This week’s post will cross over into the sphere of gemstones and jewels. Things may get weird, things may get a little bit confusing….but that’s truly what makes the differences between the gemological and the geological so fascinating.  A couple of months ago I found myself somewhere I never thought I would be: in New…

Hello BackYard Geology readers!!! A little over a week ago I embarked on an incredible outdoor journey and the landscape I observed inspired this week’s post! Allow me to explain; on Nov. 6th I ran my first ultramarathon in northern New Mexico along a portion of the continental divide trail! It was a roughly 35…

You know that feeling you get when you are just in desperate need of a sieve for an unexpected day of sifting through creek sediments for 75 million year old shark teeth? No? Well, I didn’t either until last weekend when I found myself in this very situation. However, being in Mississippi for the weekend…

Hello BackYardGeology readers! This week we decided to talk about something that is a world wide issue and impacts millions of people! This is a somewhat complicated topic as there are many different components that can interact, but it is an important topic. The topic of discussion this week is land subsidence. What is Subsidence?…

All artwork depicting Yellowstone research beautifully illustrated by: Gabrielle Vance Picture this: you are a geologist (or any scientist, really) with a scientific question. How do you go from your initial question to actually attempting to find an answer? Then, how do you share your science with others so that you can contribute to our…

This week we decided to go out of this world with a post that will take you back in time to the origins of our solar system. Let’s hop in our magic school bus and visit the building blocks of the planets in our solar system and some of the first materials created, well before…

Earthquakes: movement of the Earth’s crust that can cause extreme property damage and loss of life. Most of us think of earthquakes as occurring in very specific locations around the world: California, Japan, Chile, Alaska, and most recently the devastating earthquake in Haiti. These earthquakes are generally larger and release more energy, indicated by a…

Hello Backyard Geology readers! This week’s featured rock likely does not exist in many of your backyards, but it is a very important rock that allows geologists a chance to better understand what happens when two plates collide and form what we call a subduction zone. Let’s take a deep dive into the red and…

This week, we are going to take you into the role of a field geologist: looking at clues to figure out how geological structures formed. Even though the structures we’ll talk about in this post are not likely found in your backyard, a key player in this story is something you may have recently sprinkled…

Hello Backyard Geology friends! Thanks so much for the love on our first Vlog post last week, we appreciate your support! Have you ever picked up a rock and wondered what that rock is made up of? As geologists we definitely do this, especially if the minerals are far too small to see with the…