Obviously I did not do a very good job of updating this blog last semester. Our new semester starts on Monday August 29 and I will resolve to do better over Fall. I'm excited to be teaching Introduction to Earth Science to a new group of students and as usual our topic for the first week will be minerals. I will try and find something interestijng to discuss.
In the meantime there was an interesting geological event yesterday: the magnitude 5.8 Mineral, Virginia earthquake. Callan Bentley, an assistant professor of geology at Northern Virginia Community College, has a really interesting post about the earthquake over at his blog. You should take a look. He says one possible explanation for the earthquake might be differential rebound of the crust due to isostatic adjustments. We will be discussing isostasy later in the semester.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Week Two: Minerals
Today we had our second class in GEOL1030-010 and discussed minerals. Not only are minerals important as resources, but they are beautiful. Check out this link for some amazing photos of minerals.
In class, we also discussed diamonds and why they are so expensive. Part of the reason is thought to be that the De Beers Family of Companies controlled the supply of diamonds throughout much of the world in the 20th century and through monopolization controlled prices. In 2004 De Beers pleaded guilty to price fixing and paid $10 million to settle the indictment (see here). The charges brought by the Justice department in 1994 were keeping De Beers from directly doing business in the US. That article mentions that diamond jewelry is a $60 billion business. Much of that is from engagement rings. This 2007 Slate article is an interesting look at the history of engagement rings.
In class, we also discussed diamonds and why they are so expensive. Part of the reason is thought to be that the De Beers Family of Companies controlled the supply of diamonds throughout much of the world in the 20th century and through monopolization controlled prices. In 2004 De Beers pleaded guilty to price fixing and paid $10 million to settle the indictment (see here). The charges brought by the Justice department in 1994 were keeping De Beers from directly doing business in the US. That article mentions that diamond jewelry is a $60 billion business. Much of that is from engagement rings. This 2007 Slate article is an interesting look at the history of engagement rings.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Week One of Class
Welcome to the blog for GEOL1030-010. This semester I will be attempting to inject some relevance into my teaching of Introduction to Earth Science. I hope you all check in from time and time. I'm looking forward to a fun semester.
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