Happy Halloween!

This year I am dressed up as a Responsible Adult for Halloween. What are you guys pretending to be?

Does This Count as Progress?

I got to use my freeway exit for the first time sunday night. I-10 has been under construction for... about four years, I guess, and my exit has been closed since I moved here. I had to get off an exit early this whole time (oh, the pain...). But sunday night, the freeway was suddenly opened up to five lanes, and I could get off at My Real Exit. Woot!. I thought about making a U-turn and driving it again.
Ok, my life is pretty boring, but at least I get a lot of amusement without spending a lot of money.
The really cool part was when I got on the freeway heading out of town at 4.30 monday afternoon and we were going 60 instead of 20! A Posted Speed during rush hour!

Less "Geological," More "Society" and "America"

I had a lovely GSA this year... what part of it I was able to attend, after my boss got done scheduling things during the convention. I started out with a field trip, as I like to do. This year it was a trip to study barrier island processes down on Galveston.
Hmmm.
Galveston. That's the town, on the island, in that Gulf thingy, right? The one that still doesn't have much electricity?
Yup, that's the one.
We're still going?
Turns out we are. Had to knock one stop off the trip, but here we go...



These boulders used to be about five feet lower than they are now. They were holding down the rap at the base of the seawall. Now they are on top of it (geologist for scale).








This is a truly sad sight - mini golf, deceased (depths of the sorrow in my heart for scale).




Houses on the beach in Galveston have the garage on the ground floor with living space above. The garages are supposed to be, essentially, tear-aways. This time, they did. This photo was taken from just west of the seawall. The house is approximately 3/4-mile west of the seawall. The flat bit is the garage floor of this house. It used to be at ground level. Now it is about 4-5 feet above ground (rest of house for scale). That much erosion happened in one day. Not even - about 12 hours, really.

In Galveston, the beach is public property. The beach is defined as everything between the water and the vegetation line. You can't build on public property, so your house needs to be behind the vegetation line. This house, like the one pictured above, no longer is. That means that, although it survived the storm, the owner must tear it down at his own expense. The only money he will get is for the damage to his garage (which now ranges from two to four feet above ground level; geologists for scale).




Folks on this part of the beach put in geotubes (big sacks full of sand) to try to re-establish dunes. Didn't work (drainage pipe for scale).




Still, not everything about hurricanes is bad (assuming you think that people being encouraged to move off of a barrier island is a bad thing in the first place). Ike excavated a good portion of the old wall posts of Ft. San Jacinto, freeing up local archaeologists to deal with other things, like drinking beer.


The storm left behind these beautiful ripples for me to enjoy (pen for scale).












The hurricane broke off a piece of this granite slab on a seawall placard, allowing me to view a fresh, unpolished and unweathered surface of the rock.





The retreating water even uncovered portions of a delightful shell layer (about an inch thick) along the beach for us to be intrigued by (beach for scale).


Ike has removed not only a whole lot of houses and piers and roads and trees and Bolivar Peninsula, but also beach ridges that were dated at about 1500 years old. 1500 years they lasted... Ike was the one that did them in. Kind of scary. What, I couldn't've stayed in New Mexico six more months?

We didn't get to study coastal wetlands on this trip, because there aren't any anymore. That, I believe, is actually a pre-Ike condition, and likely one that Didn't Help Matters any.

But on to happier things. I got to see four people whom I dearly love and have not seen since graduation - in one case, literally: Rich was sitting with me and Chris through that whole damn ceremony. Now he's in Germany working at a museum. And I get Houston? How is this fair?
I got to see lots of people that I love less dearly, but nonetheless enjoy seeing from time to time. My friend Robin even came from Albuquerque to stay with me during the convention. And I got to meet lots of new people who laugh at my jokes that end with things like "but the olivine in her pocket was the magnesium end member!" and who are not perturbed by fistfights begun over a disagreement over a chili recipe. Geologists are good at three things: rocks, chili, and free beer. I excelled at free beer this week.
Now... everyone has left, and it's back to work.
Stupid work.