Exhuming my thesis, part III

Update 3: follow here for the last post closing the series with AI to the rescue.

Update 2: added an intriguing speculation on the adjacent Sudbury Nickel Irruptive

Update 1: follow-on post here on a series revisiting maps or posting off-web.

Following on Parts I & II here & here, respectively, here is an article on the breakup of Nuna Province in current N China: it gives new impetus to plate tectonics around 1.5GA - see Part II for another example -  such dynamic processes were proposed in my thesis paper over 40 yrs. ago here, where I applied recent plate dynamics to the Proterozoic of Southern Province of N Ontario Canada of similar age and make-up of Nuna Province. I looked at it from a structural geologic perspective, using intrusives cross-cutting relationships as date markers. The new paper actually dated similar intrusives in present day N China.

More maps, in 3D now

Update 3: follow on next post "Even more maps, with a twist" here.

Update 2: found a textbook example of  "carving upstream" in this gorgeous video of the Uinta Mountains of Wyoming.

Update 1: more offshore canyons crowning Antarctica found with new digital terrain data and give us a beautiful map @ bottom.

This follows on the previous map story here. The next one is here for maps & here for geomorphology. 

My web footprint

Let me highlight the importance of the recent topic of AI my Community Interest Company delved into and I used in various forms shared in the last post here. Open this blog's  desktop version here, look at the stats at its right... and you'll see why the curve below spikes at far right here!

click to enlarge, original here

Andrew's AI crash-course (long)

wombo.ai early "A(I)rt" (original here)

 

Note: banner menu of blog's web version here shows full web presence

Ongoing: Andre ZolnAI Private Blog listed below or directly here

Experiment: look also for AI-assisted story-telling tagged below

Last update: by the numbers at bottom, with a dash of humor

And another one: last Kuwaiti Blog post with new experiment here

Closed: 'AIding' Tool, above videos & at bottom

Updated last Medium Pro. post just above Medium Personal

Added: AI generated GIS maps, under Flickr

Added fact-checking tip & shortcut under: AI's little helpers, halfway down

New channels: Kuwaiti blog, YouTube Shorts and Other

New how-tos: building AI agents + disaster response

New human-centeredness: with a little help from AI

New tools: Copilot help & Perplexity summaries

Update 4: a three-part manifesto closes this review

Update 3: added a note on "AI's little helpers"

Update 2: a French look into the future of AI

Update 1: ongoing collection of AI mods on Flickr 

Have I mentioned that AI will need skilled writers more than skilled coders? Forbes wrote here about a US efforts in that regard. [ 6 mo. update: Fortune reiterated that here. ] The one thing AI won't replace,  acc. to the starred "AI-ding Tool" example below is curiosity:  it mirrors Steve Jobs' "stay hungry, stay foolish" at Stanford 2005 Commencement Address here.

Another map request

Update 2: added a new map post here in my ongoing series of revisiting here

Update 1: added at bottom a new map adding to an existing Antarctic project

Pyrénées

When visiting the nearby village of Pontacq (Flickr & village site), the glorious sunshine showed the Pic do Midi de Bigorre (Wikipedia) so clearly we could see the observatory atop! It's the left peak in the central massif below.

Reposting stories from original website

As I prepare to end this blog, let's follow on recent updates: 

Aug. '24: A return to my roots
Oct. '24: "Where in the world...", updated
Oct. '24: Global sea level rise revisited
Oct. '24: Northwest Passage Reloaded
Nov. '24: Cumbria classic revisited...
Dec. '24: Exhuming my thesis area... & Jan. '25: update
Jan. '25: London Thames Barrier... & Feb. '25: update
Feb. '25: Beechey Island update
Feb. '25: East Anglia Peatlands revisited

A conversation with AI (long read)

Update: a short read on Medium tells "the story behind the story" of American & French Revolutions.

Shakira YouTube channel posted this video #LMYNLWorldTourCDMX: 

How a confusion between CDMX (Ciudad Mexico) and MCDX (1410 in Roman numerals) lead to a far-ranging AI chat thru culture, geography, career and climate activism. MSFT Copilot (here) transcript (Italics: me, regular: Copilot):

East Anglia Peatlands revisited

Update1: see clipped oroginal and working vector datasets posted as detailed at bottom.

Update 2: added DIY map-mapping workshops & notes to help citzen science

Update 3: here at the end is the relevance of this sort of effort in a broader context

Update 4: worrying revisit of peatlands degradation with increased drought & extreme weather here: increased heat degraded carbon absorption, and that is mirrored in tropical forests turning into carbon emitters seen here

Update 5: see follow-on here: East Anglia environment in a global context  

***

This follows on previous Peatlands blog posting here, last of the Community Engagement Series.

As news abounds about Arctic Permafrost & Peatlands degrading faster than thought (Copilot), this may be a good time to bring back some Natural England and Environment Agency data under Open Government License (OGL, National Archives). The upshot is that returning peatlands to their original state is the biggest climate change mitigator in the UK detailed here & here: briefly, peatlands either degraded thru neglect or converted to farm land, not only shrinks & stops being floodwater catchment, but it converts carbon sinks through sphagnum moss into carbon emitters thru windborne dried peat. In other words, re-watering peatlands dwarf efforts from other mitigation of climate change (see sources at bottom).

Beechey Island update

Update: see aerial shots from 1968 posted on Facebook Group "Remembering the Franklin Expedition" here

Note: more at Arctic Summer, Northwest Passage Reloaded, Arctic Urban Legends and Arctic Waterfront, a measure of geopolitical stakes

 A previous blogpost here almost 7 years ago showed how to use a niche product to create detailed elevation model of Beechey Island. Posted on Google Earth here (download & open it in Google Earth, see 'GE' below), it allowed to add a Parks Canada photo of the Franklin Expedition landing site: it was the first one uncovered by University of Alberta's Owen Beatty in 1984, the year before I spent a summer in the Arctic 'nearby' the other side of King William Isl. on the west shore mid-Boothia Peninsula... We were in fact told to report any unusual findings!

London Thames Barrier update

Update 1: here is the transcript of Hansen's latest "in plain English" (alt. here)

Update 2: here is the Climate Cultures article this map was used in, thanks Lola Perrin.

Update 3: here at the end is the relevance of this sort of effort in a broader context

Two weeks ago I recreated Sea Level Rise (SLR) and Risk of Flooding (RoF) maps for the lower Thames River near the Thames Barrier (blog) for a WhatsApp Group considering the future of its ageing infrastructure w.r.t. recent climate extremes. This week came a global and urgent update affecting Sea Level Rise, by James Hansen who sounded the alarm ~ 35 yrs ago (go to 1981 & 1988 in Medium): a paper incl. supplementary materials "Global Warming Has Accelerated" (Columbia) c/w companion webinar (Columbia).