Author: cmbail
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Here For Evermore?
With Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe The geologists have left the building. The Geological Society of America’s meeting in Baltimore is over and done, yet I find myself back in the same Baltimore hotel that just two days earlier was lousy with earth scientists. With colleagues from James Madison University and the U.S. Geological Survey…
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Charm City
I resided in Baltimore, Maryland during graduate school at Johns Hopkins University- that was way back in the last century. In 2010 I came back to Baltimore as co-chair of a Geological Society of America meeting held in Charm City, U.S.A. (Baltimore’s nickname born from a ridiculous marketing strategy in the 1970s). Somehow my professional…
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Battling Boreas
William & Mary is in the midst of its Spring Break and many students have departed for destinations where learning, service, and leisure are on the menu. Professors also need a break from campus and many take their leave of Williamsburg during this week with no classes. I got away from campus with my colleague…
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A Year in the Life of James
This is a piece about two James’: James McCulla (W&M class of 2010) and the James River. James McCulla stands about 6′ 2″, hails from Richmond, and is a geology major and part-time rugby icon. The James River is over 400 miles in length, flows through Richmond, and is an iconic Virginia river. The man…
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Travels and Travails
I am bashing on the keyboard, eastbound on a flight from Portland, Oregon to Chicago, Illinois with every hope of arriving in Williamsburg before midnight. Portland hosted the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting and my travels both to and from the Pacific Northwest have been smooth. The same cannot be said for a passel…
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Life in the Basement
As a headstrong teenager I moved into the basement to escape the horrifying prospect of sharing a room with my younger brother. That was nearly thirty years ago, but I still spend a great deal of time in the basement, the geologic basement that is. For most people basement is the lowest floor of a…
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Finishing What We Started
As the sun glides towards the western horizon we wind our way down the trail to the bottom of American Fork Canyon in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. It’s been a good day; we are now playing hooky from the Geological Society meeting that is taking place in the valley below. Earlier in the day Jessica Ball…
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Williamsburg is Not Flat
Spring has arrived and the William & Mary landscape is especially captivating. When asked to describe William & Mary’s landscape, many students, faculty and even administrators use the words flat and swampy. To be sure, parts of campus are flat and some of the bottomland is swampy, but this landscape description is incomplete. A measure…
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Spring Break Sunshine
Spring Break is an annual ritual for college students, with many taking the mid-semester hiatus as an opportunity to scurry south in search of warm temperatures, placid beaches, and some serious relaxation. A number of William & Mary geologists changed their latitude (and perhaps their attitude) by making a showing at the Geological Society of…
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A Snow Day, For Real?
For the first two months of 2009, Williamsburg escaped any measurable snow. There were opportunities for snow, but invariably snow went either to the south or north (see posting of January 20th). Close but no cigar. Last Sunday, the snow goddess played a cruel trick; the snow fell fast and furious, but the big fat…
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The Foundation of the College
William & Mary just celebrated its 316th anniversary. On Charter Day the crowd assembled at PBK Hall. The choir was in the house and ready to sing. Once the distinguished guests, board of visitors, administrators, and faculty came marching in the party really got started. The Provost, in what may be the highpoint of his…
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To Snow or Not To Snow
January 19, 2009, 7 p.m. William & Mary may start the spring semester under a blanket of snow. That’s a big deal around here. Snow is not common in Williamsburg, and depending on your perspective, it is an unusual winter treat or unexpected headache. I am quite pleased because the arrival of snow would be…
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As if exams were not enough
William & Mary students are in the throes of final exams. It can be a stressful time. The Structure & Tectonics research group had an additional wrinkle added to their end-of-the-semester calendar- a geological research conference to attend. My undergraduate students studying the Blue Ridge Mountains presented the results of their ongoing research at a…
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Making an Impact
The Earth’s moon is pockmarked with craters. But just how did those craters form? The origin of lunar craters was debated from the mid-17th century well into the 20th century, with many astronomers favoring a volcanic origin while a number of geologists explained them as the result of impacts from the collision of extra-lunar bodies…
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On Towards the Finish
As the weather cools and the hours of daylight grow ever shorter, the structural geology seminar finds itself grinding away on the research projects. Perhaps we are not yet close enough to see light at the end of the tunnel (or the semester), but progress has been made. Early in the semester we divided into…
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Mistaken Identity?
Rogers Hall is currently being gutted and will emerge as part of the Integrated Science Center II. Built in 1975, Rogers Hall housed the Chemistry department and took its name for William & Mary educated William Barton Rogers (1804-1882). The 1970s era Rogers Hall replaced the original Rogers Hall (currently Tyler Hall), which also housed…
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A Difficult Time of It
Professors talk for a living. In the classroom we talk (and sometimes talk and talk) on subjects we’re passionate about, but the College’s annual Raft Debate turns professorial chatter into a brawl of fact and innuendo. The premise is simple, three faculty members, a humanist, a social scientist, and a scientist, are shipwrecked on a…
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Oh Shenandoah, We Long to See You
This semester’s structural geology seminar is an upper level course populated with an eager crew of juniors and seniors. The class is working on three research projects intended to better understand the tectonics of the Appalachian Mountains. This past weekend was spent in the wilds of Shenandoah National Park collecting samples for lab analysis back…