“Both the insignificant and the extraordinary are the architects of the natural world.” Carl Sagan in “Cosmos – Heaven & Hell” After geologists could finally answer how the spectacular peaks of the Dolomites formed, the next urgent questions was if the dolomite rock (or dolostone) was a primary product of marine deposition or a secondary [...]

“The surface of the earth is far more beautiful and far more intricate than any lifeless world. Our planet is graced by life and one quality that sets life apart is it’s complexity.” Carl Sagan in “Cosmos – The Persistence of Memory“ In July 1791 the French aristocrat, adventurer and naturalist Diedonnè-Silvain-Guy-Tancrede de Gvalet de [...]

This month’s Accretionary Wedge, hosted by the “Knowledge Flocs” Blog, asks for the interplay between geology and civilization – for example the interplay of warfare with the landscape. With the rapid development of war technology in the last 150 years also the impact of weapons on the landscape increased significantly. Arms, bombs and high energy [...]

October 1792 the crew of the “H.M.S. Discovery“, surveying the western coasts of the American continent, spotted a mountain and named it after the British diplomat Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St. Helens (1753-1839). The true origin of Mount St. Helens was revealed to the naturalists only in 1835, when a minor eruption revealed its volcanic [...]

The fossil forests of Specimen Ridge and Amethyst Mountain, both situated in the area of the Yellowstone National Park, are peculiar because of many preserved trees still standing upright. The geologist, anthropologist and artist Dr. William H. Holmes was the first naturalist to study the outcrop of Amethyst Mountain and to publish his observations in [...]

“My Dear Sister: This morning the whole population of the city is on the alert and every eye is directed toward Mont Pelee, an extinct volcano. Everybody is afraid that the volcano has taken into its heart to burst forth and destroy the whole island.” Mrs. Thomas T. Prentis, wife of the United States Consul [...]

The first scientists and journalists arrived May 21, 1902, soon researchers from the United Kingdom and France followed. Just 13 days earlier the city of Saint-Pierre, on the Caribbean island of Martinique, had been annihilated by an unknown volcanic phenomenon. The geologists were baffled by the extant and pattern of the destruction inside the city, [...]

Already hundred of years before a fireball scared Nevada, another strange rock made the news of the day.  It was almost midday of November 7, 1492 when a “gruesome thunderbolt and long lasting roar” was heard coming from the sky and a rock impacted on a field, producing a crater “half a man length” deep. [...]

“O, promised land O, wicked ground Build a dream Tear it down O, promised land What a wicked ground Build a dream Watch it all fall down” “San Andreas Fault” Maybe the first persons to note something unusual in early morning of April 18, 1906 were the sailors of the ship “Wellington“, just entering the [...]

The tragedy of the “unsinkable” Titanic lost in the cold water of the Atlantic became part of history and pop culture, but the story of the main culprit that caused the disaster is mostly forgotten and only vague descriptions and some photos exists of the supposed iceberg(s). One famous photography taken from board of the [...]