Of weather and geology

For quite some time I'd been looking for a straightforward book to learn about mountain weather, to be able to predict what the skies might do while I'm out hiking.  Most such books seem too packed with technical lingo, but I finally found one at MEC: Predicting Weather: Forecasting, Planning & Preparing.  It's small, so packable, and has pictures of the clouds with simple descriptions of what to expect.  So far it's been accurate.  I especially like the time indications, i.e., if you see this cloud, you'll most likely stay dry for the next 12 hours, or a shower won't last more than 20 minutes.

While out for a drive yesterday, I came across a display case of rocks and minerals at NTJL.  Interesting timing, as I'd just started looking more into rocks and whatnot.  I don't know what any of these are, but I'm guessing that swirly thing is a fossil.

Later in the day I stopped at LLIC, and even though I've been stopping in there for years, I had no idea that there is a plethora of displays hidden in the back.  Spent quite a bit of time there, mainly looking at displays of rock formations and glaciers.

???  Some fossil.

Saw this plate tectonics display at LLIC as well.  Interestingly enough, this was also my reading topic in the geology book last night.  I was first intruduced to plate tectonics in grade 8 science class.  Mr. H. made it really interesting, and I was bummed that it never came up again in science classes after that.

And as luck would have it, a day after I bought my ice axe, I saw a 'historic' ice axe on display (I think from around 1926).  Quite the 'fancy' rope too, I might add.

This display shows how tall Mount Temple would have been without erosion.  Our mountains are shrinking by 6mm each year.

I ended up buying Ben Gadd's Canadian Rockies Geology Road Tours and think it has great potential for some mini road trips and photography outings.  After having read portions of the Handbook of the Canadian Rockies, I've really enjoyed his style of writing - easy to underdtand, yet scientific enough, and I love all the little footnotes of useful info. 

Last night I learned about the temperatures in the middle of the earth, why plates have different depths under the oceans than under the continents, how old some of these rocks around us actually are (1.9 billion years!) and got a refresher on the likes of sedimentary rock, siltstone, etc.  The only thing I can't figure out right now is some of the timeline.  For example, when it says phanerozoic eon 542 - Present, what does the 542 mean?  Millions of years?  Tens of thousands of years?

Ben Gadd's website also looks like a plethora information.  Haven't looked through it all yet, but dumping the link here.  He sounds like a local David Suzuki.