Several years ago, when I first thought of creating the GeoSciences Source Book, I was working as an urban and environmental planner for an international consulting firm. A half dozen of the better known reference works defining geological and geoscience terms sitting on my bookshelf were getting quite a workout. Since previously I had been a university professor with regular assignments teaching geoscience courses to undergraduates and graduates, I began thinking about a reference text that would be oriented to students and other readers who were being introduced to the field.
The goal of this highly abbreviated blogspot version of the GeoSciences Source Book is to serve as a more accessible and user-friendly resource that will stimulate and amuse readers with a general interest in science. The terms that will be posted on this blog are those that in my opinion have currency in our world of human interaction. Therefore, they will NOT be tedious or mind-numbing. Readers can even leave a request for a specific definition in the Comment part of the blog and I will search the Source Book and see if I have an appropriate listing that can be posted.
As I began the actual process of researching, assembling, creating, writing, and rewriting definitions, my original concept evolved quickly. I soon realized that certain terms and concepts cried out for the type of treatment found in technical dictionaries or even in specialized encyclopedias. After considerable reflection and soul-searching I realized that what I wanted to write had to be a true hybrid: part glossary, part dictionary, and part encyclopedia. And, in the end, part tongue-in-cheek fun.
To my way of thinking, materials that occasionally contain elements of humor are much less intimidating and therefore more accessible to the average student. For me, the best educational approach is one based on the excitement of discovery mixed with the elixir of laughter rather than one that is intentionally mind-numbing or even punitively obtuse. But despite the occasional introduction of humorous elements, definitions contained in this Source Book are never abridged, changed, or dumbed-down for the sake of a chuckle or two. Here’s an example from the text.
Chatter Mark Erosional feature typically associated with alpine glaciers; small, curved gouge mark or scar on bedrock made by rock debris contained in the base of a glacier with each mark being roughly transverse to the direction of flow. However, since these crescentic marks may point in more than a single direction, analysis of the fracture plane from which rock materials have been removed may be required to determine the direction in which the ice mass moved. Similar percussion fractures/marks can be found on beach pebbles and stones. The term may be written chattermark, especially in references produced in the British educational tradition. Daffynition: Non-fatal lesion on a male brain that develops after the victim has been exposed to a group of women in spirited conversation.
Having studied geology and physical geography as an undergraduate and graduate student and later having taught geoscience courses at the university level, I decided that certain building-block ideas that were created by dedicated and inspired geoscientists cried out for more detailed treatment than could be afforded if I stuck with the type of approaches typical of several well-known glossaries or dictionaries. Describing concepts like plate tectonics or mantle plumes in one or two paragraphs proved an impossible task if I wanted to do more than offer a bare-bones summary. And how could I possibly pay tribute to people like Norman Bowen, Harry H. Hess, or Alfred Wegener if they were only accorded a highly forgettable line or two?
The scope of the fields covered in this Source Book includes the geosciences that struggle to create an understanding of the physical processes that shaped and continue to shape the Earth: geology, physical geography, glaciology, hydraulics/hydrology, volcanology, geophysics, geochemistry, meteorology, climatology, oceanography, geodesy, limnology, and atmospheric chemistry/physics.
Several critical elements that make this Source Book very different from other reference works include editorial attention paid to details, especially the listed elements described below:
Author’s Note
Real World Example
Real World Problem
Historical Background
Warning
Fun Stuff
Daffynition
Author’s Rant
The most common editorial-type element in the Source Book is the Author’s Note, which is precisely what it seems and contains a variety of information concerning a specific topic, individual geocientists, or other information that may be relevant only in the twisted mind of the author. For example, in New Mexico , Texas
The Source Book is also chock-full of what are labeled Real World Examples of various natural features or processes. Those examples take important and interesting concepts from the theoretical to the actual and involve students in hands-on, real-life applications of what may at first seem to be abstract concepts. From my point of view as a former university professor, concepts are always improved by citing as many specific examples as possible to excite the readers’ natural curiosity and demonstrate how ideas relate to what’s happening on the ground, in real life situations. The underlying objective is to excite the interests of readers’, stimulating them into stepping outside and discovering the real world, no matter where it is: the Midwest, the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the mountains of Idaho , northern Canada , central Mexico , or Eastern Europe . Personal discovery of the many marvels and mysteries of the real world is what geoscience is all about.
A similar category, Real World Problems, discusses specific difficulties and challenges associated with various geoscience topics. Examples include acid rain, asbestos, lead poisoning, lahars and mudflows, nuclear waste storage, and open pit and underground mining.
In somewhat the same vein is the category, Historical Background, which provides depth and additional detail for a scientist who has contributed to one or more of the geosciences or for a critical concept. Examples include the backgrounds given for Archimedes and Evangelista Torricelli, or that cloud forms were first classified in 1801 by the well-known French botanist, Jean Lamarck, who today is largely remembered for his rejected theory of evolution.
On occasion, an inherently dangerous situation will prompt a Warning that advises readers to exercise caution in specific on-the-ground situations, as is provided in the definition. For example:
Rip Current Relatively narrow (normally ten to 30 yards wide), strong surface ocean current commonly called rip tide, and erroneously known as undertow, that flows away from the shoreline through gaps in the surf zone at intervals along the shoreline, usually but not always cutting across a longshore bar; it is the seaward return flow from longshore current cells. Warning: If caught in a rip current, never try to swim against it back toward shore. Stay calm and try not to panic. Swim parallel to the shore across the rip current until you’ve worked your way out of the strongest part of the current and then head back toward the beach. Whatever you do, do not fight AGAINST the rip current or you may become exhausted and drown. This warning is extremely serious, even for the strongest and most experienced swimmers.
The category Fun Stuff introduces information that is sometimes relevant and other times totally off the wall; those sections are characterized by a frequently brash, irreverent attitude that pretty much sums up my entire life. Examples include: racy graffiti preserved on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum by volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius; the first golf courses laid out in Scotland on glacial topography; teaching students the right way and not the wrong way to taste mineral specimens; and the differences between the fictional “ice-nine” created by the American novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, in his book Cat’s Cradle and the real Ice IX.
A closely related category, Daffynition, which you saw above in the definition of chatter mark, is typically a good deal more push-the-envelope and gets a lot closer to the earth in its tongue-in-cheek definitions. An example is the Daffynition provided after the definition of Wind Chill: What you feel when a former significant other flies past you in a bar without a glance. Or the Daffynition provided after the definition of Coastal Plain: Unattractive, drab-looking person at the beach.
Another major difference between the Source Book and other geoscience references is that I purposely do not shy away from injecting personal or point of view comments. Whenever I express a strongly held personal opinion in the Source Book about any topic, I label it Author’s Rant, since most if not all of that material is quite subjective. I specifically do not want readers to mistake deeply held personal opinions for objective fact and therefore have identified those sections accordingly. Although a conscious effort has been made to avoid polemicizing this work, if only through labeling my heart-felt opinions clearly as such, in numerous other instances my personal viewpoints can be found in the text (some might use the phrase, intrude into), especially in the choice of examples used to illustrate key concepts, processes, or physical features.
On a philosophical basis, I simply do not believe in the so-called vaunted superiority of scientific objectivity. To me, so much of science is colored by who the researchers are, how and where and by whom they were trained, their personal and professional backgrounds, individual personalities and ways judgments are formed, and the nature of their personal epistemologies* that all too often the quest for “objectivity” is academic posturing or, far worse, self-delusion. Otherwise, how else could the widely differing opinions of Rollin T. Chamberlin and Arthur Holmes, two outstanding geologists, concerning Alfred Wegener’s Continental Drift Theory be explained?
What made Chamberlin a contemptuous scoffer of Wegener’s concepts and Holmes a true believer? Both men were first-class geoscientists; both were meticulous researchers and scholars; and both had access to the full thrust of Wegener’s ideas. Yet, the supposedly objective method of science failed to establish common ground. Chamberlin died believing he was correct and that Wegener was little more than a well-educated charlatan. Holmes lived to see his positive evaluation of the controversial drift theory and convection currents upheld in the work of such great geoscientists as Keith Runcorn, Edward Irving, Harry Hess, Rob ert Dietz, and J. Tuzo Wilson among many others.
Chamberlin nit-picked several of Wegener’s obviously incorrect points to death while Holmes became enchanted with Wegener’s mind-expanding vision and, by proposing massive convection cells in the Earth’s crust, even identified the correct mechanism for continental (plate) movements. Would it have made a difference if Chamberlin had admitted his personal biases (that Wegener’s ideas were nonsense simply because he was a meteorologist and not a professional geologist and therefore should not even be thinking about geological issues) and had made an effort to look beyond them? It didn’t work out that way because Chamberlin refused to admit to any such so-called scientific error as subjectivity.
My point is simple. As humans we are inherently subjective. If we acknowledge that salient fact and work to control the adverse effects that that condition may bring to our work, or even try to use that subjectivity as a strength (through addressing it directly as a source of insights, intuition, hunches, ideas, etc.) rather than as a weakness and pretending that it doesn’t exist, wouldn’t science be all the better for that effort? Incidentally, my belief is not that objective reality doesn’t exist or shouldn’t be the goal in science but that discrepancies between subjective individual judgments and objective reality must be factored into the picture. Recognizing truth in geoscience or metaphysics requires selflessness. The objectivity part comes in the conscious struggle to leave yourself out of the research so you can determine the way things are in themselves, not the way you feel about them or how you wish they would be.
My personal subjective position that has informed the materials presented in the Source Book this is that of an environmentalist who firmly believes that every person has an obligation to live as sustainable a life as is practically possible. Only then will we as individuals and as a collective be able to adapt the Earth’s resources and inhabit environments in ways that are not destructive to our future and that of our children and grandchildren.
That said, I admit to having very little patience for positions that seek to prove a point of view by picking and choosing evidence that has been prejudged to fit a topic and then arguing as if no other valid data exist. In this case, I am specifically referring to creationism and so-called intelligent design. Science is by its very nature a messy endeavor of fits and starts. No attempt to clean up the clutter will ever change the nature of the hesitant, faltering steps toward what is hoped to be clarity and increased understanding of complex variables. But, unlike creationism or intelligent design, science has no previously conceived end state toward which people are working. If creationists are determined to argue the situation logically, let them go back to the discoveries of Lyell, Hutton, Darwin, Becquerel, Marie and Pierre Curie, Rutherford, Thompson, Soddy, Boltwood, Holmes, J. Tuzo Wilson, and Edward Irving and demonstrate the precise nature of their scientific errors. If not, I wish they would shut up and spare us their specious nonsense. And that, dear Readers, is what an Author’s Rant is all about.
* In other words: “How do you know what you know?” That’s a question philosophers have been agonizing over for well over two thousand years, with a tremendous amount of heat and considerable light but no definitive resolution. It is also a question that directly confronts scientists but is all too frequently ignored.
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