Tag Archives: history

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

The Age of Man?

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Well, this is not the Age of Aquarius. Last week, geologists met in Berlin to discuss  renaming our current geological epoch – the Holocene. They say it began when the ice age ended, 11,700 years ago. The geologists in Berlin … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Culture, Oceans, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pope Francis and the Magic Wand

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Pope Francis has been in the news for the past few days. The pontiff has a habit of saying what he’s thinking and he sometimes does this at surprising venues. This time he was speaking at the unveiling of a … Continue reading →

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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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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Those who can’t, teach…

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Today, September 25, would be the 171st birthday of Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin. A discouraging character to honour. Born in 1843, by 1900 his ideas about science education and the scientific method came to dominate American science. Not all of his … Continue reading →

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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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The Bright Side of Solar Flares

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Electronics destroyed. Skin radiated. Mutations. Cancer. And if the GPS is down, how will anyone find their way home? But there is a bright side to solar flares. And that would be last night’s light show. For those of us … Continue reading →

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