mmm... Upper Div College Courses...
August 13, 2005 6:00 AM   Subscribe

The History & Politics of Geology. College prof has his coursenotes online. Interesting reading includes Alcoa's aluminum monopoly, OPEC & Big Oil, and the Tudor Military-Industrial Complex.
posted by Heywood Mogroot (9 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Thanks, Heywood.

And thanks to Prof. Cowen for making his work available on the WWW. Although geology is, at base, the most historical of sciences, the history of mankind's understanding of the earth and its formation is neglected. Anyone--pace Mark Helprin, self-important shithead-- who fancies himself educated needs to have an appreciation of the world and the processes that make it so.

Without Charles Lyell and his demonstration of the reality of geologic stratification, there would have been no Origin of Species. In my own lifetime-- since I took geology in college in 1968-- the acceptance and development of the theory of plate tectonics has revolutionized our understanding of how the features of the earth developed--and are still developing, as the Christmas Tsunami of 2004 showed in awesome detail.

The ceaseless and random evolution of our planet over billions of years belies the dogmatic claims of the creationists that the earth is 6000 years old. It also belies the claims of the "Stealth Creationists," that is, the "Intelligent Design" advocates, who carefully avoid taking a position on the age and development of the planet so as not to piss off the YEC element of their political cadre.

Koan of the day: Can a petroleum geologist be a YEC?
posted by rdone at 7:53 AM on August 13, 2005


Chapter ten (Tudor Military Industrial complex) most interesting, but there's more to the story than just iron.

Bronze made cannon the world changer that it was. Bronze is made from copper and tin. Tin is mined in Cornwall, and it was Cornish tin that allowed the Ottomans to make the wall busters used against Catholic Europe. (This after Henry dropped out of Catholicism, of course.)

Many thanks
posted by IndigoJones at 8:45 AM on August 13, 2005


His chapter on the Middle East and water provided some nice background for this article from The Harvard Review, Paradise Lost?

I enjoyed this link. It provided a lot of information without getting bogged down in technical language. It's accessible to a layman.
posted by Jatayu das at 8:52 AM on August 13, 2005


thank you, great post.
posted by Substrata at 4:10 PM on August 13, 2005


On a road trip, I passed by the Cliffside helium plant northwest of Amarillo. Googling later on, I found that, for a time, Texas was the sole producer of helium in the world.

It's extracted mainly from certain natural gas fields in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. These fields still produce the majority of helium used worldwide today.

Some claim that one of its isotopes—Helium-3—will be the key fuel for waste-free nuclear power and future space exploration:

"The Moon has become the focal point wherein future aerospace powers contend for strategic resources. The Moon contains various special resources for humanity to develop and use", Luan said. In particular, the [Chinese] space official pointed to Helium-3, a resource unique to lunar soil. "[It] is a clean, efficient, safe and cheap new-type nuclear fusion fuel for mankind's future long-term use, and it will help change the energy structure of human society"
posted by cenoxo at 4:48 PM on August 13, 2005


I got a funny look from my girlfriend when I got excited about this post. I didn't even have the decency to blush.

Excellent post!
posted by djeo at 5:09 PM on August 13, 2005


Love this post! Thanks.
posted by bjgeiger at 5:51 PM on August 13, 2005


The bits about the Weald are fascinating. I knew about the iron-industry there, but never had such a good idea of what it must have looked and been like, with the roads being churned up and all.

Historically, describing it as a "military industrial complex" is a bit of an over-statement, of course, considering that Henry VIII had no reliable tax base - he used the dissolution of the monastaries to pay for his wars, and even then lost most of them for lack of funds - the financial developments that would really allow the state to get up a strong military didn't come until the 1690s. (See John Brewer, The Sinews of War). But a fascinating bit of pre-modern industrial history.
posted by jb at 7:33 PM on August 13, 2005


This is a great post. Thanks, Heywood Mogroot!
posted by Verdant at 9:24 AM on August 15, 2005


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