Science is Fun Fridays!

 We attended a lecture last night at the Desert Research Institute and learned a bit about local activity.

First up was a geoarcheologist whose work is focused on documenting the many Basque arborglyphs in Nevada.  She referred to a Summer Camp in the Black Rock Desert that we've driven past, but did not stop to look at the trees.

And then we heard from a geochronologist, focusing on the volcanic activity in the Nevada area.  In her frame of thought, the "recent" explosions in Fallon are not ancient history.

I feel like we may have touched on the Soda Lakes before, where maar craters remain after magma came into contact with groundwater.

She showed us a graphic of how the plate tectonics have stretched the land that is now Nevada over the years, so the continental crust is somewhat thin.  I wondered if this explained our many hot springs as well.

She went on to discuss the Luminescence Lab, and luminescence as a geochronometer.

Simply put, the amount of light emitted from a mineral can determine how long ago it was exposed to heat or sunlight / how long ago it was deposited and buried.

DRILL