In Part I of this post, I introduced the recent (April 5) New Jersey earthquake felt here in the Hudson Valley. In Part II, I talked a little about the geologic setting. Let's now finish up by discussing the Ramapo Fault.As I mentioned in the last post, the Ramapo Fault or, more accurately, the Ramapo Fault System since it's not just a single fault...

In Part I of this post, I introduced the recent (April 5) New Jersey earthquake felt here in the Hudson Valley. Let's now talk a little about the geology.The east coast of the U.S. has a long history stretching back almost 1.5 billion years (compared to the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth as a whole). During that time, our area experienced four...

So I was in my office yesterday morning (Friday, April 5), engrossed in proofreading an important document going out to our college's accrediting agency, when I vaguely felt something. My colleague, in the adjacent office said "Was that an earthquake?" and I first thought maybe it was someone working on the roof (which they've been doing a lot lately)...

Did you know there were once giant beavers roaming the Hudson Valley region?Bear-sized giant beavers (Castoroides ohioensis) lived during the Pleistocene Epoch (the time of the most recent ice age) and grew to over 7 feet in length with a weight of over 200 pounds. As their scientific name implies, they were first discovered in Ohio (1837) but extended...

There was a recent paper in Science Advances that’s gotten a lot of press lately. It discusses the possible collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) due to warming from climate change. This is not a new idea, here’s a July 2023 paper in Nature Communications saying the same thing (and forecasting a timeline between 2025...

 Just a short post today...The Hudson Valley Geologist's wife bought me new customized license plates for Valentine's Day. I love them!