Dec 23 2005
Very nice overview of the methodology and applications of ice core research can be found in this short overview article on NASA’s Earth Observatory site:
Frozen in Time: the Ice Core Record
by Holli Riebeek· design by Robert Simmon· December 19, 2005.
This version has the glossary turned on….
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Mar 05 2005
Nice article from Wired News, Carbon-Dating Cloc Reset that outlines work to extend the useful range of carbon-14 dating from from 21 ka max to 23,000. The article provides a good overview of the limitations and strengths of the method.
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Jun 22 2004
Using the Internet is a very interesting way — reminds me a bit of the SETI project… some researchers in the UK have put together a way to look at unique climate scenarios.
“A worldwide experiment to test the plausibility of the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow starts on 22 June.”
Apr 06 2004
Can you imagine walking along a beach, looking down and seeing a plesiosaur?
Sea reptile fossil found on beach
Nick Collard discovered the bones of the plesiosaur – a 1.5 metre-long sea creature which lived 188 million years ago – on the beach at Bridgwater Bay.
That must have been such a rush. I know that when I found a dinosaur footprint one time it was quite a feeling. This one must have been amazing.
I wish there had been a better photo, that’s all….
Oct 06 2003
Blast from the past:
The picture above is two views of a VRML (Virtual Reality Model Language) file representing a gastropod (OK, snail)….
If you look at a number of shells – nautoloids, gastropods (snails), pelecypods (clams) — have a shape that can be derived from a log spiral function.
Harkening back to my geo-days — I actually am a geologist, I don’t just play one on the Internet— I was involved in assisting with the development of a really nice little learning module that focused on accretionary shells – specifically the Raup Model.One of the projects I was involved in brought a a team of students and a faculty member (Paul Smith, now department head) together to create a program that allowed students in the paleontology classes to modify 4 parameters, click draw, and then produce a VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling language) version of a shell. Using a VRML plugin, students could view the shape, then return to the form and re-generate the shape. Totally cool…
Only problem is, the program (a CGI program written in Perl) produces VRML …
which is not the easiest file type to find a plugin for these days. So.. the program has been sitting idle…
Good news is that I did find a new plugin …
It’s from a company called Parallel Graphics, and the plug-in is the Cortona VRML Client. You can download/install the plug-in by accessing http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortona, and following the directions provided.
However… I’m wanting to perhaps free ourselves of the CGI program and go standalone. I’ve seen some Java versions.. like the Gildner Paleo Home Page. Cool — but I am still looking for that ability to rotate, and to jack up the “W” to get the clams…
I’m wondering… does anyone have some good pointers on how to do something like this in Flash? Is this something Flash can do? We have the Perl program… I’m just loooking for some pointers as to where we might look to study this further…
Any ideas would be really appreciated!
By the way, if you have installed the plugin, and want to see some of these… they are so cool…
Trick with the plugin, click on “Fit” (lower right button), then switch to study mode (lets you rotate these easy…)
SO COOL!!