KSPG Constitution and Bylaws

When considering what we might want KSPG to be, we have to know what it is. With that in mind, I have posted the Constitution and Bylaws at Google documents. You should have received an invitation and link if you are a subscriber to the KYGEOLOGIST list serve. Sorry about the multiple emails, the invitation software reported an error and in trying to fix it, I seem to have sent out multiple invitations.

KSPG Field Trip Note

The KSPG Annual Field Trip went very well. It wasn't too cold, there was almost no wind chill, and it wasn't raining. Very good outcrops and stops and Dave Williams, Scott Waninger, Ken Kuehn, and Mike May are to be commended for coordinating a successful outting. Rather than post a picture of the outcrops that almost everyone took pictures of, I'm posting a picture of a rare ice formation. Sometimes called "false fungus frost" or "frost blooms", this isn't actually frost. Looking it up on the web, frost is a meteorological deposition phenomena. That is, atmospheric moisture is deposited (by several mechanisms on a surface. The ice here is formed by water wicking through woody material, freezing when it encounters the atmosphere, and thus pushing previously formed material away from the site of nucleation. It therefore appears to be the result of transpiration where soil temperatures are high that the water remains liquid until it encounters freezing temperatures at the surface of the plant material.

There is a tuning of the eye to various patterns. There are three Kentucky paleontologists I know that just astound me. I can look all day for fossils. They'll come back with a handfull of edrioasteroids, a trilobite, and a couple of sponges. Keep your eyes open; you never know what you might see.

Field trips poll

A poll on whether the KSPG and AIPG should try to have a joint field trip has been added. See the poll on the right; you may have to scroll down.

Facebook group

The Facebook group, KYGeologist is now ready to accept members.

Global Warning Panel

To get things started, here is my post to the KYGeologist listserve 11/12/08...

The topic of global warming suggests three main lines of questioning:

• What is global mean surface temperature? How is it determined (especially over geologic time)? Is it increasing?
• What factors contribute to climate change?
• Can we humans do anything about climate change?

It seems the question receiving the most attention concerns climate stressors and whether human activity, carbon emissions and the like, is a significant contributor to the changes observed in the last few centuries. Rather than scientific, the answer has become a political battleground between conservative right Republican ideologues who tend to favor business as usual solutions (don’t do anything that is "bad for business") and oppose the claim of climate forcing by human activity and the liberal left Democratic “tree huggers” (summary dismissal implied).

To address the global warming issue, the factors that contribute to climate change should be clearly identified. Those factors of which I am aware include:

1. External
1. Milankovitch Cycles (effects the amount and distribution of the available solar energy across the surface of the Earth)
1. Orbital eccentricity (change in the shape of the orbit between more elliptical and more circular configurations)
2. Precession of the equinox (the major axis of the elliptical orbit changes orientation about the Sun with respect to the background stars)
3. Axial tilt (the “wobble” of the Earth’s rotational axis)
2. Solar cycles (sunspot cycles, effects overall luminance of the Sun and therefore the amount of radiant energy emitted)
3. Impact events (comets and asteroids, effects particulate and aerosols in the atmosphere, their volume, Earth’s albedo, cloud cover, integrity of the ozone layer, and others)


2. Internal
1. Plate tectonics
1. Number and distribution of continental land masses (ocean and wind circulation patterns)
2. Number, distribution, and activity of volcanoes (heat transfer from mantle to surface and atmospheric effects: particulates, aerosols, natural emissions of H2O, H2S, CO2, etc.)
2. Natural emissions of green house gases (primarily CO2 and CH4)
1. Swamps and wetlands (biomass decay)
2. Biomass (respiration, transpiration, flatulence)
3. Volatile organic carbon seeps (oil and gas springs)
3. Human activity
1. Fossil fuel extraction and combustion
2. Agricultural practices
1. Clear cutting, slash and burn
2. Large-scale animal husbandry for food production (feed lots, CH4)
3. Urbanization (large concentrations of concrete storing and radiating heat and the accumulation of aerosols and particulates [smog] are creating climate islands that can change weather patterns locally and in the surrounding terrains)

“Confirmation bias” can often cloud thinking. It is a common bias whereby persons tend to seek and accept those data and positions that confirm the notions they already hold, effectively an ideological inertia. With that in mind, intellectual honesty impels me to state clearly that I favor the data and arguments that support anthropogenic forcing of global climate change.

At the forum, I was surprised that several lines of evidence concerning the natural climate variations through geologic time were not addressed. Dr. Patterson presented an effective argument for solar cycles but didn’t show how those cycles affected temperature changes over geologic time. I thought his argument would have been stronger had he included the Milankovitch cycles and other external factors. He built his argument in support of solar cycles and as his best example presented a figure showing the global temperature curve in lock step with the solar cycle data.

Dr. Cuffey presented a case that followed the main climate model-based lines of reasoning documented by the IPCC. The main weakness of this argument is that the predictive climate models are relatively opaque. With only the output of the models presented in graphs and charts, the underlying assumptions and math are not generally accessible. For persons not directly involved in the modeling and climate science, the whole thing kind of has to be accepted on the faith that the experts know what they are doing. The most effective point he made was to show the exact same graph that Dr. Patterson presented earlier (showing the correspondence between solar cycle and temperature). Dr. Cuffey showed the caption published with the figure, however. That caption indicated the correlation illustrated in the figure worked because the current “linear” global warming trend had been subtracted from temperature data.

The important point is that the mean global temperature is increasing at a rate that appears inconsistent with predictions based on solar cycle data (and the solar cycle data were not demonstrated to match the paleoclimate record over a significant span of geologic time). Looking at the factors that influence climate change, I have to assess both the significance of particular factors and whether their effect has changed recently in measurable ways. My conclusion is that human activity is a significant contributor to the observed warming trend. I’m not saying it is the only factor, but, as difficult as changing human behaviors might be, that kind of change is at least possible. Renewable energy, fuel switching, nuclear and the like are doable strategies. So, while my position could be attributed solely to a confirmation bias, I believe, given the evidence presented by the panel, the anthropogenic cause of warming argument was strongest (based on the mistake of a single slide).

The elephant in the room of all debates about the problem and potential solutions is the human population. This elephant must be both invisible and a mime as no one seems seriously to consider the question.

Welcome

I just returned from the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists (KSPG) annual field trip. This year we visited sites in west central Kentucky where rocks of the Middle Chester (Mississippian) were overlain by the Caseyville (Pennsylvanian). In other words, we look at the Pennsylvanian-Mississippian. While standing in the floor of a rock quarry, I was asked, "Why are we here?" I explained that we were looking at clues to help unlock the secrets of deep time. OK, I didn't say exactly that, but what I did say was that by examining these rocks, you come to the realization that one group of rocks were deposited, exposed, eroded, inundated, and more (younger) rocks deposited on top. You can't just see it from one angle or one outcropping of rock. What you have to do is look at these rocks in many places and the field trip leaders, professors, and working geologists, on the trip were both examining the evidence (in light of the mutability of scientific findings) and passing on the techniques of investigation: why we think our ideas are correct and how we arrived at the conclusions.

At dinner, several concerns about advancing the profession of geology in Kentucky were expressed. Geologists in state government are exempt from registration and this has had an effect on the pathways for career development; non-geologists may be in positions to review and approve technical reports prepared by geologists. The discussion brings up issues: should the KSPG be more than a professional interest group that organizes field trips? What role should KSPG play in actively proposing and lobbying in favor of legislation? What is the role of the Board of Registration for Geologists?

In this discussion, it occurred to me that something needed to be done. As a profession, geologists are a diverse community with disparate needs. Throw students and K-12 Earth Science teachers into the mixture of amateurs, academic, government, and independent consultants with interests ranging from petroleum geology to site assessment and remediation and somehow the "community" kind of fragments.

So, today, I set up this blog. The basic purpose is to foster connections and discussions among the members of the community of geologists in Kentucky (other states are invited). All I'm looking for is a place where students and teachers can connect with professional geologists and geologists can connect with each other. As soon as I'm done posting here, I'm going to set up a Facebook group. There are many ways to set up communities and create dialogs among the members. This is a start. If you have something on your mind, post it.