I realise that, in the grand panoply of the global blogosphere, this is but a mote of dust, on a scale more diminutive than a grain of fine sand tossed into the vastness of the universe. BUT, if you had asked me, some three-and-a-bit years ago, as I hesitatingly tapped out my first post, to visualise 200,000 visits to this blog, I would have laughed at the preposterosity of such an idea. However, yesterday evening (Jakarta time), the image above appeared on my Typepad dashboard.
I still can’t quite believe it. I know that this milestone is, in large part, the result of repeated visits by a small number of dedicated readers, and to all of you, my eternal gratitude. The remainder of this statistic is made up of the serendipitous visitors – and, should you be one of those who happens on this post and lingers long enough to read it, thank you. It’s a pleasure, for example, to see how the activity drops off during school holidays, leading me to conclude that I am somehow helping someone out with something that they wanted (or at least needed) to know. It’s a periodic fascination to look at the “keywords” analysis that shows me how a particular search term has led someone here – a selection from the last couple of hours:
- Coastal tourist complexes
- sand grains which have been magnified
- You have a 7-minute sand timer and an 11-minute sand timer. How can you use them to cook a piece of…
- global sediment discharge
- murano glass factory in venice
- permo-triassic event
- bacillus pasteurii uses
- alcanivorax borkumensis oil spill
- 2004 tsunami
- pink coral with tentacles
- verkhoyansk mts map
plus, of course, the ever-popular “Andrew Clemens.”
It’s not that I scrutinise and analyse these things on a daily basis, but it’s intriguing, to say the least. So there we are, enough introspection – but all this brings an added dimension to life that I never anticipated, and which is very much appreciated.
As a new geomorphology grad student, I've appreciated your passion for a certain category of sediment grains and the knowledge of it you've imparted to us via your book and blog.
Posted by: Malcolm | March 08, 2012 at 05:36 PM
Malcolm, thanks, your comment is very much appreciated.
Posted by: Sandglass | March 09, 2012 at 11:48 AM
Congratulation Michael, your blog has been a great resource for me in the past and I am sure it will do much more in the future...onward!
Posted by: Mohsen al-Dajani | March 09, 2012 at 03:09 PM
Hurrah! As a small token in celebration of this, your bloggy milestone, I offer some recent finds. Perhaps they are not something which you have encountered already. ;)
http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/faculty/stierman/oakopen/gsa/P05.htm
GEOPHYSICAL AND GIS INVESTIGATIONS OF THE OAK OPENINGS SAND RIDGE
http://www.geology.ohio-state.edu/~vonfrese/gs100/lect18/index.html
Scroll down almost to the bottom to see the missing sand and shoreline, figs 18.31 & 18.32.
Cheers!
Posted by: F | March 10, 2012 at 04:40 AM
Congratulations, Michael! A milestone well worth noting, on a sedimental journey. "Even small quantities...rapidly start amounting to significant numbers" (Sand, p.68), and yours are now positively Archimedean. What a fascination, to see those query terms, one after the next as though you could watch the trickle through a sandglass, grain by grain. And all drawn toward you by the skill and dedication of your efforts. As a dedicated reader, I look forward to many more posts, many more search hits, myriad after myriad.
Posted by: Richard Bready | March 10, 2012 at 10:33 AM
Thanks, Richard, as always.
"A sedimental journey" - why didn't I ever think of that????
Posted by: Sandglass | March 10, 2012 at 01:17 PM
F: thanks for the comment, and the links. No, I hadn't picked up on them - coastal management and barrier islands again (see the latest post)!
Posted by: Sandglass | March 11, 2012 at 06:25 AM
congratulations Michael - hope many more sand grains wash up to your web shores!
Posted by: Suvrat | March 12, 2012 at 06:55 AM