Prime-Period Cicadas Depending on where you are in eastern North America, every 13 or 17 years something magical happens, figuratively and literally. Out of the soil emerge broods, all at once, of Magicicada, otherwise known simply as cicadas. For most of the lives of these insects, they exist underground, sucking up the juices from deciduous trees. When […]
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Documenting Demise As we explored in the previous issue, Mt. St. Helens began to display activity in March 1980, a string of action that led to the largest recorded landslide and an incomprehensible lateral blast on May 18. This two-month period allowed geologists and amateur scientists time to study the mountain in the buildup. Many volcanologists
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The Mt. St. Helens Eruption Today is the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Located in southern Washington’s Skamania County, the stratovolcano is 50 miles northeast of Portland and 100 miles south of Seattle. In early 1980 the mountain was 9,677 feet high, making it the fifth-highest peak in the state. Rising
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Intro to Clouds Clouds, how do they work? They’re all around us, a daily companion, perhaps relegated to the background. As the National Weather Service states, “They can weigh tens of millions of tons yet float in the atmosphere.” Do you make time for miracles? If, as I do, you make time for miracles, let’s discern
Nature’s Mothers This weekend is Mother’s Day. To celebrate I thought it might be fitting to send you some videos of mothers and children in the natural world. But how do you narrow that to a few examples? It’s like typing in “cat” or “dog” in a search engine and trying to rummage through the
Aconcagua – South America’s High Point We’ve aimed the virtual GPS at Argentina to visit South America’s highest mountain: Aconcagua. At 22,837 ft, Aconcagua is not only South America’s queen, but it is also the tallest peak in the Southern Hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere, and the highest outside Asia. This classification makes it one of the Seven Summits –
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The Pine Barrens Many people unfamiliar with the geography of New Jersey view the state as a mixture of sprawling suburbia and metropolis overflow. It is the most densely populated state in the country, packing in over 1,200 people per square mile. Impressively, that figure is 200 more people per square mile than second-place Delaware. More than
Poles of Inaccessibility The place on Earth that’s farthest from an ocean is in what nation? A: Canada B: China C: Central African Republic If you answered with China, give yourself a round of applause. The Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility is in China, near the border with Kazakhstan, and that pole happens to be the continental
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Grandma Gatewood In 1955, 67-year-old Emma Rowena Gatewood decreed to her adult children she was going for a walk. She didn’t offer details and, facing a stubborn and resilient woman, her children didn’t demand any. She grabbed an army blanket, a raincoat, and a plastic shower curtain, stuffed them into a handmade denim bag, doffed a pair
The Vernal Equinox Open the windows, cue In Bloom, and rejoice at the end of winter! Spring is here again! Today is the first day of the new season! The 2023 vernal equinox transpires (transpired) at 5:24 PM EDT. From the Latin word aequinoctium, equinox means “equal night.” Occurring twice every year, equinoxes mark a change in astronomical season and happen when
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