What are the differences in terms of appearance between sandstone and limestone?
Hiking & ActivitiesSandstone vs. Limestone: What’s the Difference? Let’s Get Rocked! Sandstone and limestone. You see them everywhere, right? Buildings, garden paths, maybe even that cool sculpture in the park. Both are sedimentary rocks, meaning they were formed from, well, sediment. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The truth is, these two rocks are as
Why does NOAA no longer provide sunshine data?
Data & AnalysisWhere Did All the Sunshine Go? Why You Can’t Find That Data Anymore Remember flipping through weather reports and seeing the hours of sunshine listed? It was a simple, easy-to-grasp metric. But lately, finding that sunshine duration data feels like chasing a ghost. NOAA, the folks we usually rely on for this kind of info,
Exploring the Regional Geology of Your Local Landscape
General Knowledge & EducationDigging Deep: Getting to Know the Geology in Your Own Backyard (San Francisco Bay Area Edition) Ever stop to think about what’s really under your feet? I mean, beyond the sidewalk or that patch of grass? The ground we walk on has a story to tell, a story etched in stone (literally!) over billions of
How are data from tiltmeters used to monitor volcanic activity?
Data & AnalysisTiltmeters: Listening to What Volcanoes Don’t Say Volcanoes. Majestic, awe-inspiring, but let’s face it, also a bit scary. Living near one means living with the constant possibility of an eruption. That’s why predicting when a volcano might blow its top is so vital, and scientists have developed some pretty cool tools to help them do
Why is “at least a small tilt” between rotation and magnetic axis required by models of magnetic field formation?
Natural EnvironmentsThe Wobbling Dynamo: Why Planets Can’t Have Perfectly Straight Magnetic Fields Ever wonder how Earth manages to shrug off the constant barrage of solar wind? A big part of the answer is our magnetic field, a kind of invisible force field that protects our atmosphere and, well, us. But how does a planet get a