Yesterday, I was fortunate to experience the full solar eclipse from the Pymatuning State Park Reservoir in western Pennsylvania. The light turned silvery as the sun neared total obfuscation, and green colors emerged and reds dimmed, the effect of our eyes’ cones coming offline and employing the rods more. Shadows close to the ground sharpened […]
Pine Grove Furnace is at the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains near my home in south-central Pennsylvania, and is a beautiful wooded area that feels remote — as of this spring in 2024, it doesn’t even get cell phone reception — yet, it’s only a 20-minute drive from my suburban dwelling. In fact, there
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We need to talk about pig farming in the Early Middle Ages. Pigs weren’t usually the most important domesticated animal for folks living in Western Europe between 500-1000 CE, but they shaped the lives of almost everyone. In a Michael Pollan “who’s-dominating-whom,” sort of vibe, historian Jamie Kreiner’s research demonstrates that although Medieval folks of
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The Luray Caverns in northern Virginia are one of the most touristed cave systems in the world, drawing about a half a million people a year. They are adorned with striking rock formations of stalagmites, stalactites, and columns, all made from white calcium carbonate, red-toned iron oxide, and grey magnesium oxide. These permeate the limestone
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One of the joys about cutting-edge studies that merge scientific data with the discipline of history is the chance to answer questions that we never thought we’d be able to. This photo of Greenland’s ice sheet gets at the way that climate scientists are trying to understand one of the most transformative aspects of earth
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The Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail is a 70 mile stretch of forested lands begining in Ohiopyle and heading generally northeast almost to Johnstown. Begun in the 1970’s, it is an example of the invaluable natural patrimony of the state of Pennsylvania.
Just to the west of Las Cruces New Mexico, along the I10, is this ginormous statue of a roadrunner. It is built out of completely found materials — stuff like shoes, cell phones, old wire, crutches, headlights, and old toys. Artist Olin Calk created the recycled bird in 1993 to examine “consumption, recycling, and just
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The Franklin Mountains have seen human activity since at least 12,000 years ago, but their name came from a much more recent source, when a rancher named Benjamin Franklin Coons settled in El Paso in 1849 — he was such a heavyweight in the region that locals used to call the city “Franklin” in the
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These photos taken last weekend show vistas along the Loyalsocks Trail, one of the many stunning forested hiking pathways in Pennsylvania. Taking its name from the Loyalsock Creek (which translates from an American Indian name for “middle” creek), the Loyalsock trail is nearly sixty miles. The portions shown here include Sones Pond, which was built
Twenty-one years ago in 2001, the Burd Run Nature Trail and Restoration was established to reverse the damaging effects of an artificially straightened stream channel which had caused erosion and environmental degradation. (See second image). Shippensburg University (particularly the Geography and Earth Science Department), Shippensburg Township, the Cumberland County Conservation District, and the Conodoguinet Creek
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An ancient bristlecone pine over 5,000 years old is the oldest living thing on earth (at least, as far as scientists could document in 2016). That means it was contemporary with the first urban civilization in Sumer! The tree grows in the White Mountains in California in the Inyo National Forest. The location of the
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Big history post here (big history meaning all of history, not just human), about the fabulousness of how evolution works. This is about the ways bees created the colors we see on flowers. We know that bees are super-pollinators critical for much of earth’s plant life. And we observe how bees are drawn to sweet
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The ruins of Suso Monastery in San Millán de la Cogolla look eerily beautiful in this image, evocative of a distant past whose details are lost to us now. Situated in northern Spain, they are some of the last surviving remains of the Visigothic Kingdom that ruled the Iberian peninsula from the late fifth century
Drought Conditions and the Collapse of the Visigothic Kingdom Read More »
Tonight Shippensburg University welcomed guest lecturer Wawa Gatheru, a leader in the contemporary U.S. environmental justice movement. She had many interesting things to say, but since I am an historian, I especially appreciated her discussion of how the legacy of American slavery has led to environmental inequity today. Wawa Gatheru pointed to two ways this
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These are the views of Chimney Top, a Tuscarora quartzite outcropping at the end of the North Fork Trail on the similarly named mountain in West Virginia. Pictures don’t do this place justice – besides the immensity of scale that my photographic skills couldn’t capture, its beauty was enhanced by the wind and the solitude.
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The Seneca Rocks formation comes from 425 million years ago, when the Tuscarora sandstone formed so much of the mountainous ridge extending through West Virginia. On September 28, 1965, the Seneca Rocks – Spruce Ridge became the first National Recreation Area in a U.S. National Forest. Some of the trees in this area are 200
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This is a shagbark hickory tree from New Jersey, and the likes of this species used to be far more common to America’s eastern forests than they are today. The same holds true for pignut hickory, black oak, and white oak trees (as well as beech, pine, hemlock and larch). And these all have some
How Indigenous American Burning Practices Shaped the Eastern Forests Read More »
These two flowers from my neck of the woods both came out along the Appalachian Trail in May: the one to the left was from early this month and is known as a “Rattlesnake Plantain”. The other is blossoming right now at the end of the month and is called a “Pink Lady Slipper.” These
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With the Canadian fires contributing to horrific air pollution in areas as far south as the Carolinas, as well as the recent Trump-dominated US Supreme Court decision that limits the US Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate clean water, the effects of pollution in our lives are of pressing importance. It’s worth remembering an episode
London’s Pea-Souper of 1952 Read More »
Crabtree Falls, located near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, is a place of stunning beauty. I got to visit this 1,200-foot waterfall yesterday after a rainstorm and my pictures do not do it justice. With five major cascades, it is one of the tallest waterfalls east of the Mississippi River, with the longest
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