basically, all the important stuff.

i just found a "don't forget to pack this" list for myself, left over from one of the school camping trips i went on this semester (by the way, if you're seeking a field of study, you should know that geography classes usually include at least one field trip. just sayin'.) the list:

"bandana
washcloth
cheese"

my favorite geography game site on the entire internons

is definitely purposegames.com. and thanks to the countries of africa mapping game, i finally know them all! (warning: if you try to tell me that you can't keep track of african geography because "it keeps changing!" i will judge you. you know what else has changed? european geography. and more recently and dramatically than african geography. but i see many more people prepared to give up on knowing where anything in africa is at all than people who have just decided that it doesn't matter where, say, the czech republic is. don't be lame. learn africa.)

next up: finally, really, once and for all, figure out where delaware is. (i am still not entirely convinced of the existance of delaware and therefore keep forgetting where it is, ruining my score on the states of the u.s.a. mapping game. yeah, i'm working on it.)

well, everyone likes something different, don't they?

"i thought the idea of scour area polygons was really interesting."

well, that's one way of looking at oceanic convergence

someone asked my geomorphology professor what happens when two oceanic plates converge. his response: "they draw straws and they say, 'okay, you go under!'" (according to science, the older plate is denser, so it subducts.)

this was right before he explained "mountains are made out of stuff."

and now you know.

my blog report on "very small rain" by sarah.

my blog report on "very small rain"
by sarah.

"very small rain," a project of alan wiig, is an eclectic collection of beautiful photographs, passages from books, and observations on modern life. alan is an excellent photographer and has good taste in literature. he loves california in a way that more people should—unselfconsciously, and with an unflinching commitment to deconstructing the false narratives of its past, present and future. he's also a geographer, a map librarian, a talented bicycle mechanic, and a damn good friend. go see.

(read more blog reports)

do you know what a piece of iceberg is called?

a bergy bit! geography textbooks are the best.

when there is no word to describe the thing you wish to describe, you should probably just make one up.

i learned several amazing geography facts today. here is one of them:

the earth isn't perfectly spherical. there's a bit of a bulge because of the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation (imagine pressing a tennis ball on a table, and you'll have a good idea of how it's shaped.) there's nothing on earth that's the shape of...well...the earth. so, some geographers decided to come up with a name for the earth's shape: geoidal. the definition of geoidal? earth-shaped. the earth? yeah. it's geoidal. yep, earth-shaped.

update: edited to enhance scientific accuracy.