Hydrogeology Cinema

I found a video on Twitter that details an example of a hydrogeology project. The video explains research from the University of McGill around exploring the flow of groundwater in proximity to a fault zone in Vermont. The video details a groundwater study and a interview with people involved in the project describing what they actually do. 

There is a short part of the video that shows a drilling rig.  I recently used a go-pro camera to record a day (or a few hours in the day) of a water well drilling program. I just have to add an interview with everyone talking about their role in the program!

UPDATE. APR-7-2014- NASA's GRACE satellite program measures global gravitational forces over time and can identify changes in surface gravity. Changes are interpreted to be related to a change in the volume of groundwater effecting the mass of the earth in a specific area. Previously I have been pictures of changes observed by the GRACE satellite, but I found a video at groundwatercanada.com that presents a much better visual image.

Lead Without a Title

I just finished reading  'The Leader Who Has No Title', by Robin Sharma. While it is a fair bit cheezy, and I didn't agree with everything, it was good book with a lot of defined methods for success (some good and some bad). I am writing them here as a place to keep them and remind myself later. There are four teachers in the book each with a success acronym as well as a few other phrases, lists and quotes to stay on the path to success. So here are the four main acronyms, a list and quote.

IMAGE: Innovation, Mastery, Authenticity, Guts, Ethics
SPARK: Speak with candor, Prioritize, Adversity breeds opportunity, Respond versus react, Kudos to everyone
HUMAN: Helpfulness, Understanding, Mingle, Amuse, Nurture
SHINE: See clearly, Health is wealth, Inspiration matters, Neglect not your family, Elevate your lifestyle

The 7 Fundamentals of Personal Leadership
1. Learning
2. Affirmations
3. Visualization
4. Journaling
5. Goal Setting
6. Exercise
7. Nutrition

Ya, fine, maybe one of the reasons I am writing this is because fundamental #4 is journaling ;)

And one quote for good luck: "Small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results." 

Free School

The University of Saskatchewan is flying smart people from all over the world to talk in Saskatchewan to talk about Hydrology. The U-Sask actually has a pretty good Hydrology department:
     -Centre for Hydrology
     -Global Institute for Water Security 
     -Cold Region Hydrology 

But don't worry, you can view these lectures without have to go to Saskatchewan yourself! Phew! Thanks to the internet you can view them all from the comfort of your own home Live on any time.

The Value of Water .org

What is the value of water?
I don't know, but I found a new website called "The Value of Water" where they claim to know. However, you won't find the answer there. They don't really have a number.

The site is pretty interesting. They have lots of cool water facts and stories, including one about water mains in the US. Water mains break all the time, you see the Calgary water crew fixing them all the time. Calgary, has 4,650 km of water mains. That is a lot! Imagine what that number would be for a large America city. No wonder they have 700 water main breaks a day.

There are also some interesting news stories. I don't know where they get their stories from. There are actually not many, and not many good ones. I'm sure there are better places for that for water news.

So what is the purpose of this site. I'm not really sure. Part of it definitely water education, which is good. Pursuing the website's members list and seeing mostly companies that make the money from water issues, I assume part of it is also creating and growing the increasing water industry. Which is also good I guess, considering I am probably part of the water industry. It was just weird to see it that way.

Anyway, considering this has become a brief review of valueofwater.org website... I would say the website is useful as an educational tool for people wanting to know fun facts about water and a good advertisement for the many growing abilities of the water industry. As a legitimate resource, probably not.

What is the value of water.... I don't really know either.... But for what it's worth, from a study funded in 2011 by the Royal Bank they said that, "water is responsible for a contribution (to the Canadian economy) of between $7.8 and $22.9 billion".

What!! This blog still exists!

For you regular readers, I apologize, it has been a while.

I came across a hydrogeology comic strip today. It has to do with the a current tug-o-war over water from the Colorado River. Historically, water from the Colorado River has been sufficient to make farms out of desert and provide water for the many urban metropolis areas in Southern California, Denver and everywhere in between. According the the strip, the Colorado river provides water for 30 million people. Imagine water for all of Canada coming from one river!

Anyhow, as the urban areas have expanded (and continue to expand), they need more water. With few other options, urban municipalities are paying the farmers for their water. By agreeing to give up their water, they essentially pay farmers not to farm so much. Farmers get guaranteed income for the part of their land they are not farming.

It seems to work out pretty good for both. People in urban areas continue to not worry about water. Farmers get payed to work less (apparently farming is a pretty grueling occupation). They get guaranteed income (at a lesser rate).

The price of their crops apparently has gone way up and they are thinking they want out, but are the crop values increasing because of having less crops from the buy out? If they back out of the agreement and everyone grows more, might the price go back down?

Geography to the masses

Penn State University has a collection of video's explaining what they claim to be the Geospacial Revolution. They are pretty interesting and explain some of how Geography has become massively cool in the last few years as computers have become so accessible. I never really thought of Google Earth as Geography, or the map on my phone as GIS, but it kind of is and is interesting to think about.

I hate to say it but Geography is kinda cool these days!

The Anthropocene

Most of new geological Epochs are created by splicing up existing ones into smaller sections. Some people are considering what the next one will be. A CBC episode of the current explains that it might be called the Anthopocene. An Epoch is a fairly fine definition of Geological time, it not like throwing down a new Jurassic Period or Paleozoic Era, but an addition to the chart none the less.