Many universities and colleges in the U.S. have started classes. Mine kicked off last week. So, in the spirit of the new school year, this edition of Core Elements is on geoscience education, but first we have to sing a birthday song to a very special dinosaur.
By the time you are reading this, I will be at IMAGE 2024 in Houston. I’ll be glad to meet and chat about Core Elements at the AAPG Booth (#200) or The University of Utah booth (#900). See you on the exhibition floor!
Rasoul Sorkhabi
Editor, Core Elements
Happy Birthday Megalosaurus!
An image from William Buckland's "Notice on Megalosaurus" drawn by his would-be wife Mary Morland. Source: Wikipedia Commons
I know, I know, you might say how can we celebrate a birthday for a large group of animals that lived from 230 to 66 million years ago… but it so happens that this year marks the 200th anniversary of the first recorded description of dinosaur fossils. Nature Ecology & Evolution has devoted its March issue to this topic as well.
First sighting: In 1824, William Buckland reported findings of what he called Megalosaurus (“great lizard”) in the Transactions of Geological Society of London. Although other people may have found such fossils, Buckland’s paper is the first on record.
Name change: The name dinosaur (“terrifying lizard”) was coined in 1841 by Sir Richard Owen. So, in 17 years, we will sing another Happy Birthday song to the dinosaurs.
Come to Colorado: Nature Ecology & Evolution also contains articles on Tyrannosaurus rex (“Tyrant lizard king”), immortalized in the film Jurassic Park, and Stegosaurus stenops (“narrow-faced roof lizard”), a vegetarian dinosaur with distinctive plates on its back. Both were discovered in Colorado in the 19th century.
A few thoughts:
It is amazing that the most popular animal (at least among children) is a creature that (luckily for all of us) is long extinct.
Paleontologists, however, say that birds (think eagles, hawks and falcons) descended from the dinosaurs; the Archaeopteryx (“old wing”) being the oldest bird-dinosaur (well about 150 Ma).
Go deeper: Read Nature Ecology & Evolution editorial here. The journal also has a site that offers dinosaur-related articles published in Nature journals over the past 20 years.
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Now, fast forward to our century. Were Buckland and Owen able to come to our age, they would be amazed by the significant progress geology has made.
Andrew Hoxey and colleagues at the University of Kansas have published an article in GSA Today that presents two web apps developed on Google Earth Engine platform.
Google Earth Engine:
Google Earth Engine is a computer platform that allows users to run geospatial analysis on Google Earth maps.
It has a web-based integrated development environment (IDE) for writing and running scripts, and the client libraries provide Python and JavaScript function wrappers.
New apps: Hoxey and colleagues developed two Google Earth Engine web applications: The Plane Orientation Calculator and the Topographic Swath Profiler.
Plane Orientation Calculator (POC):
The POC enables surface geometry data collection for geologic and structural maps anywhere on Google Earth.
The user should first select an area of interest from a data catalog, such as high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) by the U.S. Geological Survey. Then, points along geologic contacts are selected.
The orientation is calculated by querying the DEM for values, evaluating the interval between the points as vectors, and determining the orientation of the plane.
Topographic Swath Profiler (TSP):
TSP is a series of parallel topographic cross-sections selected within a region.
The TSP user first selects a high-resolution DEM data set.
Clicking the selected map area will create a polygon with start and end points.
Once the swath profile dimensions (lengths and width) are set, TSP generates distance-versus-elevation plots.
TSP is limited to processing less than 20,000 data points, so larger swaths will have lower sample density.
Why it matters: Web-based technologies such as Google Earth apps overcome physical and financial barriers to geoscience education and research.
Go deeper: Read the GSA Today article here. The Google Earth apps can be accessed here: POC and TSP.
Rocks Really Rock
Streaminggeoscience.com
There are many innovative ways to use Google Earth as a powerful educational tool. One example is the “Rocks Really Rock: An Electronic Field Trip across Geological Time” that was available to teachers via Google Earth during COVID and covered in a recent issue of Geoscience Communication.
What researchers did:
The “Rocks Really Rock” program was conducted in seven schools in 2022 by Carolina Ortiz-Guerrero, then a doctoral student at the University of Florida.
The program was taught by K-12 teachers recruited from across the U.S as free, publicly available, and informal online education. One hundred and twenty 6-8th grade students participated.
It involved creating virtual field trips via audiovisual recordings of several locations in Idaho based on several “big ideas” related to Earth’s age, interacting systems, and life evolution.
The virtual field trips were mounted onto Google Earth and showed to students.
Impact assessment:
Results of assessment surveys given to students indicated that the electronic field trips on Google Earth positively impacted students’ attitude toward geology and geology careers.
Three factors contributed to this positive impact: (1) Integration of videos and maps; (2) use of stories to describe the content; and (3) asynchronous interactions between teacher, student, and scientist.
Why it matters:
Earth science education has a small place in the science curricula of U.S. K-12 schools, and many students and parents have little exposure to geoscience careers and jobs, or even geoscience itself.
Audiovisual Google Earth projects promote public literacy about geoscience and expose students to the joy of learning and career opportunities in geoscience.
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