Lituya Bay & The World’s Largest Recorded Wave The tsunamis that killed over 200,000 people in Indonesia in 2004 and caused a nuclear meltdown in Japan in 2011 were disasters nearly unfathomable in scale. Tsunamis, from Japanese for “harbor wave,” are caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, usually in oceans and usually caused by […]
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Ice Balls & Ice Volcanoes Here in the northern hemisphere, we are in the last weeks of Meteorological Winter (Astronomical Winter still has exactly one full month until the Vernal Equinox pulls us into spring). When big cold and big lakes combine sometimes unusual phenomena arise. The Great Lakes of the United States and Canada are
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Ansel Adams “Adams had a superior alertness to the gestures of the natural world, in their simplicity and their subtlety. And that was half the story. The other half was a rare sensitivity to his medium that allowed him to devise pictorial solutions that could stand as a surrogate for the experience. The experience,
Hubble Deep Field In 1990 NASA launched a telescope named after astronomer Edwin Hubble. The Hubble Space Telescope was a giant leap for the “world” of astronomy. It was one of the largest ever created and designed to be upgradable and maintained by astronauts. Since the telescope is in orbit, it is not disrupted by light
Close Encounters at Devils Tower Perhaps the most memorable inclusion of a natural landmark in popular cinema flew into our collective imagination in 1977. Like our previous visit to Arches National Park, we have Steven Spielberg to thank for widespread knowledge of Devils Tower, where Richard Dreyfuss and pals become proximal to the location in Close Encounters of
The Cliffs of Moher In the opening portions of 1987’s The Princess Bride the inimitable Andre the Giant carries Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, and Wallace Shawn up the Cliffs of Insanity in an attempt to lose The Man in Black (Cary Elwes), who ascends the vertical walls at an inconceivable pace. Insanity is a perfect descriptor
Sagarmatha – AKA Mount Everest We are often fascinated by extremes. The fastest; the hottest; the longest; the smallest. Growing up a mountain devotee the highest mountain on earth always loomed in my imagination. Everest was the pinnacle of it all, literally the roof of our planet. Pipe dreams of summiting have never really died,
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The Grand Canyon as Evolutionary Force* Certain spots on the globe are well known for their geographic isolation. The concept is easy to visualize simply by imagining an island. If an area is physically isolated from other spots very often there will be a drastic effect on the evolution of life in the region. Two
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2025 Version Original Version The Great Blue Hole The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, stretching from the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula to Honduras, is the world’s second-largest, after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A 190-mile (300-kilometer) section eponymously takes the name of the nation whose coast it lines. Tourists and diving enthusiasts come from around the
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Father of the National Parks No self-respecting publication about nature could start anywhere other than John of the Mountains, especially when the title of the newsletter comes directly from one of his quotations. What follows is the most simplistic overview one could fit in a newsletter. These words will not do him justice, so please read more
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