The Geology and Geography Thread

Post Reply New Topic

I can pinpoint exactly wherw my ancestors are from

I've been tempted to reply to annoying waitress who ask 'Did you find everything' with 'No, Actually I need to know the capital of Albania (Tirana, for those who wonder...'

Always liked georgraphy, geology I don't know so well.

Descartes developed the Cartesian system of graphing. Maybe there's a connection there.

you can actually search for early ancestors.....the olduvai and laetoli sites are not protected and you can dig around if you want. must be respectful of the site....but....rocks are there for the taking. have several fossil specimens picked up last trip. the ruins of engaruka are close by. while sitting on a terrace late one afternoon a rhino wandered through below me. great experience.

africa is my favorite place on earth. from the deserts to the jungles to millions of zebra and wildebeests migrating, it cannot be topped. if all humans lived like the masai, what a great place earth would be.

Although I've never taken any courses on it, I like geology. I'm particularly fascinated with how the Los Angeles area has so much evidence of cataclysmic events over the past few million years... Places where the earth has up-heaved, and you can see fish fossils in the sandstone cliffs above Chatsworth. That area is now at 1000 feet, and it used to be the ocean floor! I get the chills when I see earthquake faults too. I've climbed down into the San Andreas Fault outside Palm Springs, CA, and just stared at it. I also notice the "puzzle piece" canyon walls when you drive from the San Fernando Valley down to the beach, where there are sheer cliffs towering up on both sides of the road, and you can see where the earth was ripped open and the sides used to fit together perfectly, but are now 1000 feet or more apart.

Charles

Im a lifelong geography geek.

Not only like atlases, I like historic atlases.

Ive meet people who rattle off names of countries on continents as well as I can.

But when I up the ante by asking questions with a time dimension I trump them ( sure you can name all 57 nations of Africa but can you tell me which European power colonized each one of those nations? Or - sure you can name the capitals of europe, but can you name which modern nations in Europe, Africa, and Asia, were once provnces of the Roman Empire?)

Maps of places further away held more fascination for me than places nearby. I didn't even like at looking at maps of the continent I lived in. Although now that I am older things are reversing somewhat in that respect.

When I was younger this map " europe map" used to facinate me. It was so far away from where I live.

Also maps of places nearby "even in the same continent" didn't interest me at all. I would look at map of south america and map of north america all the time but never bothered with any maps of Australia. Now that I am older, I am starting to get more interested in maps of things close by and less interested in the maps of things further from me.

It is probably a result of having visited Europe and and the US and Canada a few years back. Although I loved the trips and had a great time, some of the mystique wore off.

i have always loved maps & atlases of all sorts; one of the few good memories of my earlier schooling is the elaborately decorated maps i made for my texas history class--i colored each of the counties in a different pattern--& did it differently every time.

i especially like atlases published between 1922 & 1943 that show the country of Tannu Tuva, famed for its throat-singing.

historical atlases--from classical times, ktp. these explain a lot about current events, actually (e.g. the Ottoman Empire)...

i even like imaginary maps. for instance, i treasure a book from the early 70's that predicted california would fall into the ocean--& printed a helpful chart of what the new coastline would look like.

also images of the earth after the polar caps melt. i think about this one a lot.

i have made my own maps in a limited way (the underground tunnel system downtown, a creek near my house).
sometimes i think of all my other work as map-making, only in places you can't walk.

m.