In almost every way, the Garden of the Gods at Colorado Springs" excursion at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) last year was a normal — even enjoyable — field trip. Standard geologic terminology was used in the accompanying field trip guide and the guides relied on orthodox geologic thinking to explain geologic features. But in reality, the trip was anything but a normal geology field trip."

Geoparks strive to connect people with the landscape, highlighting the intersection of society and geology. They also encourage sustainable economic development, most often through geotourism. The result is a fun and picturesque travel destination where geology can be experienced in many ways. The first of these parks in North America is Stonehammer Geopark, a 2,500-square-kilometer site along the rugged Bay of Fundy on Canada's southeast coast, centered on Saint John, New Brunswick.

Next week marks the 67th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies stormed the beaches at Normandy, France, and changed the face of World War II. Not much evidence of the war remains in Normandy: a few dilapidated relics, a cemetery, a war memorial. But something else was left behind that cannot be seen by the naked eye: shrapnel and iron and glass beads left over from the D-Day invasions in 1944.

The American Geological Institute (AGI) has posted the GeoConnection Webinar Geoscience Careers in Minerals Exploration" online for those who were not able to attend the original event on April 21, 2011."

On Feb. 22, a magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, killing nearly 200 people and causing $12 billion in damage. About three weeks later, a massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck northern Honshu, Japan. The quake and tsunami killed about 30,000 people and caused an estimated $310 billion in damage. Both events are stark reminders of human vulnerability to natural disasters and provide a harsh reality check: Even technologically advanced countries with modern building codes are not immune from earthquake disasters.

Hundreds of thousands of tiny white-nosed bats have died over the past few winters, falling to cave floors across the eastern United States. The killer is White Nose Syndrome, a mysterious disease inflicted by an unusual cold-loving fungus that attacks bats while they are hibernating. Come spring, as few as 5 percent of the bats in heavily infected roosts are still alive. More than 2 million bats have already been killed by the disease. And the prognosis could get worse, as White Nose Sydrome is spreading westward at an alarming rate.

Last fall, EARTH caught up with geochemistry grad student Jeremy Jacquot as he was about to embark on the first U.S.-led GEOTRACES cruise across the Atlantic, where he and 32 researchers were hoping to measure and track concentrations of various trace elements and isotopes. This month, in "Tracking Trace Elements and Isotopes in the Oceans," we follow up with Jacquot as he details the highs, lows and initial findings from the cruise, which was unfortunately cut short due to a ship malfunction.

If you ask someone involved in community remote sensing to define the emerging field, the most likely response will be a chuckle followed by "That's a hard question to answer" At its core, the movement is about remote sensing - collecting data from afar. Remote sensing has revolutionized science and Earth monitoring, but it fails to collect data at the hyper-local level. And that's where the community comes in.

Black carbon - fine particles of soot in the atmosphere produced from the burning of fossil fuels or biomass - a major contributor to the thick hazes of pollution hovering over cities around the world, has been known to be a health hazard for decades. But over the last decade, scientists have been examining in increasing detail the various ways in which these particles contribute to another hazard: heating up the planet.

In 1993, "Jurassic Park" thrilled the world with the idea that dinosaurs could be resurrected from bits of DNA preserved in mosquitoes trapped in ancient amber. In the 18 years since the movie came out, scientists have been finding that parts of this scenario are closer to reality than anyone ever imagined: Researchers have found microbes living for tens of thousands - and maybe millions - of years inside salt crystals.