Earth and Environmental Systems Podcast
By Christian Shorey
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Podcast Description
A lecture based introduction to Earth systems science by Dr. Christian Shorey of the Colorado School of Mines' Department of Geology and Geologic Engineering.
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
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1 |
Epilogue | A parting message of thanks to all who have listened to this lecture series, and special thanks to all who have written me. Also, we detail how to get the video podcasts by going to the Colorado School of Mines site on iTunesU and navigating to the Earth and Environmental Systems Course and choose the "Videos" tab. | 10/22/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Lecture 65 - The Future | In this last lecture of our series, we look into the challenges that face our planet, biosphere, and species over the span of future deep time. The focus is on preserving intelligent life in the universe as long as possible, and what immediate concerns may thwart that goal. Thank you all for lending me your ear. Sincerely, Christian Shorey. | 7/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Lecture 64 - Science & Religion | The title says it all. | 6/4/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
Lecture 63 - Perturbation (1727-2009AD) | Since the scientific revolution the pace of scientific advance has only accelerated. Changes are going on in our understanding of the world, and of ourselves at a truly awesome pace. But along with the great advances we also have a rapidly increasing human population putting an ever increasing stress on our planetary life support system. This last lecture of the Big Story drives home the pace of these changes. | 5/11/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
Lecture 62 - Revolution (1581 - 1727AD) | The scientific revolution in all its gory detail. From the birth of Galileo to the death of Newton. | 4/21/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
Lecture 61 - Exploration (1212 - 1609AD) | The crusades fizzle out as we start off in the 13th century. We begin to see more scientific learning in Europe as the learning of Islam seeps deeper into the Western psyche. There is a feel of exploration both in mind and in space. The existence of the American continents is realized by Europe, and soon the whole world has been circumnavigated. The explorations of the mind were both in theological and natural philosophy. With the various inquisitions in play, some ideas, even if right, were too dangerous to express. A revolution is needed. | 4/11/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
Lecture 60 - Crusades (750-1212AD) | Science progresses in Islam, and then transfers to the west as a struggle for power takes place on the Iberian Peninsula between Christians and Moors. Power plays abound led by kings, emperors, caliphs, sultans, and popes. Such a male dominated story needs some female perspective at times. And we end with the children . . . THE CHILDREN!!! | 4/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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8 |
Lecture 59 - Submission (330-750AD) | From Constantine founding a Christian Empire in Constantinople, to Islam pounding at its doors. Enjoy the Fall of Rome, while Buddhism fiddles in the east. | 3/26/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
Lecture 58 - Word Made Flesh Made Words | From the birth of Jesus until Constantine setting Christianity of the Holy Roman Empire. 17 B.C. to 325 A.D. The Rise and beginning of the fall of Rome. | 3/16/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
Lecture 57 - Lighting Fires (600BC - 17BC) | Human history from 600BC to 17BC. It is a time of innovation in the arts, society, science, and religion. This is the first half of the Age of Great Beliefs and the Age of Classics. | 2/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
Lecture 56 - Gods of War | The Near East is thrown in a tumult as raiding nomadic people make life harder there and even invade India, Greece, and Egypt. They bring with them gods of war and conquest but depending on what native culture they encounter, the outcomes are very different. 2200 BC to 600 BC. | 1/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
Lecture 55 - People of the Book | The higher arts of civilization (reading, writing, mathematics, systematic observations of the heavens, kingly government, monumental architecture, priestly caste) break upon the scene to begin this week's podcast. We see the rise of the hieratic city-state in the Near East and in Egypt. As time passes, civilization begins its spread east and west, but as the story comes to a close a minor climate shifts makes hard times for early civilization, even snuffing out the first empire of the planet. | 1/23/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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13 |
Lecture 54 - Civilization | We travel from our "caveman" roots, through the deglaciation of the planet, and into the first signs of human civilization in the nuclear near east, leaving less than a minute of geologic time left to go. | 1/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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14 |
Lecture 53 - The Mythic Age | With the advent of Homo sapiens on the planet we begin to see tremendous advancement in both technology and mythology. This lecture takes us from the earliest humans to the Cro-Magnon people in Western Europe and the demise of the Neanderthals. | 11/16/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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15 |
Lecture 52 - Human | What is it that makes us human? What makes us different from other life forms? Today's lecture explores the geologic story that leads up to the evolution of our own species, and the significant changes that took place along the way. | 10/21/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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16 |
Lecture 51 - Planet of the Apes | In our Big Story this episode we cover the chilly Oligocene, and the warmer Miocene epochs. We will follow our ancestors from monkey like primates, to apes. The race is on between brains and bipedalism. | 10/2/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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17 |
Lecture 50 - Dawn of the Recent | We start with the planet's biosphere recovering from K/T boundary extinction. Thus our story leaps from the "Age of Reptiles" to the "Age of Mammals". The Dawn of the Recent covers the Paleocene and Eocene epochs in which our ancestors become much more like the monkeys we know and love. | 9/8/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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18 |
Lecture 49 - Middle Life | The Mesozoic Era and all that entails. | 8/11/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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19 |
Lecture 48 - Good Times Bad Times | We cover the entire last part of the Paleozoic Era. We start with the mighty Devonian Period. You will love the Devonian. We we cover the origin of land vertebrates and the effect of trees on the environment. We end with the formation of Pangaea and a catastrophic extinction event that nearly wiped out all multicellular life on Earth. We should be grateful for our existence every day. | 8/4/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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20 |
Lecture 47 - The Age of Fish | Our geoyear big story continues through the time period of the Ordovician and Silurian. This is the time period from 448 tp 416 million years ago, a time that saw , the rise of coral reefs, and a marked divergence in fish types. | 7/16/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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21 |
Lecture 46 - Cambrian Explosion | We continue our Big Story by finishing up some notes on the Precambrian, including an overview of life in the Ediacaran Period. We then explore the geology and evolution of life in the Cambrian, and discuss the Cambrian Explosion and its implications for evolutionary theory. | 7/1/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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22 |
Lecture 45 - Precambrian time | Our geoyear story continues through the oxygenation of the atmosphere, the development of sexual reproduction, and multicellular organisms from the single celled, asexually reproducing pond scum that dominated this planet for most of its history. We will be taking our tale from March all the way into November, a period of time known in geology as the Precambrian. | 6/6/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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23 |
Lecture 44 - The Dawn of Life | We start by discussing the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere. Then we explore fossil evidence for the first life and its implication for extraterrestrial life. We conclude with the leading ideas of abiogenesis, the creation of life from inanimate matter. | 5/31/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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24 |
Lecture 43 - Hades | Our story continues with the formation of the solar system, the Earth, and the Moon. We cover most aspects of the Hadean Eon of geologic time. | 5/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 25 | VideoProkofiev's Universe | My first attempt at a video podcast! Enjoy a musical tour of the universe while listening to my dad's favorite piece of music. We start by looking out from the perspective of the Earth, and then turn our vision around to look back at the Earth. | 5/16/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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26 |
Lecture 42 - Pre-Earth History | A romp through cosmological history from the Big Bang, past inflation, through stellar evolution, renewed inflation, and right up to the point of Earth formation. | 5/12/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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27 |
Lecture 41 - The Big Story | We begin a tour of universal and earth history by looking at the scientific trail that has led to our present conception of our existence in this universe and its origin. | 4/24/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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28 |
Lecture 40 - Environmental Economics Pt. 2 | We cover the remaining three major system failures of the market system with respect to environmental degradation. We also investigate irrational behavior in the marketplace due to evolutionary conditioning of our mental abilities. Finally, we try to make it personal and look to the power common people have in driving the market. | 4/15/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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29 |
Lecture 39 - Environmental Economics Pt. 1 | We explore the use of the market system as a tool to maximize benefit to society and the environment. Seeing as the market is at present not doing a great job with the environment, how can we restructure our use of the market in order to have less ecological impact. | 4/14/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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30 |
Lecture 38 - Energy Resources | With energy consumption a driving force in so many of today's environmental issues, we take the time to look at the history of human energy consumption, and what our present and future options may be. There are advantages and disadvantages for each energy source, and every location will be best served by a specifically tailored set of energy options. | 3/25/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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31 |
Lecture 37 - Conservation and Biomimicry | Solutions, solutions everywhere. A pep talk for conservation of biodiversity. We look to the principal strategies for saving biodiversity while also investigating varying ethical stances towards species preservation, and arguing for practical environmentalism. The second half of the lecture involves biomimicry; the science of looking to nature for solutions to human problems. | 3/14/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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32 |
Lecture 36 - The 6th Extinction | We look at the causes of the present human induced mass extinction, the proof that we are experiencing a mass extinction, and reasons for valuing biodiversity. | 2/21/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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33 |
Lecture 35 - Biodiversity | We look at the definition and types of biodiversity, the current state of biodiversity through the filter of our limited knowledge, a look at biodiversity changes through time including a closer look at the five major extinction events of the Phanerozoic, and then begin to investigate the modern extinction event. | 2/11/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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34 |
Lecture 34 - Human Population | A look at the past trends of human population growth, and the projections and uncertainties about future human population in the context of the carrying capacity of the planet. | 1/23/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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35 |
Lecture 33 - Population Dynamics | After a catastrophic computer crash, Dr. Shorey struggles to communicate the most salient features of population dynamics. Exponential growth and the environmental resistance factors that keep populations in check are discussed in detail. | 1/18/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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36 |
Lecture 32 - The Evolution of Consciousness | We look into how natural selection actually slows the evolutionary rate, but directs toward more efficient solutions. We look the multiple ecological level involved in natural selection, and the fuzzy idea of an individual, which can be resolved by looking at consciousness as the individual. We end with a model pathway of enhanced consciousness through evolution to humans, the pinnacle of consciousness. | 12/17/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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37 |
Lecture 31 - Intelligent Design | An overview of the creationist argument against evolution and where Intelligent Design stands as a scientific theory. | 12/7/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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38 |
Lecture 30 - Evolutionary Theory | An summary of the concept of evolution and the theory of natural selection. The lecture begins with a statement on the inability of science to address supernatural explanations and ends with the evidence for evolution. | 11/26/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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39 |
Lecture 29 - Ecology | An overview of feeding and non-feeding relationships between organisms and their environment. A quick overview of biogeochemical cycling is also given along with a reading from Richard Powers' book, "The Goldbug Variations". | 11/19/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lecture 28 - Sweet Life | We wrestle with the difficult questions: What is life? How can we classify life? What is a species? | 11/13/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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41 |
Lecture 27 - Climate Effects and Politics | A description of the differences between the environmental issues known as Global Warming and Ozone Depletion. We then review the possible good and bad effects of climate change, and ask the questions of whether we can do anything to affect climate change and if we can, should we. Finally Dr. Shorey rants about the current state of climate politics and then collapses into a heap on the floor. | 11/9/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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42 |
Lecture 26 - Climate Forcing Mechanisms | A discussion of the various mechanisms by which natural climate change has been affected in the past, with a discussion of how well they may be affecting current, and near future climate change. | 10/30/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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43 |
Lecture 25 - Paleoclimate | An overview on the science on past natural climate change on earth. We review some of the major paleoclimate archives, dating techniques, and climate proxies, and end with a quick look at the major changes discovered in our distant past. | 10/17/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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44 |
Lecture 24 - Natural and Anthropogenic Climate Change | This lecture combines a discussion of the difference between Venus' and Earth's climates, and how the Earth's climate has been regulated over geologic time. With knowledge that climate can change naturally, we explore why it is the consensus opinion of climate scientists that the warming trend we have seen in recent decades is dominated by human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change. | 10/4/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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45 |
Lecture 23 - History of Global Warming | The history behind the science of global warming lets us see the well-grounded basis for the scientific notion that humans are currently causing global climate change. | 9/26/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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46 |
Lecture 22 - Weather Pt3 | A concluding lecture on wether that covers the rest of the mechanisms that are responsible for lifting air. The second half covers the topics of lightning, thunder, thunderstorms, severe storms, tornadoes and hurricanes. | 9/18/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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47 |
Lecture 21 - Weather Pt2 | An examination of why rising air tends to get more saturated with respect to water and has to potential for forming clouds and precipitation. We then look at the first of five mechanisms that can cause air to rise; global circulation patterns. | 9/12/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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48 |
Lecture 20 - Weather Pt1 | An overview of the four main atmospheric parameters measured to asses weather conditions: temperature, pressure, wind, and humidity. | 9/6/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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49 |
Lecture 19 - Atmosphere | A discussion of atmospheric composition and structure. | 8/30/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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50 |
Lecture 18 - Glaciers | A discussion of the cryosphere, frozen water on the Earth, focusing on glaciers, and the landforms they produce. Sea ice and permafrost are also discussed, with an overview of climate change resulting on ice ages in Earth's history. | 8/16/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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51 |
Lecture 17 - Water Pollution | An overview of pollution, pollutants, legal standards, and processes of water pollution. | 8/8/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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52 |
Lecture 16 - Groundwater | An overview of groundwater terminology, flow dynamics, contamination, and environmental consequences of over-pumping. Lecture ends with a brief discussion of cave formation in limestone regions. | 8/6/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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53 |
Lecture 15 - Streams and Flooding | A description of the morphology and processes of stream flow, and the landforms produced by streams, followed by the identification and mitigation of flood hazards. | 8/2/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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54 |
Lecture 14 - Oceans and Shorelines | A discussion of the distribution of water on Earth, and a look at the structure, chemistry, and dynamics of the largest reservoir of water, the ocean. We will also look at the way the ocean interacts with its shorelines. | 7/19/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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55 |
Lecture 13 - Structure and Mass Movement | A discussion of the effect of stress and strain on rocks and the various structural forms they create, and how geologists communicate these shapes on maps. Also, a brief overview of mass movement hazards. | 7/16/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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56 |
Lecture 12 - Earthquakes Pt 2 | An overview of earthquake prediction, risk assessment, and mitigation, followed by answering a listener's question on fossilization. | 7/11/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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57 |
Lecture 11 - Earthquakes Part 1 | A discussion of many aspects of earthquakes, including their history, modes of generation, types of seismic waves, exploring the interior of the planet, and measuring their intensity, and the many ways that they can cause damage. | 7/11/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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58 |
Lecture 10 - Plate Tectonics | An overview of the history of the theory of plate tectonics, the mechanisms that drive plate tectonics, and the geologic features and processes that can be explained by the theory. | 7/11/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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59 |
Lecture 9-Absolute Time | A discussion of the methodology of dating rock materials, and of the age of the earth, the oldest rocks and minerals on earth, and the oldest fossils. | 7/11/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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60 |
Lecture 8 - Geologic time | Investigation of the methods in use by geologists to find the relative ages of rocks, and the use of these methods to build the geologic time scale. | 6/23/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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61 |
Lecture 7 - Metamorphic Rocks | A look at the processes that create metamorphic rocks, the information they can give us, and the main types. | 6/21/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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62 |
Lecture 6 - Weathering and Soil | A deeper look at chemical and mechanical weathering and the soil produced by the breakdown of rock material. | 6/15/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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63 |
Lecture 5 - Sedimentary Rocks | Sedimentary processes, rock types, and the environmental information they reveal. | 6/11/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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64 |
Lecture 4 - Volcanoes | Volcanic hazards, processes, and prediction. | 6/4/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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65 |
Lecture 3 - Igneous Rocks | Igneous rocks and processes. | 5/21/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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66 |
Lecture 2 - Atoms to Minerals | A look at atomic structure and bonding and how this influences mineral formation and structure. | 5/17/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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67 |
Lecture 1 - Earth and Environmental Systems Science | An introduction to the Earth and Environmental Systems course. Course title terms are discussed along with an introduction to systems science. | 5/12/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 67 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Highly Informative
Dr. Shorey is a geologist who is extremely knowledgeable about earth science and the other science topics that he covers in this podcast. There are many qualities that I appreciate about this podcast. As a threshold matter, the audio quality is good. In terms of the content, Dr. Shorey presents the sometimes dense material in an accessible and engaging way. His sense of humor shows itself too. Laudably, there is no hype or bias in Dr. Shorey’s presentation. He has a wide-ranging scientific mind which he uses to explore various topics beyond geology. He clearly explains the science behind climate change, evolution, and many other important topics. Here in the U.S., there is an astounding lack of scientific literacy. People of all stripes owe it to themselves to enjoyably learn more about the science explained so well here. Please keep it up, Dr. Shorey.
Educational, Informative & Concise
Dr. Shorey’s breath of knowledge is only surpassed by his preparation. His lectures cover a broad range of subjects which are well researched, organized and presented. Dr. Shorey - keep up the good work and keep the knowledge flowing.
Useful, methodical education in my car!
This podcast has been filling the gaps between half-remembered general science classes and adding a lot of real-world-applicable examples of how the knowledge is used: like choosing building sites near water, where the ground under my feet comes from, and how weather prediction works. I'm not in the Earth Sciences fields, but this introduction to the basics has been very interesting! Now I can understand the basics of some of the climate debates in the news, as well as why some of that is so complex!
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