What the space shuttle has done for you lately.

Yep, the space shuttle. And yet, it must be geology related - I'm writing about it, aren't I?

There's a nifty piece over at the Planetary Society blog about the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. Basically, they got near-global topographical maps of the Earth out of this - more detailed than ever before!

Topography is very important to geology. It helps you figure out what's lurking beneath the surface, and what forces might have acted to create the surface in the first place!

There's a bunch of nifty links at the bottom of the article, which point to several specific pages of what they've figured out with the data. I suggest looking at the one about the rift valley in Tanzania and Mount St. Helens, since both are near and dear to my heart. But all of the information is way cool. (And some, like the information about New Orleans and its flood, is way important too.)

Time for a little juvenile humor.

Ready for some geology humor? Of course you are!

While doing my mineralogy homework today, I discovered that there's a fun mineral, called Realgar. It's very pretty, which deep red, prismatic crystals. (Prismatic means that it forms with very flat surfaces.)

Realgar is Arsenic Sulfide. Which, if you know your periodic table, you'll be way ahead of me here...

AsS!

Yes, that's the chemical formula. I got a geeky giggle out of that.

Go here if you'd like to find out more about crystalline AsS! It's actually a lot prettier than you'd think.

I've got another geeky geology joke to tell you, but for now, I'd better get back to my homework.