Don't Panic Geocast

In this discussion, Zach Eilon, an organizer for the Seismology Student Workshop at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, shares insights on fostering collaboration among budding seismologists. He highlights innovative approaches like using trains for seismic studies and collaborative mind-mapping sessions that shift academic discussions away from traditional formats. The workshop's community-focused approach allows participants to engage deeply with seismology topics, enhancing their research experience. Get ready to explore the exciting intersection of science and technology!

This week, the hosts dive into the world of productivity apps, highlighting favorites like OmniFocus for task management and Overcast for podcast enthusiasts. They share tips on educational tools for geology and innovative apps that enhance fieldwork for geologists. The engaging discussion also covers the quirky science of sandcastle construction, revealing how much energy goes into handling granular materials. Listeners will discover practical app recommendations and a humorous take on everyday problems, all while enjoying a light-hearted tone.

Discover the fascinating world of geological mapping, from traditional techniques to modern technology like GPS and drones. Hear about the legendary William Smith, the father of modern geology, who transformed how we view rock layers and fossils. The hosts share humorous tales of fieldwork mishaps in the desert, emphasizing the importance of preparation and skills. Delve into the art of converting 2D maps into 3D geological structures and explore advancements in satellite imaging that are shaping the future of geology.

This week we talk about how sciences can weight a planet, discuss gravity, and the explosion of a military weather satellite while in orbit. Weather Satellite Explodes Ways to Measure Planetary Mass Geometric (size and density), this doesn’t always work well By triangulation and measurement of orbits of natural or artificial satellites. Gravity All stems from Newton’s Law of Gravitation. Which is really a controversy between Newton and Hooke. Gravitational constant based on the Cavendish torsion balance experiment. Measurement of the constant is difficult since it is small and we cannot measure outside of a gravitational field. With this and Kepler’s Laws, we can solve most simple problems by hand! Planetary Ranging A variety of ranging techniques can be used, including: Radio reflection Laser reflection Triangulation Fun Paper Friday THE ASTEROID REDIRECT MISSION AND SUSTAINABLE HUMAN EXPLORATION, Gates et al. This week we talk about capturing an asteroid with a bag and a pull string, or a spider like lander. The asteroid is then explored and moved into a lunar-like orbit for further study. The best part of all is that the ship will have an international docking system so anyone can go do science. A step towards open source science! Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin

Time is a very complex subject that you can devote your entire life to. Today we’ll cover a few of the basics and enough to get your interest up! We’ll see that it’s difficult to know what a second is and how long relative times are, but absolute time is even messier! We also discuss dried coffee and tetris! Importance of Time (and why it’s on a geology show) It synchronizes the world and our human interactions (need minutes - hours accuracy generally) It allows us to talk about events in a common coordinate system Allows synchronization of scientific measurements and comparison of data sources. This is really important for seismometers for EQ location! Let’s us use GPS! 1 billionth of a second (nano second) error in 1 GPS satellite, GPS receiver is +/- 1 ft to satellite, which is 2–3 feet on Earth. Early Timekeeping Burning candles in marked cases Hourglass Water powered clocks Pendulum clocks Galileo and Huygens (fancy temperature compensation as well) Video on Galileo Modern Time Keeping (Atomic Clocks) First clock was ammonia maser at National Bureau of Standards in 1949, but it really wasn’t all that accurate. It was more of a proof on concept device First cesium clock was in 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory (UK) Leads us to the definition of the SI second he duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition between two energy levels of the caesium–133 atom The NIST-F2, a cesium atomic fountain clock, is good to one second in 300 million years. How F2 works is a combination of feedback control loops, lasers, and really cold atoms. Remember, atomic clocks tick away seconds, they say nothing about the hours, minutes, seconds notation we use to write time. We just define a frequency Leap seconds Can’t predict them far into the future because of irregularities in Earth’s rotation Announced ahead of time in a bulletin by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service 25 leap seconds since 1972 Next leap second is this year! June 30, 2015 Real problem in computing, has caused software and GPS hardware crashes/issues before Google smears the second out over a period prior to the leap Time Standards There are TONS of time standards, we’re only going to touch on a few. Most are known with highest precision in retrospect! Solar time Exactly what you would think, it’s about using the sun’s position as a time source. There is the sundial time (apparent solar time) that changes throughout the year, and the mean solar time which is like a clock time. The equation of time represents the difference between the mean and apparent solar day Star clock International Atomic Time (TAI) A measurement of proper time (it’s a relativity thing) Weighted average of over 400 atomic clocks If there is an error, it isn’t corrected. This makes it into terrestrial time. Universal Time (UT) This is what we used to call GMT! Based on Earth’s rotation w.r.t different bodies (why there is UT0,UT1,UT1R,UT2,UTC) UT1 is really mean solar time at the equator Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) Formalized in 1960 Adjustments were accommodated by leap seconds starting in 1972 Generally considered to be GMT, but GMT isn’t defined/recognized by the scientific community This comes from TAI by accounting for leap seconds! Epoch time (Unix Time) Epoch time is the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970 No leap seconds by definition, but implementation is actually messy Stored is an integer (32-bits) meaning that it will run out and roll over on Tuesday 2038–01–19 One second after 03:14:07 UTC, it’s the year 2038 problem. The Timekeeper Video Audio after the outro is David Allen FunPaperFriday Coffee rings and coffee disks: Physics on the edge Particle shape controls movement during drying The can be applied to surface design, paints, and more Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin

This week we discuss the geologic time scale, meteorites, and fitness trackers! Pittsburgh Fireball Feb. 17, 2015 Video of meteor Article with details of entry Animation from meteor’s perspective NASA Fireball Network Geologic Time-it’s really big (and deep) The geologic time scale Despite all kinds of fun things to demo how vast it is…still hard to understand Cosmic Calendar Pneumonic devices for timescale-and why do we need to know it? (several examples) We make all kinds of assumptions about rocks that span millions of years, but an outcrop can change over the course of just a few years/ten years Example of things changing in days to hours Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle How do we begin to define Geologic time? International Commission on Stratigraphy: “ International Geologic Time Scale; thus setting global standards for the fundamental scale for expressing the history of the Earth” We have to have a baseline so that we can all talk about the “same” rocks across the world Age-dating rocks Many techniques, and the actual dates between our epochs change all the time as our age-dating techniques evolve Many periods/eras/epochs are marked by “catastrophic” occurrences, hence making them natural boundaries, but the dates change. 5 major extinction events Time as an arrow v. time as a cycle Catastrophism vs. uniformitarianism and gradualism Constantly evolving and vastly interesting Thinking about the definitions of time and how we as humans try to grasp the enormity of geologic time in particular is humbling. Fun Paper Friday In an attempt to prolong our time on Earth, we’ll talk about accuracy of fitness apps. (John wears a Fitbit Flex and uses the Fitbit Aria scale.) “Accuracy of Smartphone Applications and Wearable Devices for Tracking Physical Activity Data”, Case et al., Feb 2015, Journal of the American Medical Association

The podcast kicks off with a humorous tale of technicians encountering a rattlesnake during radar upgrades. It then emphasizes the importance of thorough data backups, detailing strategies that prevent data loss and highlighting various backup solutions like Backblaze and Time Machine. There's a critical discussion on cloud storage safety, contrasting popular services with more secure alternatives. Finally, a fascinating exploration of Earth's core tectonics reveals new geological insights, linking science with indigenous knowledge, making for a riveting conclusion.

Nick Holschuh, a geophysics and glaciology graduate student at Penn State, shares his thrilling journey to Antarctica, where he faced unexpected equipment failures in frigid conditions. He dives into the fascinating use of radar technology to study the West Antarctic ice sheet and its dynamics. Holschuh also discusses the challenges of effectively communicating climate uncertainties to the public. Additionally, the conversation touches on the unique intersection of economics with geosciences, shedding light on how education shapes our understanding of complex issues.

This week we discuss field tools - everything from clothing to pens and notebooks! Shannon panics due to Earth’s close encounter with an asteroid and John talks about the smell after rainstorms. We want to hear your feedback! John has been playing more with radar during the northeast blizzard. Shannon has been keeping an eye on asteroid 2004 BL86 as it passed near the Earth Monday. There are already a lot of neat radar images coming from this event. Shannon is also planning her first class field trip for a field methods class. Field Packs People use everything, backpacks, fanny packs, etc. John has a holster thing like SWAT teams. Looks a little like a weapon holster though, so be careful. (He also can’t find anyone that still sells them.) Shannon uses a wait-pack. John and Shannon use stretchy belts to hold their hammers. Lots of folks use their hammer as a ruler in the field. Clipboards John has a clipboard with storage under it. The black ones gets really hot in the sun though. Shannon uses a taped together fiber-board/lexan map board. It’s large! Field Clothing Clothing tech revolutionized geology! Drilling with quick-dry pants vs. carrying rainsuits that you sweat in anyway. All drab colors! Consider wearing a safety vest! Hat suggestions? Maybe we should go back to full academic dress? Polarized sunglasses are a must. Just beware that they can alter the color of things! Field Notebooks Traditional Write-in-the-Rain/Field books. Shannon doesn’t like these because of pencil writing quality. Extras in the back of different series of notebooks can be problematic Notebook closures: Binder clip, rubberband, or elastic over notebook If you’re really into this stuff, you would probably like the Pen Addict Podcast. Do you attach your pen/pencil to your field book? Pocket protectors, John has the stealth. Writing Instruments 0.5 mm pencils for writing in the field books For sketching/musing Palomino Blackwing 602 Shannon misses the Zebra301 ultra Compasses/Hand-lenses Bruntons are the standard, with really no substitue Handlens are now available with led lights (and uv if you’re that into it) iPads vs. regular topo map concerns Battery life Weather resistance Overheating GPS (integrated or separate) Does it take too much away from basic navigation skill development? Fun Paper Friday “Aerosol generation by raindrop impact on soil” Nature Communications, Jan 2015 There is great high speed video to go with the paper. Carl Sagan did his own version of outside of field reading! See his notes. A good fiction work to start with is “The Martian” Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of our employers or funding agencies.

Episode 1 - Clippy is Gone Now, Clippy Was Not a Help We discuss paper writing, figure making, debate the merits of our favorite software, and discuss a possible explanation of last week’s mysterious booms in Oklahoma. Shannon also discovers that John does strange things with his spare time and a police radar gun. We discuss the demise of clippy, the MS Word virtual assistant. Global Warming Trend Graphic John’s blog post on using a police radar gun for raindrop speed Paper and Report Writing John uses LaTeX, specifically MacTeX Shannon uses MS Word mostly There is value in features like track changes, scripting, distraction free environments, formatting, figure numbering, etc. John uses markdown initially to have a distraction free writing environment (in the atom editor) LaTeX help is easy to find! Poster and Figure Making Many options, but some are better than others Powerpoint (please don’t use this for posters or figures) Adobe Illustrator (expensive, steep learning curve, but good) Inkscape (free clone of Illustrator at the slight expense of install/usability headache) Photoshop InDesign KalidaGraph IGOR Pro Python Plot.ly Update on Oklahoma Booms There was talk that these could have been a result of a thermal inversion Demo of how sound bends in an inversion can be found on Dr. Dan Russell’s site and this YouTube video. Civil War may have been influenced by acoustic propagation. There is a summary article and book about it. We found a 1984 newspaper article from Oklahoma mentioning this phenomena. FunPaperFriday - Radio Bursts from Blitzars A real-time fast radio burst: polarization detection and multiwavelength follow-up (Petroff et al.) Related New Scientist Article Contact us: Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of our employers or funding agencies.