Month: July 2020
Soundings: A Richly Detailed Prose Map of Marie Tharp’s Life and Legacy
History dislikes remembering science’s founding mothers. So you may have never heard of the mother of the mid-ocean ridge. She was one of the parents of plate tectonics. Her 100th birthday is today. And Hali Felt’s Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor is the book you need to read about her.
Hali isn’t an earth scientist, but after immersing herself in Marie’s life and work, you’d never know it. She draws the birth of plate tectonics with as much skill and assurance as Marie drew her remarkable maps. But she doesn’t just tell a science story.
A Hero On Mount St. Helens: Remembering David Johnston
Dr. David A. Johnston is a person I’ve looked up to for most of my life. I first learned about him when I was a child, reading Marian T. Place’s book about the eruption of Mount St. Helens. He watched an active volcano. He warned a lot of people that she was going to violently erupt. He saved countless lives, but lost his own. He became a personal hero of mine, especially as I grew up and learned more about the work he did and the risks he took.
So I was super excited when I saw a whole book was being published about him. I bought a copy as soon as I could. Then…
5 Favorite Facts about Mary Anning
This post first appeared on Patreon. For early access, exclusives, and other spiffy stuff, become an Unconformist today!
You know, I liked Mary Anning even before I read Shelley Emling’s book about her, but now I frankly adore her. Here’s five of the reasons why:
1. Everything male naturalists could do, she did in heavy skirts and pattens.
You know how Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire could do, only backwards and in high heels? That was basically Mary. She not only was a supremely talented fossil hunter, she had impediments the men didn’t have. She scrambled over incredibly challenging terrain in bulky skirts, wearing metal and wood contraptions over her shoes that, while handy for keeping one from sinking into mud, must have been a nightmare as far as balance and traction are concerned. She outran rogue waves, sudden storm tides, and actual bloody landslides in that gear.
The dudes would have died.
Earthquakes in the Time of COVID-19
Puerto Ricans are facing a multitude of tough challenges right now. 2020 has been far from kind to the island and its residents, throwing challenge after disaster after threat at them.
Puerto Rico’s earthquake sequence rumbles on. For a few weeks, it seemed things were quieting down. I’d begun to wonder if it was finally petering out, but then came July 3rd, and two substantial earthquakes that let us know that the southwestern region of the island isn’t going to see an end to the shaking any time soon. And that’s just the start of the troubles plaguing the island.
Many of us are struggling in the face of this pandemic (especially those of us living in countries whose leadership didn’t take effective measures to contain the novel coronavirus, and are now facing ever-increasing rates of infection and death). But being hit with a murderous virus while the earth is nearly constantly shaking, and you’ve lost your home just when you most need to shelter in place, is extra horrible.