Dino Jim - Geology Fun Facts

“The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it...”

People kill themselves everyday in all sorts of stupid ways. This page just highlights some of the stupid ways that are relevant to geology. Many of these have been found by my students so they will be mentioned as needed.

Escape Via 55-ft Shear Wet Granite Rock Face

Geology strikes back against these thieves because as they were making their get-a-way they decided to choose a dangerous steep slope that was made of granite, where it had rained the night before, and it is a common fact that rocks are slippery when wet.

Article courtesy of Robert Mrdutt

Let's Race Across a Mountain in a Snowmobile

This Darwin Award is geological because because the slope gradient, snowpack, and weather combined to create a natural disaster. Avalanches are geological events, even when aided by stupid people.

Article courtesy of Krista Mugavero

Gypsum Kills Potential Thief

This is a story of the Earth taking revenge on the immoral. This guy was killed slowly and painfully by a giant selenite crystal in Chihuahua, Mexico when he tried to steal it.

Article courtesy of Rob Armstrong

Man injured by tsunami, sort of

The geologically relevant thing here is that it is based on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. A man jumped out of a window trying to evacuate from it and broke several bones. Unfortunately, he was in Serbia at the time.

Article courtesy of Nicole Reid

The DinoJim logo is a Styracosaurus skull designed and created by me, based off of a fossil found at the American Museum of Natural History.

**The background image is an outline of a Shuvosaurus skull, which was created by me for my Master's Thesis.**