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Copyright & contact:
Gordon Judge, 1999 to present. Please contact me if you'd like to use any of the poems. Email: geoverse@hotmail.co.ukThanks:
With thanks to my sources of inspiration: my wife and her Open University books; Horsham Geological Field Club, its speakers and field trips; my son for sharing his internet space; and, er, well, life, really.
Category Archives: GeoVerse
Snake oil?
The power of placebo Continue reading
Is anybody there?
Amid a swirl of acronyms, we learned about efforts to search for signs of life on the Red Planet. I thought I’d better warn it. We’ve sent orbiters and rovers, now we’re drilling into you;We’ve got WISDOM, Enfys, MOMA, EscaPADE … Continue reading
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Unwanted gifts?
Did the truelove of the writer of the eighteenth-century carol forget what he’d sent her the day before? The unfortunate recipient (whom I thought most likely female) received a total of 364 items over the pre-Christmas period. But, necessity being … Continue reading
Grandispora cornuta – a lament
In ‘normal’ conditions, the tiny spore Grandispora cornuta (‘big spore with horns’) has a regular shape and a spiny outer coat. But when its DNA is exposed to UV-B radiation, its coat darkens and its spines become malformed. In such … Continue reading
Big Garden Birdwatch
Each year in the UK, at the end of January, people are encouraged to record the maximum number of each breed of bird they see in their garden in a 1-hour period. It’s called the Big Garden Birdwatch, and the … Continue reading
James Webb’s telescope
The universe has just got much, much larger… Continue reading
Waving at trains
Why wave at an inanimate object? Continue reading
Lefty
This fossil whelk is proud that it’s not the common sort… Continue reading
Armour-plated algae
Algae in chalky coats! Continue reading
Omicron
Would we be locked down agian at Christmas 2021? Continue reading
Amy’s lament
A 3.2 km offshoot of the London Underground’s Northern Line from Battersea Power Station to Kennington was completed in September 2021, thanks to the round-the-clock efforts of two huge tunnel boring machines (TBMs). They were given the names Amy and … Continue reading
Hever hands
A troubling sign… Continue reading
In them thar hills
Don’t raise your hopes! Continue reading
Grande Coupure
Survival of the fittest? Continue reading
Are we nearly there yet?
Same question, different context. Continue reading
Mighty oaks and mini-snowmen
Well, you never know . . . Continue reading
Immortality
Advice on the subject for marine invertebrates. Continue reading
Taking a stand against Covid
I thought someone ought to test these instructions . . . Continue reading
Bramleys
Nature’s tasty bounty! Continue reading
Aunt Alice (and others)
A few more like Aunt Alice . . . Continue reading
Zoom
Getting to grips with the new technology Continue reading
Lazy ladybirds
Ladybirds are hiding behind a popular delusion. Continue reading
Posted in GeoVerse
Tagged Aphids, Insects, Ladybirds, Nature, Royal Horticultural Society
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Now and then
The past is just a pile of old ‘now’s . . . Continue reading
Blue sky thinking
An old saying raises some serious questions. Continue reading
Ts and Cs
How advertisers delivering the boring bits without diluting their message. Continue reading
After the war is over*
Shades of 1945? Continue reading
COVID-19
The trouble with U . . . Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Mark 2
A coronavirus special. Continue reading
Dem bones, dem bones
It was news to me . . . Continue reading
Another birthday . . .
I’ve learned to take more notice of them. Today is my birthday, a years-on-this-Earth day, Of which there’s been many before. A day to be treasured as life gets re-measured. Who knows if there’ll be many more? And the number? … Continue reading
Bolt from the blue
What the finding of osbornite in the Isle of Skye reveals. Continue reading
In a spin
4.6 billion years is a long time to be doing the same thing over and over again . . . Continue reading
Posted in GeoVerse
Tagged Astronomy, Earth, Evolution, Homo sapiens, Oxygen, Planets, Red giant, Solar system, Sun
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Putting a name to it
What’s in a name? Continue reading
Posted in GeoVerse
Tagged Aether, Atoms, Big Bang, Caloric, Canals, Crystal spheres, Dark energy, Dark matter, Epicycles, Gravity, Humours, Impetus, Inertia, Mars, Mass, Names, Phlogiston, Reality, Terra australis, Vis viva, Vulcan
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Phlogiston
How a mouse helped to solve a mystery Continue reading
Posted in GeoVerse
Tagged Mice, Oxygen, Phlogiston, Priestley, Joseph, Science, Stahl, Georg
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Stork tork
These are definitely not the sort that (allegedly) deliver babies. Continue reading
Unsocial media
Accidents waiting to happen? Continue reading
Seeking Santa
Not everyone has embraced modern technology . . . Continue reading
Darwin’s worms
Thanks, Charles! Continue reading
The ladder
Another cautionary tale of a lesson learned too late . . . Continue reading
An M&S summer
You shouldn’t mess with this guy. Continue reading
A lunar complaint
Someone is not celebrating the 50th anniversary of Earthmen landing on the Moon. Continue reading
In solution
How to make salt disappear Continue reading
On the fate of a Plate
It is no more, it is an ex-Plate. Continue reading
What time is it?
Am I temporally indeterminate? Continue reading
A pivotal goddess
Nowadays, we use oil or grease . . . Continue reading
Nest box
If a horse led to water won’t drink, what will a bird do when shown a new nest box? Continue reading
The pressure-pulse hypothesis
An ominously unfinished report from long ago. Continue reading
The marvellous man-shed
Been there, done that . . . Continue reading
Names
Naming something can give it a validity it might not deserve . . . Continue reading
Posted in GeoVerse
Tagged Crystal spheres, Dark energy, Dark matter, Epicycles, Impetus, Names, Space, Time
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Rumbling
A new meaning of the word? Continue reading
True blue?
Can this blue mineral really do what some claim? Continue reading
Grockling
Too good a word to be left as a noun. Continue reading
Subordinate clauses
A grandchild’s new weapon. Continue reading
In my youth
I am, and I can prove it! Continue reading
Child power
As parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles well know, most children come with more energy than their bodies can hold. Here’s a possible solution: Whoever invented children (not yet identified)Made their bodies far too small for the energy inside.The surplus oozes … Continue reading
Dear Father Christmas . . .
Isn’t it time to move on? Continue reading
Part of Planet Six
A heroic self-sacrifice in 2017. Continue reading
Posted in GeoVerse
Tagged Cassini, Enceladus (moon of Saturn), Huygens (space probe), Planets, Saturn, Space, Titan (moon of saturn)
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No fly-tipping
A public service thwarted by bureaucracy? Continue reading
Motor ways
Something isn’t right . . . Continue reading
Courgearrow
Overlooked and overgrown . . . Continue reading
Edie Acaran
Your view of things depends on where you’re looking from. Continue reading
Agates are like people
It’s what’s inside that counts . . . Continue reading
Life according to Marks
An email from Marks & Spencer on 4 May 2017 said: “Life’s short. Let’s spend it well. Life’s too short for hesitations.” I wanted to argue; but they were right on one point . . . If life is so … Continue reading
Give it time
It’s what life needs. Continue reading
Mistletoe
What to do about it, or with it. Continue reading
Percy Verance
He’s the chap to call on when things don’t go right first time. Continue reading
Travelling light
How far to a star? Continue reading
Probing Popo
In this case, the answer is not 42 but 46 . . . Continue reading
Intelligent design?
Not in this case, anyway. Continue reading
Sophie’s weigh
Dem bones, dem bones can tell you things, is there are enough of them! Continue reading
Mending things
It’s tricky, these days! Continue reading
Addressing a problem
Sometimes, the old ways are best! Continue reading
Self-basting
It’s easy, really, but comes at a price. Continue reading
When QUANTUM comes to call
Tell it to go away! Continue reading
In the brickpits of Sussex and Surrey
Saved from the fiery furnace! Continue reading
Gone missing
Just one of life’s many unsolved mysteries Continue reading
Look up!
. . . and look out! Continue reading
Assertions
There’s one that’s true. Continue reading
On Swanage Pier
A leisurely place demands a leisurely pace. Continue reading
Muddled millipede
Not as simple as left, right, left, right . . . Continue reading
Silicates rule, OK?
It’s all in the mix . . . Continue reading
June drop
Moral: never carry more than you can hold. Continue reading
Dino dusters
A researcher at the Natural History Museum insisted that folk like him were not ‘just dinosaur dusters’. But dinosaurs do have to be dusted, and as I pondered over who did such important work, this possible answer wafted through the … Continue reading
Granddad freezing
Read this advice before you try it at home . . . Continue reading
The Mekon rides again!
Where’s Dan Dare when you need him? Continue reading
Gone!
Whodunit? Obvious, isn’t it? Continue reading
Harmony
Is that because nothing really changed? Continue reading
There’s something wrong with my calendar
And I think I know who’s done it . . . Continue reading
Gravity waves
I might have been famous . . . Continue reading
Leap year
It’s something we’ve learned to live with. Continue reading
I’m history, probably
But how can I know? Continue reading
The snowman’s hat
There it was, gone! Continue reading
HS2 – the groundwork
To get a safe, acceptable high-speed railway, you have to do a lot of preparation. Continue reading