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I am presenting a hands-on middle-school earth-science workshop at the Alabama Science Teachers Association conference in Tuscaloosa

NOVEMBER 4 • MONDAY

2:00pm – 2:50pm M Make your own trackway

Presenters: Rylleigh Harstad, David Kopaska-Merkel
Sponsors: Geological Survey of Alabama
Sellers Auditorium, BCC Level 1 (Hotel Capstone - Level 1)

The fun begins with painting with your feet, and just goes on from there!

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So the Alabama Science Teachers Association is meeting here in Tuscaloosa this year. Stop me if I have already told you about this. I decided to do a workshop about fossil footprints. Specifically, about trackways. Years ago I found this really cute activity where you step in paint, walk on paper, and then measure things, calculate other things, and, hopefully, realize that you can learn a lot from fossil footprints. I actually presented this to the same group years ago, but there is so much turnover among teachers (because they are treated like crap) that for most of them this would be a new experience. I recently discovered that the ASTA doesn't accept every single workshop proposal that is submitted, although I still think it's pretty close. But if they don't accept this one, it will be because the owner of the facility doesn't want people walking in paint on their floors. I have a plan for that, but I think if they say no they're going to say no before they hear about my plan. I guess I need to email the workshop organizer and make my pitch before it is too late! It involves using a large tarp and trusting teachers to be tidy. I can do that, can't I? Stay tuned.

Interview about Footprints in Stone

A half-hour interview about the Pennsylvanian trace fossils from Walker County, Alabama, and about the recently published book on the subject, called Footprints in Stone

http://www.specialpeopleandplaces.com/

The interview took place at a book signing at the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa

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standing cliffside
at the Grand Canyon
dozens of landslides visible
on the distant wall
my mind races ahead

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this four-footed thing
seeking to assuage hunger in tidal mud
maybe an ancestor
of a cosmologist or carpenter
maybe today's lunch
but its footprints will last
300,000 millennia
and that's something

Alabama Paleontological Society

The APS (link below) is an amateur organization of fossil enthusiasts based in Birmingham, Alabama. They have monthly meetings in field trips. They also discovered the Steven C Minkin Paleozoic Footprint site, the most important trace fossil site of its age in the world, and made sure that it was preserved for posterity. Without their work, my new book about the site (co-authored with Ron Buta) could not have existed.

Fossils at the site are abundant and diverse, but one of the best things about it is that you can visit the site, with the APS, and keep most or all of the wonderful fossils that you find

http://alabamapaleo.org/Alabama_Paleontological_Society.html

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the wide open eye
away are burned both clouds
and night
atmosphere, hydrosphere
lithosphere in burning wind

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streaming the smoke
misshapen mountain
peak

hot river slowly
topples trees
cools



Two reverse hay(na)ku.

30 days in the hole

Or in this case, more like 30 billion days, but who's counting?

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riding a lithospheric slab
into the mantle
caught in an updraft
volcanoed out on the surface
where we started
just a few million years later
that was fun, Daddy,
do it again!

Beach erosion

Close-up view of scarp on beach. Dark organic layers on lower left are truncated by homogeneous sand on the right. Horizontal layers covered both of these units. Powerful waves eroded everything to this small vertical cliff. Note centimeter and inch scale in the lower left. Baldwin County, Alabama. I believe the photographer was A.K. Rindsberg.

From a real Jurassic Park

Three kinds of microbial fabric and one piece of shrimp poop trapped inside; Jurassic, but no dinosaurs.

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rocks slide.
between the sheets
strange crystals form

A new book for teachers about earth science of the southeastern US

Swaby, Andrielle N., Lucas, Mark D., and, Ross, Robert M., eds., 2016, The teacher-friendly guide to the earth science of the southeastern US, 2nd edition, Paleontological Research Institution (www.priweb.org), 460 p. ISBN 978-0-87710-512-1. Perfect-bound paperback, $35.

This book contains chapters on geologic history, rocks, fossils, topography, mineral resources, energy, soils, climate, earth hazards, and fieldwork. 14 authors contributed to the book, of whom only four actually live and work in the Southeast. However, many of the rest are well known earth-science education specialists.

I am not reviewing this book at the moment (I might do it another time), but I am very familiar with the writing of several authors who helped create this volume. I am sure it is a valuable resource for teachers who are not already familiar with the subject.

Because this is a fairly thick paperback, I suspect it will start to come apart after only a modest
amount of use. As far as I know there is not a hardback edition.

Outstanding earth science teacher – nominate yourself or someone else

Outstanding earth science teacher for Alabama – send the nomination to me. The deadline is April 1, although you can send me the nomination form at any time. The state winner is automatically nominated at the section level, and the section winner is automatically nominated at the national level.

The Alabama winner gets $100 and some free science books as well as a plaque. What have you got to lose?

You are eligible to be considered for this award if you teach a significant amount of earth science at the K-12 level. It is not necessary for you to teach earth science all year long.

My latest geological publication

Kopaska-Merkel, David C., and Haywick, Douglas W., 2014, Small carbonate buildups in the Bangor Limestone (Chesterian) in and near Alabama, in, Puckett, T. Markham, and Rindsberg, Andrew K., eds., Stratigraphy and depositional systems in the Mississippian strata of the Appalachian Plateau, northwest Alabama, A guidebook for the 51st annual field trip, Alabama Geological Society, Tuscaloosa, p. 111-138.

Abstract

Carbonate mounds in the Mississippian of Alabama are small, unobtrusive, and sparsely distributed. Of eight known mounds, six are in the Bangor Limestone (Chesterian), one is in the Pennington Formation (late Chesterian), and one is in the Tuscumbia Limestone (Meramecian), in the subsurface. Nine other small mounds are known from the Bangor in southeastern Tennessee. A small Bangor mound in Blount County, first described as a rugose coral colony by Andronaco (1986), is here reinterpreted as a composite of coral colonies and muddy domains held up by a consortium of microbes, sponges, and fenestrate bryozoans. This is the first such mound reported from the Bangor.

High school and geology

A reminder just showed up in my inbox of a message that I never actually received through my high school alumni website. The message was sent three years ago. Cyberspace is weird and wonderful.

I have never been back to my high school and never seriously considered going. I suppose if I still lived in town I would have gone to some alumni events, even though I only had a few friends in high school, but as it is I live far away and my friends and family are no longer in that town (Charlottesville Virginia).

I was warned yesterday that I'm going to be interviewed by some college students about how we know the age of some rocks the state. That won't be a problem, but it might be a challenge to make the answer seem interesting. It is for a documentary film that they are making. Because the answer is that some spores whose age we know showed up in the rocks in Alabama and some shells whose age we know showed up in the rocks in Alabama; I will be hard-pressed to set the blood pumping faster with that. Of course, ultimately, we know the ages because of volcanoes! Volcanic ash beds and ancient lava flows can be dated using unstable isotopes. That's where all of the absolute ages come from.

Teacher of the Year -- awarded by American Association of Petroleum Geologists

This is a pretty decent award, and it goes to a teacher who has taught earth science specifically as it relates to natural resources. See below.



Applications and nominations are being accepted for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists 2015 Teacher of the Year (TOTY) Award until December 1, 2014. The TOTY award, given by the American Association for Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Foundation, will once again be granted to a K-12 teacher within the United States who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the field of geoscience education. Six teachers across the country will be identified as finalists, each from one of six U.S. geographic regions (Pacific, Rocky Mountain, Mid-Continent, Southwest, Gulf Coast, and Eastern). The regional award, presented by AAPG-Eastern Section and the AAPG Foundation is $1,500.


All applicants must adhere to the following requirements in order to be considered for the TOTY:
o Minimum of 3 years full-time U.S. teaching experience at any K-12 level.
o Teaching at least one unit per year on natural resources. Natural resources are defined as earth materials used by civilizations past and present such as:
o Organic materials such as petroleum, natural gas, coal and oil shale.
o Inorganic substances found in the Earth such as mineral ores, building stone and aggregate.
o Energy resources from the Earth such as geothermal energy.
o Teaching should include the scientific study of these resources, their origin, discovery, extraction, and historic and present use. It should also include the preservation of the environment, reclamation, the conservation of resources, and the use of earth science knowledge in decision-making.


After regional winners are named, the Foundation’s TOTY Committee will convene to pick the final winner of the 2015 Teacher of the Year Award. The National TOTY winner will receive a $6,000 award which will be presented to the individual at the AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition (ACE) in Denver, Colorado, May 2015. The award includes $3,000 for school use under the teacher’s supervision for educational purposes and $3,000 for personal use by the teacher. The winner will also receive an expense paid trip for two to ACE to receive the award. Check out the link below for important information about guidelines, deadlines, how to nominate and/or apply! Application deadline is December 1, 2014.

Visit this link to nominate or apply today: http://foundation.aapg.org/programs/toty/index.cfm

Unconformity

Peter Hoffman points out the boundary between the Devonian Rondout Formation (above) and the Ordovician Normanskill (below). 1987 fieldtrip led by Anderson and Goodwin, upstate New York.

A fossil reef

A solid mass of finger shaped fossil corals composing a reef, Devonian of upstate New York. The reef is the size of a small hill; this is a very small part of it.