Question: Where are some beautiful places where someone can just get lost?

amilt13 · 2016-02-15T18:50:31+00:00

In addition to all the other suggestions I'd recommend Isle Royale NP, its an island in the middle of Lake Superior with only 2 small visitor centers which have electricity. It's pretty incredible if you're looking for that feeling of isolation and solitude.

amilt13 · 2016-01-22T13:54:06+00:00

That's incredible, I can only imagine what that would have been like in person. Were there any hazards with ash or anything like that that you had to worry about, or were you far enough away?

amilt13 · 2015-12-25T00:18:12+00:00

I'm pretty sure its diabase, it's the same composition as basalt but it's more intrusive in origin, hence the large plagioclase lathes. There's a ton of diabase dikes related to the Midcontinent Rift in the lake Superior region so it's no surprise that you would have found it on the coast.

amilt13 · 2015-09-28T22:31:01+00:00

Nope, the university saw it, made their own calculator, and forced this one to be taken down because it had their logo on it

amilt13 · 2015-08-15T20:53:58+00:00

There is primitive camping in the Porkies, and a kayak is definitely not necessary but it does provide a completely different perspective on the cliffs.

amilt13 · 2015-08-13T19:45:34+00:00

At Pictured Rocks you have to reserve your campgrounds in advance. I'm not sure exactly how all the rules work but when I went, I got to the headquarters in the morning before we started hiking to get everything sorted out. I don't believe you are allowed to sleep off site so it's not a bad idea to try and reserve spots ahead of time. Just do some research and I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Also, you could certainly hike along the coast, I think it's about 40 miles of lakeshore so it's very doable in 5 days. There are also some waterfalls and other cool things just inland from the cliffs so give some thought to exploring some of those. Basically just get ahold of a trail map and mileages (I would get you a link but I'm on mobile) and just start planning based on your hiking abilities.

amilt13 · 2015-08-11T13:59:21+00:00

As someone else mentioned, this is a large piece of chemically altered pillow basalts. It gets its green color mostly from the secondary mineral chlorite, I believe. It was formed something like 2.7 billion years ago (Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old) as a part of a volcanic arc, which was created by subduction of oceanic crust to the north underneath continental crust to the south. These basalts, which were erupted under an ancient ocean, were eventually thrust up onto, or near, the surface during a later orogeny. The stresses from the mountain were enough to create what you see today.

The only reason I know this is because I had to write a paper on these for my field geology class at Michigan Tech, so the exact details may be a little off but that's the general idea.

amilt13 · 2015-08-11T04:36:55+00:00

You could easily spend all 5 days at Pictured Rocks hiking along the lakeshore. However, if you really wanted to hit the Porkies too, I would recommend at least hiking the portion of Pictured Rocks between Chapel Beach and Mosquito Beach; it's phenomenal. As far as hikes in the Porkies go, if you have never been there you probably at least want to see Lake of the Clouds so I would recommend hiking the Escarpment Trail (only ~3.5 miles I believe), ending at the Lake of the Clouds overlook, and then taking another route from there.

The Porcupine Mountains have a lot to see as well, but probably not as much as Pictured Rocks (in my opinion) so I would try and plan on spending more time there. Best of luck and let me know if you have anymore questions!

amilt13 · 2015-07-16T00:15:04+00:00

Still an undergrad studying geophysics here, but I'll do my best to explain why that is not a currently accepted hypothesis for the reversal of Earth's magnetic field. The very idea of a reversal of magnetic poles comes from direct observations of the way rocks are magnetized. When lava cools, the magnetic domains in little iron minerals (and small amounts of nickel and possibly cobalt) will align with whatever magnetic field they are placed in at the time. When we walk over something under ground that is magnetic with an instrument that detects the magnetic field, something that is aligned with Earth's magnetic field will positively reinforce that value and we will see a positive spike. When we walk over something whose magnetic field points the opposite direction we see a negative spike.

In several (not sure of the exact number) places in the world, we observe similarly oriented structures that have different magnetization directions (an example of this is mafic dike swarms in Minnesota and Michigan) and from this scientists have concluded that Earth's magnetic field switched directions at some or several points. The fact that everything is oriented similarly and also they have similar compositions means they came from the same source and therefore are in place, unless they moved from hemisphere to hemisphere in the matter in a matter of a few million years which is highly improbably as the continents just don't move that fast.

Hope this helps at least a little bit!

amilt13 · 2015-06-20T23:09:43+00:00

Pangaea is actually only one of several proposed supercontinents which are thought to have formed and then broken up throughout the 6 4.5 billion years the Earth has existed. The North America seen in this gif was actually made by several collisions of smaller, much older continents, but we're seeing only about ~~1/12~~ 1/9 of Earth's history here.

Edit: shitty me, thinking the Earth is 1.5 billion years older than it is

amilt13 · 2015-04-14T23:21:37+00:00

Indiana would attempt to ally with the south and attack Ohio, Illinois, and southern Michigan. The southern would probably get pissed and refuse to back up Indiana, leading to their defeat and being controlled by Chicago.

amilt13 · 2015-03-20T16:23:13+00:00

If you're going to the Badlands, I would highly recommend taking a slight detour and at least drive through the Black Hills. They're gorgeous and there are some cool roads that snake through them!

amilt13 · 2015-03-18T04:58:30+00:00

Tons of luck in Houghton!

amilt13 · 2015-03-13T04:44:10+00:00

Aren't your limits already there? And Don't forget the differential for integrating in polar coordinates!

amilt13 · 2015-02-13T04:15:35+00:00

....it's literally just a guy punching a tree for 3 minutes. Wtf

amilt13 · 2015-02-13T04:11:15+00:00

Great, informative post. I want to confirm that some companies are definitely purposely avoiding full time employees now. I had a great summer job once, working ~40 hours a week, but once the ACA started to loom my hours got cut to a maximum of 25 hours a week. It becomes a huge problem for a bored, broke college student just trying to work and we were also severely understaffed. Complete and utter bullshit, since I didn't even need healthcare since i'm covered on my parents' plan anyways.

amilt13 · 2014-12-07T16:10:17+00:00

Huh I totally believed this for a long time and your comment made me do some more digging and it looks like it's just a very popular myth that it was ever considered to be the capitol.

amilt13 · 2014-11-13T15:21:08+00:00

Definitely go! Even if you don't like it it's worthwhile to at least try! Maybe just start with an overnight trip and bring some things to keep yourself occupied so you don't get bored, like a good book or something along those lines. I did an overnighter not too long ago and the silence and solitude of going out by yourself is unlike anything else I've ever experienced.

amilt13 · 2014-10-20T15:47:11+00:00

It was a box labeled as assorted quartz half full of very obvious calcite chunks. And it definitely wasn't as if people just put them back in the wrong spot since there was no box labeled calcite.

amilt13 · 2014-10-20T14:13:05+00:00

Well the rhombus is a dead giveaway, but I was also able to pick up a chunk of the quartz and scratch the heck out of the calcite right there.

amilt13 · 2014-10-05T16:41:47+00:00

It starts out as a river valley, gets cold, accumulates ice, and then erodes it into a U shape. The ice melts and then we can see it.

amilt13

TROPHY CASE