response 1 of 5:

Mar 19 03:56 UTC 2006

Jim wanted me to post his poem, written at the end of his field report to fill
up the required fourth page.  This is the required 'conclusion'.

13,000 years ago 
the glaciers ruled this land.
They laid down clay and silt and rocks 
and also lots of sand.

The sand formed eskers, it formed kames,
drumlins, and end moraines,
recessional and terminal,
and sandy outwash plains
that dry fast when it rains.

The drained moraines are mainly in the plains.

Ice chunks fell off and melted
and left holes below the till,
and water filled them up and there
are kettle lakes there still.

The lowland silt is good for farms,
the sandy plains are not
unless organic matter builds
up and begins to rot.

The glaciers gone, the river flows,
though now it has grown small,
and where the apples used to bloom,
students view a rock wall.

In Intro to Geology 
they contemplate past ages,
and add to trip reports a rhyme
to fill a full four pages. 

response 3 of 5:

Mar 19 23:25 UTC 2006

        gneiss.

    *groans*

response 5 of 5:

Mar 9 20:28 UTC 2010

In the Chilean earthquake there was westward movement of Chile up to 3+ 
meters. Map at

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chilequakemap.htm

The map implies that a lot of the motion was elastic rebound. That is, 
when the quake unlocked the South American plate from the Pacific plate, 
the South Smerican plate expanded elastically further over the pacific 
plate.