Part time is Party Time!

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
-- Anonymous
It is official - I am now a part-time professional geologist. Yesterday and today were the first two days of my adult life that I wasn't either a full-time student with a part-time job or a full-time working professional. I had been wanting to reduce my hours at work for a couple of years, and finally convinced my boss to go along with it. Why? Mostly so I can go clothes shopping during the day, everyday, except Saturday. Not really. Since Drew was promoted to captain, he has had a schedule quite opposite of my M-Th state employee mandated 10-hour days. About a half dozen times in this last year we didn't see each other for 12 or more days because when he was home, I had West Desert fieldwork. Anyway, it began to feel like our prime-time years were slipping away from us for no good reason. I wonder if, maybe, as I approach the big 4-0, this is my mid-life crisis. Instead of having an affair and getting hair plugs, I buy carbon-fiber bikes and half-quit my job.

So what am I going to do with all that free time? I am making a public vow (you heard it here) to not take on any new commitments for one full year so that I may begin to catch up on some of our current projects. Mostly some mid-level home remodeling projects and complete backyard landscape installation. I will also handle most of the VRBO Moab condo rental business, and I might learn how to weld (not a new commitment, since I tried to get into the class in September but they were full). I started off this week by catching up on condo paperwork, getting a long-overdue medical check up, repairing our broken-since -June DVD player, and finishing the Ginkgo artwork on the garage floor.



With a much more flexible two day a week work schedule, Drew and I plan to take more mini vacations and capitalize on those flight benefits we have. Friends in destination hot spots, get that guestroom ready. We'll be over soon.

I am very fortunate and happy to be able to do this!

It's not what if, it's what now. ~Author Unknown

Antelope Island geology field trip

Sunday I joined 27 others on a hike around Antelope Island State Park courtesy of the Salt Lake Chapter of the Association for Women Geoscientists. Some of you Lucy family members will remember this park as the place we went before our wedding to "experience" the Great Salt Lake. Sunday was a day to look at evidence of past climate change and hike with other women (and a few men) geologists.


View northwest from Buffalo Point. You can just make out a line of a few hikers on the trail down below.


As we hiked on the Bridger Bay trail we were more or less on the Gilbert Shoreline of Lake Bonneville (marked by an arrow in the picture above), which formed about 12,000 years ago by Lake Bonneville as it paused at this level for some reason when the global glacial period was changing to a warmer, dryer interglacial period. The highest stand of Lake Bonneville would have been almost 1000 feet over my head as I stood here. That shoreline and others are clearly visible as we looked across White Rock Bay. Can you see the shorelines on this picture? (You can see a larger picture if you click on it. Really. Just do it.)

Could pick out the shorelines? OK, it was a pretty hazy day, plus you probably didn't click on the picture did you? Oh well, I'll give you the answers anyway. On the picture below are marked the Stansbury (green) level from 24,000 years ago, where lake level stabilized for a thousand years as the lake was filling. By 18,000 years ago the lake had risen to the Bonneville level (blue), its highest level, during which time it was fresh and HUGE. Lake Bonneville was 325 miles long and 135 miles wide and reached into Nevada and Idaho. This is the level of the lake I was talking about when I snapped this picture a few weeks ago out in the West Desert. A natural unconsolidated sediment dam up in Idaho broke and drained the lake to the Provo level (pink) by about 16,000 years ago. As the climate dried, so did the lake, evaporating to the Gilbert level (orange), after which it kept drying to where it is today.
And we humans have a conniption when the Great Salt Lake rises 10 feet as it did in the 1980s!

We saw antelope on Antelope Island. That was a surprise. In the dozen or so times I've been to the island, I have never seen antelope there. I have always seen buffalo though. There is a managed herd of American bison (Bison bison, now there is one Latin name I can remember) roaming freely. I managed to accidentally create this cool shot.

Another of my marginally artsy photos. Maybe I should stick to geology.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little climate lesson. Our next post will be about biking again.

Fall colors

Jim and Drew went for an early morning ride this week in Mill Creek Canyon while I went to work. Nice.

Then, since Drew went off to work Thursday afternoon through Monday, I rounded up a team ride on Saturday to enjoy the fall colors on the Mid Mountain trail from PCMR to the Canyons. John, Carl, Andy, Rhonda and I soaked in the last of the warm weather and phenomenal fall colors.

Riding the new Santa Cruz was superb. On the very rocky section of the trail I was able to make some large adjustments to my suspension and he is riding more smoothly. I have christened him Magma for the red-orange color, the explosive ride, and because I am a geologist and I like the sound of the word magma. :-)

Utah Geological Association 2009 field trip

The title of this year's Utah Geological Association (UGA) annual publication is Geology and Geologic Resources and Issues of Western Utah. Can you guess why I was asked to be a co-editor on this publication? Ground water is a geologic resource, and western Utah sure has an issue, as readers of this blog or any newspaper in the Intermountain West will know!

Anyhoo, each year UGA sponsors a field trip for geologists to learn about the topics covered in the publication. Friday and Saturday I participated in said field trip.

(Photo by Ken K. Thanks Ken.)

Here I am with Hugh H. and Matt A., my compatriots in implementing the Utah Geological Survey's network of ground-water monitoring wells and surface-flow gaging stations in Snake Valley and other areas of the West Desert.

Gavin K. from the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) describes the monitoring SNWA is doing in the region. SNWA is applying to pump 50,000 acre-feet per year from Snake Valley. This concerns the existing Utah water right holders and others because there may not be enough water. That is why the Utah legislature appropriated $3 million to Utah Geological Survey to install this monitoring network I have been working on and posting about.

(Photo by Ken K. Thanks Ken.)

Following the SNWA presentation, Matt and I told the good folks about the UGS's monitoring program. Although the field trip was heavy on the water issues, we also made some economic and classic geologic stops. Here is Ken Puchlik telling us about the Crypto Zinc property where he hopes to mining zinc soon.

Geologist love to look at drill core.

Geologist like to talk about rocks, especially on a beautiful day.

We also like to look at fossils. These are crinoid stem pieces in the Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone formation.

OK, so it may not look like much to the untrained eye (that would be mine two seconds before the trip leader told me what these were), but the curvy lines in this rock are the oldest and most southerly Paleoaplysina (a type of algae mound) in the world!!! Please don't stop reading this blog because of this photo and caption.

We checked out King Canyon disseminated gold deposit.

The last stop was the Ash Grove Cement plant. They mine limestone and shale from the quarry behind the plant, add quartz from a nearby sandstone quarry, and burn it at 2500 degrees F using various fuel sources, including coal, tires, and diapers, or rather the extra plastic from the diapers produced at the Kimberly Clark factory in Ogden, and out comes Portland cement.

And that is how geology is a part of our everyday lives.

We love the Utah State Fair

Last week our date night was an evening at the Utah State Fair.

We played games,

had fun with vegetables,

especially really large vegetables,

and viewed the butter sculptures of dancing cows.

Then it was off to the barns to look at real cows. Check out this humongous bull!!!,

this nice looking goat,

family time at the pig barn,

and the video of real farm action! (Turn up your sound for the full effect.)

But be careful where you put the mess.

One foot-long corn dog, one over-priced beer, a fresh Utah Pork Producers pork tenderloin sandwich, and a powdered-sugar/cinnamon-sugar funnel cake later, we just strolled the midway. We could not ride after eating all that!

New Bike!!

After 5 seasons on "Jube" the pink Titus Racer X, it was time Lucy had a new ride. I found this on the local classified ads and got it for a really good price. He is a Santa Cruz Blur XC that likes to go fast uphill, but see how stealthy he is hiding in the trees? I'm trying to come up with a name for him. It will either be El Naranja Ninja, or "Ninja Bike" for short, or Mr. Pumpkin.

Fall colors were out on Spiro. Gorgeous.

A fun little crunchy leaf tunnel.

Too bad Drew is off working in Dallas. I guess somebody has to stay home and have fun.

September field work in Snake Valley

Looking toward Nevada.

A couple of weeks ago Aaron (Utah Division of Water Rights) and I went back out to Snake Valley to continue our installation of spring discharge monitoring stations. We worked from sun up to sun down in the perfect September days and accomplished much toward our goal of metering six important sources of surface water. Our data will provide water users with good background information against which to gauge hydrological changes.

First, we finished up the work we started in July at Clay Spring, a smallish spring on private property that is habitat for a certain spring snail found no where else in the world. Second, we installed a radio signal gathering station at the Utah Dept. of Transportation station in Garrison. This is where all the gage height signals from the six springs will come to upload to the State network.

Garrison UDOT installation. The guy that runs this station is one great guy, as are most of the Snake Valley residents.

Third, we installed a radio repeater station near the top of a small mountain. Because this site has excellent line-of-sight to 5 of our antennas, we will collect the signal here and beam it to the Garrison site for upload.

Location of the repeater station. No trees to interfere here!

The truck in action.

Lucy in action mounting the solar panel below the radio antenna.



Moonrise over a playa that occupies what used to be a lagoon area behind a gravel bar on the shores of Lake Bonneville 12,000 years ago. It is hard for me to imagine what this valley would have looked like with the ice-age lake present.

And lastly, we installed an antenna on a local farmer's center-pivot sprinkler irrigation system to monitor how much of Foote Reservoir Spring is used for irrigation.

Antenna above the blue box on the pivot.