Igneous cats.

These are Julian's (Harmonic Tremors) cats, and are named after Californian faults.

This page is also linked in the sidebar to the right, under “overview pages”.

Next, there will be a collection of all WoGEs I solved.

This paper has several special properties:

• The fabric can be produced to be equivalent to sand paper grit sizes of >120, but is considerably thinner. Thus, even constricted openings and gaps can be neatly polished.
• In a special test run, fabrics were produced that are so thin that even light shines through, allowing the treated surface to be observed during the abrasion process.
• Due to its high structural integrity and low wettability, the material maintains a floating position on water, even when subjected to strong downwards pull, and without losing its coherence.
• Undisturbed storage on the roll is ensured by torque-limiting perforation (TLP): should any forces happen to disturb the spatial attitude of the roll, the generation of any torque is effectively averted by disrupting the transmission path.
• Thanks to bulk purchase, this product is extremely cost-effective, if not to say dirt-cheap.

However, there are still some disadvantages:

• The paper is rather brittle and prone to strong wrinkling. This complicates working on rounded surfaces.
• The low adhesion capacity of the fabric surfaces impedes lifting off and retaining material abrased from organic/biologic items.

Because of cost reasons and in order to assess the human component (“user interaction”, “skin feel”, reaction to larger amounts of blood), the tests are not performed by the FMPA (materials research and testing centre), but – sadly – directly in the various university department offices.

We're not quite happy with the location of the test stand. Although it's situated in a discreet and undisturbed location, conflicts of interest must be expected:

There are some interesting results when looking at the professions. As expected, law and economic sciences are strongly represented. But then:

The natural sciences are rather under-staffed: eight biologists, seven mathematicians, four physicist, zwo chemists and one geologist are found in the plenum – but also 17 physicians and 27 engineers.

One geologist of 621 MPs, that's really not much. (Who is it, by the way? Which party?) That explains, in my opinion, why there was so little mention about final storage when discussion the extension of the operational period of nuclear power plants… But at least 27 engineers, that's a little bit comforting. Computer scientist have to be content with just three representatives.

But this time I was lucky and found Felix Bossert's remake of WoGE 122, a close-up view of dunes in the Apure River region of Venezuela – now called WoGE 273. I think I only had a chance because the accidental double-post prevented both Ron Schott and Péter Luffi from taking part.

The last WoGE was quite like a painting, and so I want to continue with nice-looking images. Is this a close view of a metamorphic rock? Who knows…

For any new players to Where on (Google) Earth, simply post a comment with latitude and longitude and write something about the (geologic) feature in the picture. If you win, you get to host the next one.

I'm not sure if this is easy or not. To be on the safe side, I invoke Schott's Rule: former winners have to wait until posting for 1 hour for each WoGE they got right. I will post some hints (e.g. a scale bar) if there is no answer after some time.

Posted on 10 March, 21:00 CET (20:00 UTC).

Have fun and good luck!

Rockslide at Hirschsprung cleft, Obermaiselstein, 2011. View from base of slope.

Rockslide at Hirschsprung cleft, Obermaiselstein, 2011. View from north (sorry, bad exposure because of low sun).

I've written a bit about it in German; if you're interested in a translation, please tell me so.

Ole tried to slow down the rapid succession of WoGEs by zooming in a lot more than most previous posters with his WoGE #268. This seemed a success, at least people were desperately searching the planet for quite some time.

Felix Bossert liked this approach and presented another close-up view (WoGE #269), which I managed to solve rather quickly. This was by sheer luck: I had the Donauversinkung already prepared to be my next WoGE.

Therefore, I needed a new location, and I've found something similar:

Where on Google Earth #270.

For any new players to Where on (Google) Earth, simply post a comment with latitude and longitude and write something about the (geologic) features in the picture. If you win, you get to host the next one.

Because I think that this WoGE is still a bit easy, I invoke Schott's Rule: former winners have to wait until posting for 1 hour for each WoGE they got right.

Posting time is 24 February, 22:00 CET (21:00 UTC).

Have fun and good luck!

Living in Cottbus, I'm not directly affected, but I am convinced that, if something as essential as the public water supply is privatised, the contracts and agreements have to be public and be prepared with the participation of the elected representatives.

The main point of the referendum was (my translation):

§ 1 Obligation for disclosure

1. All contracts, resolutions and auxilary agreements that relate to the partial privatisation of the Berliner Wasserbetriebe and that have been made between the State of Berlin and private shareholders, have to be unconditionally disclosed according to §2 of this law. Clause 1, as well as the following legal provisions, apply also for future contracts, resolutions and auxiliary agreements.
2. Personal data of natural persons are exempt from disclosure.
3. Applicability of the exemption in clause 2 is determined by the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. He is authorised to blacken the corresponding data.

(§2 contains details on how and when information is disclosed.)

In the case of Berlin, and additional point is that the investors had been guaranteed a minimum profit. That's rather disputable considering Berlin's strained budget. And should privatisation not save some money? (Anyway, I don't know if it would, in principle.) There's an according paragraph as well:

§ 3 Obligation for approval and examination

All contracts, resolutions and auxiliary agreements in the sense of §1 of this law as well as amendments of existing contracts, which could affect the budget of Berlin, also regarding possible future consequences, in the widest sense, require the approval of the Berlin Parliament. Existing contracts, resolutions and auxiliary agreements require a extensive, public examination and public discussion by the Parliament, including consultation by independent experts. The Parliament has to be granted a time of at least six months for the examination.

Let's hope that this helps.

Because I already had als HTML and colour codes of the ISC already on my computer, it wasn't such a big deal to plug together a simple WebOS application. Until then, I had no experience in developing for smartphones, and therefore cannot compare to other SDKs, but programming for WebOS was quite comfortable.

Perhaps the intersection set of the people interested in geology and WebOS users is greater than one, so I'm releasing the app to the big world out there. I hope to get it included in Homebrew as soon as possible. In the meantime, you can get it here:

Stratigraphy v0.1.8 (Install with WebOS QuickInstall oor Internalz.) – Update 02.02.11

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

And if someone could design a decent icon, please don't hesitate.

When I was ill during the last weekend and therefore sometimes rather bored, I completed the colour codes. I have added the new colours to the original stylesheet file.

As an example, I have prepared (or more honestly, made my computer do it) a HTML version of the International Stratigraphic Chart 2009.

Some gory details about how to get hold of stratigraphic colour codes below the fold.

For my first version, I referred to two sources for the colour codes: a table by the Commission for the Geological Map of the World (CGMW) and the stratigraphic chart with colour codes by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). The ICS's International Stratigraphic Chart, which can – at least at this moment – found here on their site, contains a note that the colours are according to the CGMW. However, as I noted in my post back then, they do differ in some places. I stuck to the ICS colours and recorded those from the “original” CGMW table as variants (down to the period/system level).

In the meantime, both original sources have disappeared. It would have been nice if the commissions at least left a note about why they are no longer available. It doesn't seem like the colour codes were obsolete, as there are no new versions.

Here, I'd like to show how they could still be retrieved and present local copies of them, so that I never have to do all this digging again…

The CGMW had a link to their colour table close to the bottom of the page “Catalog”. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I could download the table from the last archived version (27.10.2007) of the site. Here's the local copy: couleurccgm.pdf.

I couldn't find the ICS colour charts (files code-rgb.pdf and code-cmyk.pdf) on archive.org; obviously they were too new. (The newest archived copy is from 22.08.2008 and only contains an older version of the CMYK codes on Home→Timescale→Download.)

Luckily, the website of the Subcommission for Stratigraphic Information (at Purdue University) still has a copy of both the RGB and CMYK charts. Back in January, I compared some RGB codes to my stylesheet and my old hardcopy, and I'm quite sure they're the same. (Despite the heading “according to the CGMW”, they are those I used primarily, and different from the variant I labelled “CGMW”.).

New files have appear in the meantime, dated October 2010.

Here are my local copies: RGB (Oct. 2010), CMYK (Oct. 2010), RGB (Dec. 2008), CMYK (Dec. 2008)

Last Sunday, there was the “Day of Stones in the City” in various cities throughout Germany. Mr Wolfram Köbbel offered a walk through Cottbus to show the various stones used in the buildings and their history.

The original post in German is quite long, so I have not translated it completely yet. But perhaps some of my English-speaking readers might like to have at least a look at the pictures. If you're interested, just ask and I will extend the English text.

Permian Porphyrtuff (translation? “Porphyry tuff”?) at the House of the former Auguste Foundation:

Ehem. Auguste-Stift, Eingang eines Nebengebäudes

Ehem. Auguste-Stift, Säule aus Rochlitzer Prophyrtuff

Gneiss Giallo San Francisco (Italy, Preceambrian) with nice garnets:

Fassadenverkleidung Sparkasse Breitscheidplatz – Giallo San Francisco

Lower Cretaceous Sandstone:

Fassadenverkleidung Commerzbank, Schloßkirchstr. – Oberkirchener Sandstein

Well on the market square from Upper Cretaceous Reinhardtsdorfer Sandstone (Saxony):

Brunnen auf dem Altmarkt: Reinhardtsdorfer Sandstein

Blocks of bog iron ore from Peitz in the Klosterkirche (in addition to normal bricks):

Klosterkirche: Raseneisenstein (dunkle Blöcke)

Blocks of Theumaer Fruchtschiefer (“Theuma fruit slate”) at the Japanese Pavilion:

Blöcke aus Theumaer Fruchtschiefer am Japanischen Pavillon

Close-up with Cordierite crystals (the “fruits”, although they look more like grain to me) from contact metamorphosis:

Theumaer Fruchtschiefer

Passage at the Stadtpromenade with Rapakivi plates:

Durchgang zwischen Stadtpromenade und August-Bebel-Straße: Rapakivi

Close-ups with circular structure and green seams:

Rapakivi im Durchgang Stadtpromenade–August-Bebel-Str.

Rapakivi im Durchgang Stadtpromenade–August-Bebel-Str.

Devonian Lamprophyr (micro-gabbro?), with the fitting trade name Snow Flake:

Galeria Kaufhof: Lausitzer Lamprophyr

We've been shown a nice mixture of various kinds of rocks during the two hour walk. They are stratigraphically also quite diverse:

The pictures above show only about half of the visited objects. There was a lot more to see, e.g. floor tiles etc. And our guide explained a lot, not only about geology but also about the history of buildings and the city.

I've found this at Bad Astronomy, who has a nice post about it.