California Board of Geology Terminated in New Budget Deal

As a result of the new California State Budget, the Geology Board is slated to be terminated.

The termination of the Geology Board and transfer of its authorities to the Board of Professional Engineers and Surveyors is on page 26 of the final State Budget

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/Enacted/BudgetSummary/FullBudgetSummary.pdf

This appears to be a significant detriment to the professional practice of geology in the State of California.

According to the Geology Board, they aren’t sure that it’s a done deal yet, and they recommend that you contact your local representatives if you’d like to protest this decision. The Geology Board plans to continue to operate business as usual until they hear otherwise.

Field Trip - SR 87 Landslide

The Arizona Section of AEG is pleased to announce that the SR 87 Landslide Field Trip will be held on Saturday August 15, 2009. We will be meeting at the Bass Pro Shop located at 1133 North Dobson in Mesa at 8am. AEG will be providing transportation as well as soda and water. Pancho Garza, P.E. and Wayne Harrison, P.G. will be discussing the SR 87 landslide remedial repairs, investigation and monitoring.

Please RSVP , Bonnie Whitley by Wednesday August 12th.

Hope to see you there!

A Few Things of Interest

As always, there is a lot of good stuff over at the Arizona Geology blog, so I encourage a visit. But, I have to repeat something I saw over there:

The Arizona Guardian online newspaper, is prominently displaying a YouTube video of Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen in a committee hearing, with the caption:

On June 25th the senator voiced support for opening up uranium mining in Arizona and countered environmentalists by assuring them that the the Earth has been around for "6,000 years..." and has lasted that long without environmnental laws. She said it twice.

Thankfully she's not my representative (she represents Snowflake), but I'm really disturbed that someone with views like this legislates in Arizona. It's really no wonder that the state governement is in such bad shape right now.

And because I don't want this post to be a complete downer - the following is a time-lapse video from the International Space Station of an incredible eruption of the Saraychev eruption last month in the Kuril Islands (north of Japan). This one is big enough to make for nice sunsets world-wide for a while (though it's still too early to determine if climate will be affected).

New Fissure Maps and Subsidence Workshop

The AZGS has released new earth fissure study area maps. New earth fissure maps showing confirmed and unconfirmed earth fissures for Harquahala, Maricopa County, and the Friendly Corners, Tator Hills and Signal Peak areas of Pinal County are complete. The 1:24,000 scale maps can be downloaded free at the Arizona Geological Survey’s (AZGS) Earth Fissure Center (http://azgs.az.gov/efmaps). For interactive viewing and custom map-making at up to 1:12,000 scale, visit the Arizona Department of Real Estate’s Earth Fissure Viewer at http://azmap.org/fissures.

Also of note is the Land Subsidence and Earth Fissure Workshop in August - the infromation below is from Brian Conway of ADWR:

I wanted to remind everyone again about the upcoming AHS Land Subsidence and Earth Fissure Workshop. I am still accepting abstracts and need at least three more talks to attempt to fill the full day workshop. I also want to remind you to register for the workshop whether you will be presenting or attending; either way you will have to pay for the workshop. I was also wondering if anyone would be interested on giving a presentation about the Arizona Land Subsidence Group. Here is the information about the workshop:

Arizona Hydrological Society

American Institute of Hydrology

2009 Annual Water Symposium

Land Subsidence and Earth Fissure Workshop

Sunday, August 30th, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm

Scottsdale, Arizona

Westin Kierland Resort and Spa

Abstracts should be 250 words or less and include title, authorship, and affiliations. Please include a brief biographical sketch of the primary author(s) and indicate that the abstract is for the Land Subsidence and Earth Fissure Workshop. Please submit abstracts no later than July 30th.

Abstracts must be submitted electronically to: hydrosymposium@a6consultants.com

Please copy Brian Conway (Workshop Moderator) on the email for the abstract submittal: bdconway@azwater.gov

If you have questions about the workshop, please contact:

Brian Conway
Arizona Department of Water Resources
602.771.1517
bdconway@azwater.gov