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Category Archives: History

Another Earthquake in Iran, 600-year-old Murder Mystery, and Armor Piercing Cannonballs

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

  Today, the news is rightfully dominated by the marathon bombings in Boston, but while we’re mourning, reading about news in other parts of the world might be a helpful distraction. Here’s your weekly round-up of rock-related news. Geology For the second week in a row, a major earthquake strikes Iran, this time in the southern [...]

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Context, Calcite and Vikings

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The vikings are in the news again, and not just for their new show on the History Channel. I’ve talked about calcite’s amazing optical properties before, but completely failed to mention* the theory that calcite is potentially the same as a tool called the sunstone, rumored to be used by viking navigators to navigate the [...]

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Rome, Scotland, and Stake-Lined Pits

Thursday, May 10, 2012

I was going through some old pictures the other day, and came across this image, and I was so excited that I just had to share! These may look like holes in the ground…and they are. But once, long ago they were one of the many lines of defense that the Romans used to secure [...]

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Mineral Monday: Salt

Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween! In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, we’re going to be talking about one of the most magical minerals of all: salt. Salt (NaCl, or halite) has been a highly prized mineral for millennia. But, under the traditional definition of a mineral, salt, like ice, can only be classified as a mineral [...]

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Yo ho ho and a bottle of centuries-old rum

Friday, September 23, 2011

Since Talk Like a Pirate Day fell on a Monday this week, it got supplanted by Mineral Monday, but pirates can’t be ignored for long… Alcohol and archaeology totally go together, and not just because archaeologists enjoy drinking.* Last month, a team of underwater archaeologists from Texas State University found what they believe to be the wreck [...]

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