Best to-do list manager is...

paper.

I agree, and particularly enjoy the physical act of crossing something off the list. That's so much more satisfying than clicking on a delete button or an "x."

Heading north today...

to the cool and verdant Northwest after spending more than three months in canyon country. I have to admit that it will be nice to see green landscapes, rather than red vistas, for a while. My retinas need a break.

What I'm reading...

right now: The Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands - Region of Wonders by Terry Johnson and Kurt Byers. It's a lavishly illustrated presentation of the cultural and natural history of a remote part of the world, and though a broad treatment of a large region, it contains a wealth of detailed information.

When the desert gets hot...

one can find cool refuge in the high country in the La Sal Mountains where the alpine meadows are still resplendent with wildflowers (click to enlarge):

Here's a magnificent, broader view:

And a nearby aspen grove shelters a fabulous display of countless columbine, of which here's a shot of but a few:

The rustic charm is gone...

from the street signs in the town of Castle Valley (click to enlarge), ostensibly for health and safety reasons, so that emergency responders can locate themselves more quickly in our burgeoning metropolis. Still, I prefer the old ones.

The future is now...

Researchers Create Self-Assembling Nanodevices That Move and Change Shape on Demand.

Can von Neumann devices be far behind?

Luna rising...

over the La Sal Mountains this evening (click to enlarge).

RELATED: Only an early bird will catch the partial lunar eclipse this Saturday morning.

DIY dismemberment...

How to Be a Butcher: 4 Pro Tips.

It is, after all, barbecue season, and ribs are oh so delicious.

The peak has passed...

on the Colorado River for this runoff season, having crested a bit above the median flow for the 91 year period of record at the Cisco gage. Here's a live webcam view of the river a few miles downstream of the gaging station.

Ten cool things seen...

in the first year of LRO.

I'll have another cup, please...

Coffee May Protect Against Head, Neck Cancers

I wonder, do margaritas offset any illnesses?

Previous related post.

Wise words...

Why is it that if someone tells you that there are one billion stars in the universe you will believe them, but if they tell you a wall has wet paint you will have to touch it to be sure?

-- Stephen Wright

In the right place...

at the right time: Amazing Aurora Seen From Space.

Rejoice the summer solstice...

on this, the longest day of the year. Summer officially begins at precisely 11:28 Universal Time (5:28 am MDT) when the sun reaches its highest point on the celestial sphere.

Classification of arches...

can be a very complicated matter.

That's the appropriately named Jug Handle Arch along the Potash Road southwest of Moab, Utah, developed in the Wingate Sandstone (click to enlarge). It's estimated to be 46 ft high and about 3 ft wide.

Studying volcanoes in Nebraska...

Volcanic Eruptions in North America Were More Explosive in Ancient Past

Happy Father's Day...

for that segment of the population that have sired offspring. Read more about the holiday.

Are we there yet?

New Horizons Halfway To Pluto.

Amazing fact: this spacecraft is moving "nearly a million miles per day."

It would have been ironic...

had my residence in Castle Valley been located on this lane (it's actually one off).

"Crowd science"...

reaches new heights.

Indeed, amateur astronomers have been making valuable scientific contributions in areas related to identifying new asteroids and supernovae, hunting for exoplanets, studying variable stars, to just name a few.

The wind did it...

Strange Martian Spirals Explained

Matrimony Spring today...

and as it was in the not too distant past:

You can see in the first image that the spring box and piping has been entirely removed, returning the spring to its natural state (click to enlarge). Someone has configured a bent metal trough to funnel a portion of the water stream into smaller water bottles, but filling a large canister is impossible. The second image features a former student, CR, during an EWU geology field trip to the area in 2007 (she's now a successful project manager for a mining company in Nevada).

Here's a related post about the recent changes to this historic site near Moab, Utah.

Wise words...

A probability is a desperate attempt of chaos to become stable.

-- Unknown

For a company that pledges...

"do no evil" this seems highly suspicious: Google Wi-Fi Data Collection Discussed by 30 Attorneys General.

If you have a home network with an unsecured wireless router then you are terribly vulnerable to such intrusions. Wise up! Lock it down!

Tailings project ahead of schedule...

DOE Officials Say Rail Transport Has Saved Money.

Here's an image of the project site taken today (click to enlarge):

Compare with this one taken in June 2009, from nearly the same vantage point and almost one year ago:

We're all gonna die...

one way or another: 2013 Solar Storm Could Create Widespread Panic.

This of course presupposes that we survive the apocalypse of 21 December 2012.

This female pheasant...

(Phasianus colchicus) that's been hanging around my place the last few days has more meat on it than President Obama's speech this evening concerning the on-going oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

What I'm reading...

right now in order to prepare for my travels this summer to Alaska and the Russian Far East: Where the Sea Breaks Its Back by Corey Ford. The subtitle says it all: "The epic story of early naturalist Georg Steller and the Russian exploration of Alaska."

Your documents in the cloud...

How Does Office Web Apps Compare to Google Docs?

For me, as it should be for you, security seems to be the biggest issue.

More about cloud computing.

All that water...

had to flow somewhere: Ancient Mars Covered by Vast Ocean.

Why hasn't a film been made...

of The Monkey Wrench Gang? Apparently one has been in the works - for decades - but never brought to fruition. Casting the main characters would be critical, and I'd personally like to see the Coen brothers direct the movie.

Hat tip: LS.

An a-mazing experience...

was had by all in the Maze District last week; that is, all the one of me. Here's the trip report from my solo excursion that starts with hitching a ride down the Colorado River from the Potash boat ramp, just downstream from Moab (click images to enlarge):

The boat pilot, a mechanic, and myself were on board for the ~ 50 mile meandering journey that took about 1.5 hours, despite a couple of hiccups with the fuel pump:

The confluence with the Green River, the main tributary to the Colorado, is rather unremarkable at river level. At nearly peak discharge during the runoff season the diffusion boundary between the two sediment laden rivers was indiscernible:

Donning life jackets as we entered upper Cataract Canyon per regulations, we arrived at Spanish Bottom just a few minutes later. This is the daunting view of the 1,200 ft high escarpment I had to climb up to the Doll House and into the Maze (yes, countless short switchbacks run up the center of the image):

So I set off alone on my trek, snapping this rare self portrait that includes free advertising for a Spokane-area geotechnical firm with whom I do some consulting:

After climbing the Doll House Trail only a short distance this was the perspective as I watched the jet boat charge upriver, with Red Lake Canyon entering in the center of the image from the Needles District on the south side of the river. That's the gypsum caprock of the Paradox Formation in a domal outcrop at river level:

And here's a broader panorama of the sunken Spanish Bottom, an enlarged graben, from higher up the steep trail. The lower, lighter colored rocks are mostly carbonates while the upper, redder strata are shales and sandstones of the Cutler Group:

Fallen blocks of limestone from the Honaker Trail Formation littered the trail and were chock full o' fragments of crinoids and brachiopods, and gave me a convenient excuse to take it slow:

After ultimately reaching the top I entered a different world, and set out to find a suitable site to establish a basecamp for my explorations in this pinnacled and complex terrain:

I never figured out which of the Cedar Mesa Sandstone outcrops was the Doll House, nevertheless I selected an east facing sheltered ledge, and here's the view from my aerie perch toward the distant La Sal Mountains:

Sunset over the Needles the first night was sublime:

The next day was devoted to a long hike out to the overlook of the Green River, passing Beehive Arch along the way:

The end of the trail yielded a seldom seen (and seldom photographed) spectacular view of the incised confluence. The Green flows towards the viewer from the left, with the confluence with the Colorado just right of center in the distance:

A telephoto shot from nearly the same vantage point confirms that the Meander anticline really does exist and the Colorado River flows along its axis. Note that the rocks dip away from the river on either side due to the removal of overburden pressures through erosion of the canyon, thereby allowing the buoyant salts of the Paradox Formation to bulge upwards:

On the return hike a bright pink prickly pear cactus (Opuntia erinacea) caught my attention, as well as that of several pollinators:

And yellow beeplant (Cleome lutea) was abundant in the meadows:

While skunkbush (Rhus aromatica) was beginning to yield its hard fruits of the season:

And prince's plume stood erect among the sandstone pinnacles:

Dusk yielded another exquisite view of the Needles this next night, followed by a spectacular lightning storm:

The following morning hike to the south carried me along Surprise Valley, another sunken structural graben:

The trail ultimately terminated at several well preserved granary structures in a deep alcove (a fourth one is off the image to the right):

Sand verbena (Abronia fragrans) was blooming in profusion:

And the silvery-green roundleaf buffaloberry (Shepherdia rotundifolia) still glistened with water droplets from the blustery late night storm:

Water and food eventually dwindled, and I returned to the river to catch the jet boat at an appointed time. Having arrived 90 mins early at Spanish Bottom I poked around the boulders examining the sedimentary structures and fossils they contained and found this cherty treasure hidden among them:

A fantastic end to a fabulous journey. In sum, adventures such as this distill the essence of life down to the very basic. I must start planning the next one with only a couple of more weeks left in canyon country this season.

Japanese asteroid probe...

makes historic return to Earth after its seven year mission. Here's the Hyabusa mission home page and a link to a video showing the reentry.

UPDATE: The sample return capsule has been recovered.

My heartfelt congratulations...

go out to all of the geology and environmental science students graduating today at Eastern Washington University. I'd especially like to acknowledge Ms. Miriam Woodley, who deserves special mention as the outstanding environmental science student of the class.

I'm heading into the Maze...

District of Canyonlands National Park the next few days by an approach from the Colorado River. My plan is to travel by jet boat to Spanish Bottom (~ 53 river miles below Moab; ~ 4 mi below the Green River confluence) and be dropped there, then climb the steep and challenging Doll House Trail for access to the southern part of the most remote place in the contiguous U.S. I will be traveling alone and will likely not encounter any other Homo sapiens during my walk-about. I'll return to the river several days thereafter where I've made arrangements to be picked up by jet boat for the upstream return trip to Moab.

Here's a shot I captured of Spanish Bottom (lower left) in October 2005 during an overflight (click to enlarge) that shows the Colorado River flowing toward the viewer:

And another of the terrain around the Doll House (a bit further to the left than the preceding view):

The objective of this sojourn? To explore the Land of Standing Rocks and the Doll House area, and to walk in the footsteps of John Wesley Powell. And to examine the geology. And take some pictures. And enjoy the full-on solitude of a wilderness experience under the gloriously dark nighttime skies of a new moon. Priceless.

My backpack is ready, the weather looks good, and I've spoken with park rangers and have secured my backcountry permit. Close friends know the details of my trip and time of expected return. Watch for a post describing the experience early next week.

My newest neighbor...

in Utah, just down the lane, is this so far nameless mastiff/setter mix. This brindled cutie should be huge when fully grown. Meet her older sister, Putts.

The application for a Russian visa...

is quite involved; I'm surprised it doesn't require a DNA sample. Nevertheless, that onerous chore is now complete and my passport is on its way via FedEx to Washington DC for the required stamp.

But why? I'll be co-leading back-to-back Zegrahm expeditions along the Pacific Rim from Seward, Alaska to Sapporo, Japan this summer, and the visa is required for entry into Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands. (See the related links in the CALENDAR section in the right-hand column of this silly blog to learn more about this amazing adventure.)

Volcanoes galore. Many of them are active. Can't wait.

Pop goes the Provost...

at Eastern Washington University, as President Arévalo announces the resignation in a campus-wide e-mail distributed today:

"Dr. John Mason will be stepping down from his position as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. He submitted his letter of resignation to me last Friday and asked that it be effective on June 30, 2010."

Read more in the Spokesman-Review: EWU provost resigns amid conflict with faculty.

Bravo. One ruinous administrator down and one more to go.

Space weather warning...

As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

Jupiter gets smacked again...

Big Fireball on Jupiter Spotted by Amateur Astronomers

Previous related post.

Watch that app...

Dark Side Arises for Phone Apps

Picturesque prince's plume...

(Stanleya pinnata) is presently peaking profusely (click to enlarge). Um, sometimes these posts write themselves.

And a nearby bush encelia (Encelia frutescens) is in fine form:

Matrimony Spring...

near Moab, Utah is still accessible but will remain undeveloped: County council rejects plan to develop Matrimony Spring, votes to leave spring in ‘natural state’.

Previous related post.

For some perspective...

10 Biggest Oil Spills in History

Glorious globemallow...

(Sphaeralcea coccinea) dominates the landscape with only days to go until summer (click to enlarge). The knee-high stalks, pregnant with bright orange blossoms, look good enough to eat.

Kudos to the Venetians...

Venice Wants to Attract Mosquito-Eating Bats

Hat tip: LS - good friend, good neighbor, and animal lover extraordinaire.

But it doesn't contain alcohol...

'Worst Drink in US' Has Same Fat as 68 Strips of Bacon