Don-remember the Eve story-that we are all descended from one woman who lived in Africa 100,000 years ago? This was from, I think, mutations in mitocondrial (sp?) DNA, which is passed down from only the mother(?). I saw one of the most interesting science shows I've ever seen in the last year, where the researchers proposed that the number of humans on the planet fell to just a few thousand, I think about 70,000 years ago. They proposed that this bottleneck was caused by the Toba eruption-what was that, 3000 cubic km? (Speaking of good TV, our 17 year-old TV died, was replaced by a $70 13" TV bought in December at the Supermarket, and today a freaking giant-screen TV is arriving. I emailed the people I work with who are in Antarctica and said that my laptop was outclassed by what they have, but since the TV can be used as a computer monitor, that I had the biggest monitor in Geol or Crustal Studies...but I digress)

Petra-we also went on a field trip led by Roy Bailey-probably about 1988 (Hmmm-don't want to date myself-let's see, I was 10 years old, just starting grad school). I probably asked if the last big Long Valley eruption started an ice age, but we stopped at a place where it was clear that the tuff was deposited on top of a glacier-this is in the valley, so it was already an ice age. Then the end of the field trip we were sitting up on a hill, looking down on the road intersection leading out of Mammoth, where a lot of the shallow quakes were located in (1980??)-I guess this was a shallow dike intrusion and I guess could easily have gotten to the surface-and what it was like back then-didn't USGS move its local headquarters from Bishop deep into Nevada because they really thought it was going to blow.

Speaking of TV and volcanos (or is it Volcanoes? Dan Quail?)...the Nova on Mount Pinatuba (sp?) was excellent. The USGS saved a LOT of lives. Win some, lose some.....

I'm a bit bummed about the proposal, so as soon as I look at this migration of a Ross Sea seismic line, I'm off to take out my frustration playing hockey-got a brand new stick-watch out, goalies! Chris