Tag Archives: mountain mystery book

A Year of Mystery

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Ron Miksha

I began writing this blog – The Mountain Mystery – exactly one year ago. So, as far as blogs go, this is a young one. It is a loosely cohesive collection of stories about the Earth. The only real themes … Continue reading →

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Heresy without Redemption

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Ron Miksha

Today’s date, February 17, coincides with the day they killed Giordano Bruno. For years, he had been imprisoned for blasphemy, for practising magic, and for heresy.  Execution was recommended, though he could have had a less tortuous death had he … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Culture, Non-drift Theories, Philosophy, Religion, The Book | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Charles Darwin, the Geologist

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Ron Miksha

It’s his birthday. It seems Charles Darwin’s legacy is experiencing a renaissance. Sure, some 60% of Americans vilify the man and hope he is roasting in hell. Or undergoing reincarnation as a toad, or is still awaiting release from purgatory. … Continue reading →

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Riding the Moho

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Ron Miksha

  Today is the anniversary of the birth (January 23, 1857) of a brilliant geophysicist with an unpronounceable name (unless you are Croatian) – Andrija Mohorovičić. (You may say On-Dree-Ya Mow-Hoe-Row-Vitch-Itch. Or, like many a grad student, you could simply … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Geology, History, How Geophysics Works, Plate Tectonics, The Book | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Catastrophic Floods

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Ron Miksha

An interesting blog posting, Catastrophic History, produced on the website The Not So Solid Earth, makes the point that much of future archeology will be marine archeology. During the last ice age, a lot of sea water was captured in … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Culture, History, Oceans, The Book | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Geophysics Nobel Prize

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Well, they did it again. That committee in Sweden announced all sorts of science prizes (and a lot of money, too) to pioneers in medicine, physics, chemistry, and even peace. OK, that last one isn’t a science prize, I think. … Continue reading →

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The Billion Year Discovery

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Ron Miksha

About a century ago, a college student figured out that the Earth has rocks over a billion years old. Until Arthur Holmes’ experiments at Imperial College in London, geologists could only guess at the age of various rock formations. Geologist … Continue reading →

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A Bad Day at the Beach

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Ron Miksha

Today marks the death of Gaius Plinius Secundus, aka Pliny the Elder. He died along with 20,000 of his friends and neighbors. On August 24, 79, Mount Vesuvius exploded and Pompeii and Herculaneum were no more. From the book, The … Continue reading →

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SWARM of Magnetism

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Ron Miksha

The popular press has been fretting about the impending demise of our protective magnetic field.  Rightly so. We can expect all sorts of nasties when the field fails. The European Space Agency recently placed a “swarm” of magnetism-sensing satellites in … Continue reading →

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The Death of Heezen

Posted on June 21, 2014 by Ron Miksha

The Des Moines Register described Bruce Heezen as a large man. This, they said, contributed to his early death at age 53, on this day in 1977. But when we look at photographs of Bruce Heezen, he doesn’t appear to … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, History, Oceans, The Book | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments