Well, What Do You Know?

Caption: Dana Hunter standing near the edge of the Grand Canyon, 2009. There are about two billion years of geological history exposed there, but I mainly remember the heart attack she almost gave me by standing near that drop.

Image credit: Cujo359

Despite a lifetime of avoiding such relationships, it appears I finally know someone famous:

I’m here, talking to you about talking to rocks, partly because a volcano blew out sideways, and fifteen years later, I turned to look at another volcano I’d known my whole life and saw the same lateral eruption rip it apart thousands of years in the past. “What happened to me,” St. Helens said, “is exactly what happened to them. Your San Francisco Peaks were a peak before that day. Oh, and it would’ve been a really bad idea to stand where you’re standing now, what with the lahar and all.”

Words With Rocks

Her new science blog, Rosetta Stones, is now operational at Scientific American. As the title implies, she'll be trying to write about geology in a way that the rest of us can understand. Having read much of what she's written on the subject at En Tequila Es Verdad, I'd say she'll do a good job of that.

Dana's one of those success stories of people who fall in love with a subject, and then become known and respected by people in that field, despite not having had training in the subject. She's earned that spot by being unfailingly interested in knowing what she's writing about, in contrast to at least half the people who write newspaper columns these days.

UPDATE (Apr. 3): I've replaced the picture with an improved one.