[BR-Crater] weather makes late March expedition iffy

[Ian Kluft]

There's another storm coming through California and Nevada this weekend.
Nevermind that it's Spring now - Winter Storm Watches are in effect across
the area.  There was also one last weekend that dumped 2 inches of snow on
Gerlach.  So the Black Rock Desert hasn't been drying out yet.

I'm not ruling out a trip yet.  We'll keep an eye on the weather.

Saturday March 28 or Sunday March 29 may work for a day trip visit to see
if we can get to Pahsupp Mountain and hike around to see what the situation
on the ground looks like there.  We know that the new 54 mile outline focuses
more attention on that area, which should be as close to the center as Upper
High Dry.  Other than that, we'll see what we find there and let the
observations speak for themselves.

Here's an overview of what's been going on since the last discussion...

On Feb 23 on the way back from visiting family in the area, I stopped by
southern Reno to meet Rich Loring.  He's the geologist who recently joined
the mail list after he saw the article in Discover Magazine.  Rich showed
me paper copies of the county geological maps for Washoe, Pershing and
Humboldt.

I mentioned in the Feb 14 mail to the list that Rich had e-mailed me
about this.  So now we got to talk over the maps.  This is some good
information.  Though I think we need to find electronic copies of these
maps before we'll have enough info to post on the web.  As usual, we
still don't have "proof" from this - but proof is a very picky thing
in impact crater research.  We're getting used to that situation.  I guess
a good summary is that we made preliminary observations which will need
further work, which appear to show a change in the geology of the region
along the same roughly circular outline as previously noted on the
topographic maps.

Documenting a correlation between these observations will be an important
point in further building the case for the impact crater theory.

So, why did it take me a month to post this to the list?

I had a bit of a distraction when I got home late on Feb 23.  My house's
plumbing had sprung some leaks.  If my trip had taken much longer, it's
possible I might have come home to a flood, rather than just the dripping
ceiling I found.  Thousands of dollars of repairs later, I still consider
myself lucky.  But that's what took my attention for a while.

It's not all bad news.  After the plumbing issues, I had rescheduled some
glider flights which had to be postponed because of it.  I also had some
instrument flight currency/practice.  And I had a new student pilot start
training this week.  These things all take some preparation time on the
ground too.