Weekly GeoJournal

Climate Change   I grew up in Utah and spent a good amount of time in Idaho, so I would say that I know what a good winter and summer are like. This has not been the case this past year. I used to be able to tell you when the seasons would change, such as from November to the end of February. If not the beginning of March was winter, and you could expect snow and cold weather, March to the end of June or the first of July was spring or summer weather, Summertime was the end of July to the end of August, and fall was from September to November.  This year we didn't get snow that stuck until almost Christmas, and it lasted until about 2 weeks ago when they closed Snowbird Ski Resort. We got 18 inches overnight one day, and it just kept coming. This week when we were in Vegas, my husband's Grandmother said they had gone almost 215-230 days without getting over 100 degrees, which is unheard of. I think this is because the earth is continuing to cool, and as it cools, it takes...

  Mid- Oceanic Ridges  This is a picture of the Aegir Ridge, located near the edges of the Eurasian Plate and the  North American Plate. Ridges are located along divergent plate boundaries, which is where the crust is being pulled apart. I like how in this picture from Google Earth, we can see the folds in the plates.  This is one of the many elevation profiles I was able to find. I find it interesting that when I did an elevation profile on google earth, it showed up as flat, but when I googled the ridge elevation profile, I found this one. I think that the waves are the folds in the plate where new earth is being created at a faster rate over time. I also like how in this picture you are able to more clearly see the folds in the sea floor .

 Plate Tectonics  I think it is fair to say that most natural disasters( excluding floods and wildfires ) are, in some parts, due to the plates moving around. At Convergent plate boundaries,' we have mountain ranges and volcanoes. Divergent, we have earthquakes and hot spots; at Transform boundaries we have earthquakes but also more fault line-related activity.  I do not think that many of us consider that we live on large plates that glide around and float when we think about the earth that we live on.  My favorite type of plate-related activity is Volcanos, I love how pretty they are, and learning about them has been interesting. I do realize that not all volcanoes are the result of plate tectonics but a good majority of them are. I also realize that volcanoes are deadly and very violent.  This is the Popocatepetl Volcano , near Mexico . It is threating to erupt ,but I want to touch on how I think it was formed . This volcano is a stratovolcano, which means it...

 Sediment  I didn't realize that I posted the wrong geo journal until Thursday last week so here is the geo journal for last week. Living in Utah as an adult I didn't realize growing up just how much the dirt and dust gets moved around until now. Between the wind and rain, the soil here doesn't stand much of a chance unless it's got something on top of it to keep it in place.  Pictures from left to right top to bottom: The first picture is in my backyard where the ground has been eroded due to water and my dogs, there is little to no vegetation that grows here and the ground is sunbaked and dry. The second picture is from a few years ago when my husband and I were driving from Florida to Idaho to help his family move. This picture is from a place called Zia Pueblo, just outside of Albuquerque New Mexico. I remember looking at this and wondering how the sand stayed in place and what could have shaped this plateau. The third picture is of the layer of dirt the dogs have t...

Facts about the earthquake : Location:  Northern Utah, It looks like it took place east of Ogden and North of Salt Lake City  Time and Date:   June 6th, 2023 at roughly 3:23 pm local time  Nearby places:   Evanston Wyoming, Farmington Utah, Centerville Utah, Kaysville Utah, and Salt Lake City  Depth of earthquake: This earthquake was fairly shallow it was about 7.146 miles deep, or 11.5 km deep Magnitude:  The magnitude of this quake was 2.5  Utah Earthquake history:  Utah is part of the Intermountain Seismic belt that runs north to south. According to the USGS website Utah started experiencing earthquakes mid -1962. It is also said that Utah is known for having M5 or larger earthquakes every 10 years and ones greater than M6 every 50 years. The fault that is the most active but has had little seismic activity is the Wasatch Fault, this fault stretches over 240 miles from Southern Idaho to Northern Utah. This fault is a normal fault...

Yellowstone, Narrative  While looking at the pictures I have from my trips to Yellowstone this is what I came up with. While looking for a geode in Yellowstone I found myself surrounded by beautifully captivating  geysers and hot springs . At first glance, you would have never known that Yellowstone was created by some not-so-beautiful processes. If memory serves Yellowstone was created by glaciers  and hotspots in the crust. As the glaciers melted they left behind groundwater  and a damaged landscape. I am sure after years and years the ground recovered and became the beautiful park it is today. With all the changes that Yellowstone faces, I  was surprised to find not only petrified wood  but petrified trees, entire trees. With all the water in the park, I was surprised that there weren't sinkholes  or caves  everywhere from the erosion of the hot water and steam.  Closer to the geysers the ground kind of looked like it had karst topography ...

  Draper Utah 2023 landslide   For those who may not know Utah received an exceptional amount of snow this winter. ( I live in Kearns and we got 18 inches overnight, we are in the valley) As a result of the extra, but much-needed water from the snow we have seen a lot of flooding, which as we learned is not good because the ground soaks it up and it is one of the main causes of landslides. This picture shows what is left of the two homes that slid off the edge of a cliff in Draper, it's kind of cool because you could see the damage from the freeway. Thankfully the families that lived in these homes had enough warning to get out of the house so no one was hurt.  Video :https://youtu.be/PhBw_dvnt-M?t=1 Article : https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2023/04/25/draper-landslide-1/ FACTS:  Date: April 22nd, 2023 Location: Salt Lake County, Draper Utah  Triggers : Spring runoff, it went from 40 to 80 overnight and stayed in the high 70s for several days thus cr...

 Science V Religion  In the book of Genesis in the Bible we are taught that God created the earth, we are also taught about the creation period, from separating night and day to the land and the water.  Genesis chapter one talks about how God created the earth for his children and explains in great detail how the earth was created. I love studying others' ideas like the big bang theory, because it helps gives me perspective on how blessed we are to know that God created the Earth for his children. I think that knowing about the Plan of Salvation helps me reconcile the difference between what the Bible says and what science says. My mom used to say that science is how we look for an understanding of how God did what he did, but we need to be careful that we don't use science to disprove that there is a God. I think my mom explained it best when she said that we use science to learn about how God created the Earth. In the Endowment we are also taught more about the Plan of ...

  Metamorphic Rock  Sadly, I do not know of any metamorphic rocks in my collection. However, I see different types of metamorphic rock at work. We sell slate and shale tiles, marble countertops, and others that I know I have seen but cannot think of. Picture 1 - Slate, Picture 2- Shale, Picture 3 - Marble  My husband and I found this rock in our yard I am not sure what kind of rock it is sedimentary or metamorphic but I like how you can see the layers in it. It got me thinking about the reading and how the layers look like they were compressed in such a way we can see them clearly in this rock. The last two are also rocks we found around our year I love how big the crystals are in the one with the red. The white one looks like it might have some kind of ore or lead in it. I think they are metamorphic rocks because you can see how the parent rock has been melted just enough for another mineral to start to form into it. I also think that they are metamorphic because they do...

 Sedimentary rocks Sedimentary rocks are rocks that are created by sediment ( smaller rocks, dirt, and sometimes insects or small animals ) that become cemented together.   This image is of a rock structure in Grantsville Utah, called Lone Rock. I think this is a sedimentary rock because up close, ( which is harder to see in this picture ) you can see the layers and how the exposed layers have been physically weathered. We got rained out on our shooting trip when I took this picture on Saturday. These four pictures are of a rock that I have in my collection that I bought years ago that I think is a sedimentary rock because you can see other rocks under the black layer. I am not sure what it is made of because I bought it several years ago, also it has been shaped into an egg and polished so the layers aren't easy to see. It also looks like it has part of a fossilized insect or bug trapped in it. If anyone knows or has any guesses as to what kind of minerals make up this r...

 Mauna Loa , Hawaii Volcano  This is a volcano that I studied a semester ago, for my Natural Disaster class and then later that spring my older brother went to the island that this volcano was on. I learned a little about this volcano: it is a shield volcano that is horizontal when it erupts. it also spreads lava in waves because it is for the most part flat. It also has been dormant for 38 years until 2022. Although it's flat it can destroy several hundreds of acres of land because of the viscosity of the lava, I think the textbook we used said the lava was soft and had the consistency of a semi-baked cake. Because the lava is mostly basalt-based it is soft and moves like shampoo. Shield volcanos are known for their basalt flows and rivers of lava. It is also the largest shield volcano on the Hawaiian islands. Since this volcano is mostly flat, it doesn't have violent eruptions like a composite volcano would, however, there are still the same warning signs of an eruption such...

 Quartz This is my quartz collection.  I want to explain a little bit about each one because from the picture it is hard to tell what they look like in person.  The dark round ball is Smokey quarts, it is dark brown and black in certain spots. When we moved it got cracked not sure how but it has a conchoidal fracture all the way around it on the inside of it. It has a vitreous luster. The chakra wand has a small quarts ball at the top and a long pointed tower at the bottom. If you look really closely you can see the fractures in the ball at the top of the wand. Where these have been polished they have a vitreous luster and feel smooth to the touch. The smaller of the two towers is a piece of raw quarts that has not been polished. To me, it looks more earthy but it still has some of the vitreous luster of the others. This one was a gift from my husband's aunt so I'm sure how it was cut, because of the way it was cut you cannot see the typical crystalline structure of quart...

Week 1:   A Little bit about Me Cassie Gillespie    This is a picture of my husband of almost 5 years come August. This picture was taken in Idaho, my second home along the Snake River, where the water had receded and left a stone-covered river bed. The second picture is from our boat tour in Africa on Lake Naivasha. We currently live in the Salt Lake Valley, in a small township called Kearns. These two pictures are of our fur children. Our cat Lucy who we adopted almost a year ago. Radar the Pitbull boxer mix and Banjo the Labrador retriever. All of my fur babies are rescues.  A few more things about me: my favorite color is purple, I am a psychology major hoping to go into Child Advocacy, I have a stone collection, and am an avid movie watcher. My husband and I love to travel and see the world. Almost two years ago we went to Africa and we have gone to Florida, where my husband grew up. I am hoping to learn more about the world around me and to learn more about the...