diversity – Geobites

March 18, 2021March 18, 2021

Taking the measure of the measurer

Featured image: A USGS “Did you feel it?” map for a M6.5 earthquake that occurred in the Monte Cristo Range in Nevada on May 15th, 2020 (public domain)

Paper: Which earthquake accounts matter?
Authors: Susan E. Hough and Stacey S. Martin

Seismologists who study earthquakes spend much of their time looking at wiggly lines that represent recordings of ground motion from seismometers, but in places where those data aren’t available, we often turn to what we call “macroseismic” data: eyewitness accounts from people who felt the shaking. But when we ask people on the ground, “Did you feel it?,” who is answering?

August 26, 2020August 16, 2020

The Extraction of Hidden Waters: 11th century Persian scientist laid the foundations for hydrology and water engineering

Featured Image: Areal view of the vertical shafts of a qanat in Jupar, Iran. S.H. Rashedi / CC BY-ND via UNESCO.

Paper: The millennium-old hydrogeology textbook The Extraction of Hidden Waters by the Persian mathematician and engineer Abubakr Mohammad Karaji (953 CE–1029 CE)

Authors: Ataie-Ashtiani, B., & Simmons, C. T.

Reliable sources of water are essential for every civilization. However, the Western science of hydrology is relatively young. It started perhaps at the turn of the 19^th century when John Dalton completed the first water balance for England and Wales by estimating the amount of water that fell as precipitation and left as evaporation and flow from rivers to oceans. Since ancient times, civilizations have built water infrastructure like aqueducts and wells, and writings by Aristotle and Plato suggest that the ancient Greeks had a basic understanding of the water cycle. Though in many respects, the study of hydrology in Europe and the Mediterranean stagnated between the time of these early philosophers and the 19^th century.

June 9, 2020June 10, 2020

Whose Faces do we See in Geology Textbooks?

Student standing on textbooks in library

Author’s Note: The last few weeks have left us grappling with the profound effects of systemic racism, as seen in the wake of the recent protests and violence all over the USA and the world, as well as the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on Black communities. This week’s post is dedicated to exploring the impact of another effect of systemic racism: lack of representation in educational spaces, made apparent in geology textbooks.