Category Archives: History

The Greatest Science Quotes

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Do you mentally collect and muse over science quotes? Some reasonably good web sites have already done this, but so far none of those sites has my all-time favourite. It’s obscure. It was spoken by a geophysicist fifty years ago … Continue reading →

Posted in History, How Geophysics Works, Philosophy, Plate Tectonics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Tuzo

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Ron Miksha

“Tuzo’s dead.” That was the first time I’d ever heard of Tuzo. It was April 1993 and I wondered who – or what – Tuzo was. Now he was dead. I had already completed my University of Saskatchewan geophysics degree … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, History, How Geophysics Works, Plate Tectonics, Science Education | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Theory of Everything

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Ron Miksha

The marriage of Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde – as told through the ex-wife’s memoir – has become the stuff of a Hollywood tragic-romance. I have not read her memoir but have read excerpts and reviews of it. The Jane … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Culture, History, People, Religion | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

We Love Comets… but it wasn’t always that way

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Ron Miksha

So, today we kissed a comet. Many of us shared the excitement of the European Space Agency’s successful landing. Something built on the Earth is now sitting on a comet, traveling at 135,000 kilometres an hour, heading towards an even … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Engineering, Exploration, History, Religion, Science Education, Space | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Shutting Down the Plumes?

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Near an Indian Ocean island that regularly exhausts smoke and lava, a group of scientists are trying to unravel one of the great mysteries of the Earth. Their riddle involves the planet’s largest basalt field, dinosaur extinction, and the birth … Continue reading →

Posted in Exploration, History, How Geophysics Works | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bad Russian Science

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Ron Miksha

My daily Geo-calendar reminds me to consider events in the evolving history of Earth Sciences. Yesterday’s little blurb on that calendar commemorated the birth of Vladimir Belousov (1907-1990), the Soviet-era geologist who stopped plate tectonics, at least in his country. … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, History, Non-drift Theories, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Light on the Dark Side of the Moon

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Did you see the blood red lunar eclipse? Wish I had, but here in Calgary we mostly had the undersides of clouds at 5 a.m. Pity. Poor us. But there are other eclipti coming. April and September 2015 should look … Continue reading →

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The Bad Luck of Extinction

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Bad genes or bad luck? That’s the subtitle of Extinction,  David Raup’s romp through Earth history from his viewpoint as a preeminent palaeontologist. Raup (along with colleague Jack Sepkoski) became somewhat well known for their theory that extinctions occur in … Continue reading →

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Hot Ash

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Yesterday’s news out of Japan was the unexpected eruption of a volcano. Hikers – some of them weekend strollers taking pictures of fall colours – were overtaken when the sleeping volcano expelled its nasty breath. Witnesses said that they thought … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, History, Religion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Popular, but Wrong

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Ron Miksha

We don’t usually celebrate a man’s death, and we are not doing that here. But William Matthew (1871-1930) died on this date in 1930, and his appearance on my geo-calendar was a reminder to me to think about this popular … Continue reading →

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