don findlay wrote:

Jo Schaper wrote in message ...


We need to move on to something of interest.

Jo


Oh, Dear, ...I wonder what that could be? Gerard Fryer mentioned
something a while back about a graded bed in a river bank needing more
sussing out. (Something to do with Bretz. )

So, nuthing takes your interest Jo? ..It's all sewn up, eh? Stu's
retiring, and leaving it all to his protege... Ah, I know what you
mean, ...it's really rough. There's a whole new generation
reinventing the wheel. In a little while there'll be nothing of value
left, ..it will have all gone down the gurgler, spokes and all. Why
not help me think up a new name for plate tectonics - like "Scary
Awsome Tectonics maybe". (George will find us a link.) Git yorn
'tillery, ...we'll git out on th'road thar, ..an' burn 'em.

(Don roughtalks Jo into arson attacks)

Although you have never met me, Don, you know me better than that I will
start arson attacks, or flame wars or something. *|;-)

There are still lots of things to find out about geology. Plenty of
questions out there. I agree with you, I have been seeing a whole lot of
wheel-inventing lately, especially by young people bucking against the
ever-present 'generation-gap'. My dad taught me ignorance is not a
problem. No one knows everything. But it is the stupid person who is too
stubborn to ask around for an answer.

We recently had a 23 acre lake in an upper-middle class part of town go
down a sinkhole in 3 days.They traced the water to a spring 4 miles
away. The whole thing is a stinky mudflat in the middle of lots of
pricey homes. The home owners, (many professional, white collar college
graduates amongst them) are on TV asking why engineering firms cannot
guarantee that they can fix the sinkhole, so the lake will never leak
again. It is obvious they are ignorant of the behavior of sinkholes. But
instead of picking up a geology text, or listening to the engineers,
they want their lake back, and they want it now, and they want it as
cheaply fixed permanently as possible. That is stupidity. While their
personal situation is unfortunate, they should have learned about
geohazards somewhere along the line. They didn't, even though Missouri
has long been touted as "The Cave State."

At the same time, a local university, about 30 miles from the New Madrid
Fault, which for many years had an excellent earthquake studies part of
there geology department, will have no more geology department at all
once the current juniors and seniors graduate. Geology isn't important,
unless your house sits on the planet Earth.

I don't have many answers. I'm just tired of hearing the same ones (like
iron concretions exist on Earth, something I've known since I was about
10), presented as breaking news,
best regards
Jo Schaper