07:00

Hey! This is an AWESOME post. I don't even have an iPhone but I still think this is so freaking cool. Thanks for doing the round up!

Hello, Bryan. Just came across your blog and was i...

2010-11-18T14:40:57.610-07:00

Hello, Bryan. Just came across your blog and was interested to read your article on the "41 Angry Scientists" and on what made them decide to band together in one final push to prove once and for all that the asteroid without a doubt caused the extinctions. I thought you, perhaps, like to know that it may have been partly due to the fact that a new hypothesis has been introduced in this particular scientific debate that has not yet reached mainstream media. The new hypothesis attempts to show that it was not an asteroid or the Deccan Traps, but was instead the result of tectonic events that were happening in North America at the KP boundary. I gave a presentation outlining this new theory at the GSA meeting in Houston in 2008 (abstract #146036). Following this meeting, a symposium was formed in Hermosillo, Mexico in March of 2010, at which I gave my presentation again. The Symposium just happened to occur the same week that the Schulte, et al paper was released.
These 41 scientists may be in agreement, but there are many, many scientists who are not. I, personally, do not believe that there was any asteroid at all...but so far, thats just me...

Except that in this hypothetical situation it is u...

2010-10-04T20:13:45.697-06:00

Except that in this hypothetical situation it is unclear if this represents an extirpation event rather than an extinction event. This has been demonstrated by MacLeod and Keller (1991), elaborated by MacLeod (1995), and has been discussed in relation to the PTr boundary by Smith (1995).

Also, it is unclear what the actual populations of Species "A" and "B" are. All you know is that "A" and "B" both experience high preservation potentials, then "A" either emigrates to another location (extirpation), dies out (extinction), or suffers from a selective drop in preservation potential (a slight change in geochemistry could account for such an event).

It is also unclear how much time would be represented by the surface at which "A" is removed from the stratigraphic record. This problem has been documented by Shanley and McCabe (1994).

Not to mention the fact that the terms "Gradual" and "Catastrophic" remain undefined in terms of extinction rates. Would a population going extinct in a century be considered catastrophic? A millennium? And given the limitations of chronostratigraphic resolution (plus/minus 40,000 years is the best resolution for the end-K extinction event), is such a distinction even meaningful?

Finally, if you are able to overcome these limitations, does the rate of extinction for "species A" relate significantly to an overall ecologic event? Ecosystems are exceedingly complex. If we don't have a thorough understanding of all the impacts of one species going extinct in the modern realm, how can we accurately infer the perturbations of an arbitrary extinction in the rock record? In short, studying extinction events in the rock record remains intractable given the current limitations of knowledge in related fields.

Citations:
MacLeod, N., 1996, Nature of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Planktonic Foraminiferal Record: Stratigraphic Confidence Intervals, Signor-Lipps Effect, and Patterns of Survivorship, in MacLeod, N., and Keller, G., eds., Cretaceous-Tertiary Mass Extinctions: Biotic and Environmental Changes: New York NY, Norton, p. 92.

MacLeod, N., and Keller, G., 1991, Hiatus distributions and mass extinctions at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary: Geology, v. 19, no. 5, p. 497-501.

Shanley, K. W., and McCabe, P. J., 1994, Perspectives on the Sequence Stratigraphy of Continental Strata: AAPG Bulletin, v. 78, no. 4, p. 544-568.

Smith, R. M. H., 1995, Changing Fluvial Environments Across the Permain - Triassic Boundary in the Karoo Basin, South Africa and Possible Causes of Tetrapod Extinctions: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 117, p. 81-204.

I think in fact you can distinguish fast from grad...

2010-09-29T04:54:01.988-06:00

I think in fact you can distinguish fast from gradual extinction, consider this:
If in a region there are two kinds of fossil A and B, both belong to species that are abundant and with high preservation potential, and if above certain depth fossil A abruptly disappears, isn't this considered as a fast extinction for species A?
More so if fossils belong to different abundant species disappear together at the same depth.
So, I think we can indeed differentiate fast or gradual extinction for ABUNDANT species, while this is not true for rare species with low preservation potential.

Yeager, a geochemist familiar with acids.....a aci...

2010-08-30T12:10:41.479-06:00

Yeager, a geochemist familiar with acids.....a acidophilic chemist

, realized it smelled like sulfuric acid – otherwise known as battery acid...well
a moron can smell sulfuric acid
a geo...can't
in Terra Veritas
in Vino acidus

Ha!

2010-07-31T23:01:01.741-06:00

Ha!

Oh that's scary. It's just as well the poi...

2010-07-28T15:25:27.528-06:00

Oh that's scary. It's just as well the poisoner chose Corona. If they'd gone for Budweiser it would have been a lot harder to tell the difference...!

Congratulations again Bryan!!!

2010-05-23T07:33:57.404-06:00

Congratulations again Bryan!!!

Thanks for the advice. I've got some feelers o...

2010-05-14T14:10:59.176-06:00

Thanks for the advice. I've got some feelers out on how to continue my education. Substitute teaching is something I haven't thought about, but it could fill the gap I find myself in.

I've thought mostly about going and completing my teacher certification, taking some courses to develop skill sets that I lack (Diff EQ, for example), and preparing my thesis for publication. Then get back to trying to find the right PhD program to continue my education.

It's just an odd feeling, for the past several semesters I've always been aware of deadlines. Once I turned in my thesis, I realized there are no more immediate deadlines.

When I finished up my Master's I had no idea w...

2010-05-14T13:58:09.557-06:00

When I finished up my Master's I had no idea what to do next. So a friend of mine living in Kotzebue, Alaska, said "They always need substitute teachers up here, come on up for the winter, earn some cash, and we will take a trip to Europe in the Spring." It sounded like a good plan, so I did...

Congratulations! May you find a "next" that is at least as much fun as the adventure I chose.

great msg for me, thanks a lot dude˙﹏˙

Thanks for sharing- grabbed up a bunch of goodies!...

2010-03-06T23:19:55.669-07:00

Thanks for sharing- grabbed up a bunch of goodies! :)

Oh, I should have added that the authors TIPPED TH...

2010-03-06T15:45:20.678-07:00

Oh, I should have added that the authors TIPPED THEIR HAND (from Cannibal Panda's link):

Just such arguments [Keller et al., 2009] -- and media coverage of them -- are what prompted the scientists to publish their new paper, Goldin [13th author] says. After ignoring Keller and other skeptics for many years, the pro-crater forces got so frustrated that they decided to put all the evidence together.

[Considering this paper hasn't delivered any revelation that hasn't been know for the past 20 - 30 years, I think the "pro-crater forces" have some work to do. ]

"It is almost impossible to change the skeptics' minds," Goldin concedes. "But we hope we can communicate to the scientific community and the public that this impact-induced environmental catastrophe did happen."

It's actually easy to change a genuine skeptic's mind. I even listed out what would do it. Stop telling the scientific community what "is right", and give us demonstrable proof. Correlation is not enough in this game, causation needs to be demonstrated. This is what the skeptics (like N. MacLeod) are saying.

The article that Cannibal Panda mentions is the best reporting on this "event" I've seen. Thanks for sharing it.

Norman MacLeod's take is priceless "It's the same old story from them... the authors conveniently forget to mention critical data".

Robert, feel free to post an article about arguments of authority (or your feelings about Schulte et al., 2010). Geotripper has something about arguments of authority (and snagged a denier in the comments) up as well.

Hey Bryan - I figured this post would be on this t...

2010-03-06T11:40:59.842-07:00

Hey Bryan - I figured this post would be on this topic; I thought about writing a post as well, more on the general subject of "Oh, isn't it actually bad to make arguments from authority" or something along those lines. Anyway... now you've got another thing to talk about at your defense.

When I read the news report this morning it was ti...

2010-03-05T17:15:00.440-07:00

When I read the news report this morning it was titled: "'Dream Team' Agrees Huge asteroid Killed Dinosaurs." I clicked the link right away to see what this "Dream Team" stuff was all about.

The article itself pretty much screams exactly what you suspected in regards to 41 authors rehashing an old topic. It specifically mentions two "doubters" and "holdouts" (MacLeod and Keller) as if the mere aspect of the paper having 41 authors gives more credence to their study because 41>2.

I am usually highly annoyed with AOL news articles, but at least in this particular one the author does point out MacLeod's opposing argument:
http://bit.ly/b26aJB

Thanks Callan. I still get nervous writing about m...

2010-03-05T15:00:27.661-07:00

Thanks Callan. I still get nervous writing about my general research area, mainly because I don't want to offend anyone.

However, this was something that needed to be said (aside from my advisor, I received 3 emails by this morning asking me about an "extinction consensus").

Keller's work may have some faults, but at least she is asking questions rather than trying to claim we've solved the problem.

Well done! I was hoping you would blog about this....

2010-03-05T14:45:41.573-07:00

Well done! I was hoping you would blog about this.

I love the image from the comic.

2010-02-13T06:46:30.953-07:00

I love the image from the comic.

Ah, thank you very much. I like to try and link to...

2010-02-12T16:11:24.762-07:00

Ah, thank you very much. I like to try and link to the original source when I can, and I'd be surprised if the message on Facebook was the original.

That lil' Darwin image is from a webcomic name...

2010-02-12T15:27:52.357-07:00

That lil' Darwin image is from a webcomic named Dresden Codak. I like a lot of his work, I recommend you check it out. Link here: Original Comic

Thanks for the short post reminding us of the important date. Having recently read On the Origin of Species, I can't believe the google front page didn't didn't mark the anniversary of such an influential man's birth.

I've been following this case pretty closely; ...

2010-02-03T17:56:30.212-07:00

I've been following this case pretty closely; you sum it up well. Last spring and summer, I posted a few pieces on the trial of the little girl. I was very dispirited that the mother was let off completely. The father was convicted of negligence and given a 60-day sentence, to be served on weekends, if I remember. They were allowed to keep custody of their other children.

The fact that another child in the same family has died shows that they haven't learned their lesson. I'm sure they're very sad and sorrowful. Just not enough, you know, to get medical care for other sick children in their care. I'm waiting to see what sentence is handed down.