GeoJeopardy! Fridays #66

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because I'm working from home today.

- Down to Earth -

When it's closest to the Earth, this planet with a 687-day year is about 33 million miles away

 ------------------------------------------------------------------

  Eratosthenes calculated this c. 230 B.C. using the difference between the sun's angles at 2 places during June

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The Lambert one of these formations in the Antarctic is over 250 miles long

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Cast" in the role of the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, its atomic number is 26

 ----------------------------------------------------------------

A clue for alien astronomers looking for life on Earth is the large amount of this gas, CH₄, in the atmosphere

-----------------------------------------------------------------

All the answers as well as any other previous GeoJeopardy! questions can be found over at my website by clicking the link.

And if you enjoy this post as well as others, please consider subscribing to my blog via Google Reader or some other RSS feed so that way I better know my readership. Thank you.

Questions, images, and videos courtesy of j-archive.com

GeoJeopardy! Fridays #65

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because it is time for a break.

- Earth Science -

In a mining lode, the gangue is the junk & this is the mineral with the good stuff in it

 ------------------------------------------------------------------

 Venice is sinking because Italy is actually part of this continent's plate & it's sliding under Europe's plate

-----------------------------------------------------------------

 It's not just oil -- Saudi Arabia has reserves of over 200 trillion cubic feet of this

----------------------------------------------------------------

It Seismographers use the difference in speed between P waves & S waves to locate this point

 ----------------------------------------------------------------

Some ocean sediment is radiolarian ooze, made of these parts of tiny protozoans

-----------------------------------------------------------------

All the answers as well as any other previous GeoJeopardy! questions can be found over at my website by clicking the link.

And if you enjoy this post as well as others, please consider subscribing to my blog via Google Reader or some other RSS feed so that way I better know my readership. Thank you.

Questions, images, and videos courtesy of j-archive.com

Dinos in Pop Culture Thursday

Dinos in Pop Culture, where we highlight each week some of the more obscure instances of dinosaurs used in the pop culture realm to sell anything from slippers to wedding cakes.

This week is the third post about the Utah Hogle Zoo's exhibit Zoorassic Park. I find it amazing how much Jurassic Park still influences our perceptions and displays of dinosaurs.

DINOSAURS: From Cultural to Pop Culture - ~400 BC: The Griffin

DINOSAURS! From Cultural to Pop Culture

Prehistoric Times 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

~400 BC
The Griffin

Apollo riding a griffin circa 380 BC (theoi.com).

Continuing along through Greek mythology we have the griffin. The griffin is a combination eagle head with a lion's body. I picked ~400 BC as the date for this stop because this is when the famous tale of Prometheus Bound was likely written by Aeschyles. In the story Prometheus is bound to a rock as torture for giving fire to humanity. While he is tied to this rock he is force to endure griffins repeatedly eating out his liver. Then, when they are done, the liver is allowed to grow back again, starting whole process over again. This isn't the first occurrence of griffins in history but it is one of the most prominent early examples so I figured this would be a good place to mark it. Within mythology, one of the principle traits of the griffin, other than its ability to fly, is that it is often found guarding treasure.

Protoceratops replica from Gaston Designs. 

One theory for the origin of the griffin is that the Greeks were trading with a group of people called the Scythian Nomads. The trade routes of these nomads traveled from Mongolia and down into Greece where they traded gold, among other things. The source location for their gold was likely at the base of some cliffs near the Gobi Desert. The gold would have likely eroded out of the Altai Mountains in Mongolia and settled on the fringes of the desert. Along side the gold deposits the traders found these bizarre looking skeletons, unlike what they have ever seen before. When coming across such things most people try to relate it to what they know. They recognized the beak, like that of a bird, and the bird-like-talons, but the size and shape of the body didn't make sense. This must be a beast that is a combination of a bird and something else, possibly a lion. We now know that the skeleton was that of a Protoceratops. The only question that now remained is what happened to the frill of the dinosaur in the nomads reconstruction? It is likely that if the frill was broken into pieces, the placement of the frill along the back could give evidence for the presence of wings. Once discovering these and creating the griffin myth, the nomads then transported this tale all over Europe during their travels (Mayor, 2000; Ancient Monster Hunters; Wikipedia). 

References:
Mayor, Adrienne. 2000. The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoceratops#Origin_of_griffin_myths  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6VLojsbAIQ
https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K5.7.html
https://www.gastondesign.com/our-products/dinosaur-skeletons/

GeoJeopardy! Fridays #64

Time for GeoJeopardy! Fridays, because I said so.

- Pick a Planet -

Its "day" is 24 hours & 39 minutes

 ------------------------------------------------------------------

It's the third largest in our solar system

-----------------------------------------------------------------

 It's never observable when the sky is fully dark

----------------------------------------------------------------

It was the first to be discovered with the aid of the telescope

 ----------------------------------------------------------------

Leda is its 13th moon

-----------------------------------------------------------------

All the answers as well as any other previous GeoJeopardy! questions can be found over at my website by clicking the link.

And if you enjoy this post as well as others, please consider subscribing to my blog via Google Reader or some other RSS feed so that way I better know my readership. Thank you.

Questions, images, and videos courtesy of j-archive.com