Professor Toke's Geoscience Blog

I finished ~20 pages of Chapter 1, plus one of two accompanying YouTube video series documenting an example of hot to georeference historical aerial imagery and then map land cover changes. The other example video series I have to complete is demonstrating interpolation methods, which was a major component of the chapter. I plan to use a dataset I collected for my masters field area along the San Andreas fault where we collected 2000 topo points across a ~1km square area and a year later LiDAR was flown! Should be a fun activity to compare interpolation methods and topographic differencing. I also have to make two more figures for the chapter that are not subject to copyright. 

In the last two days I: - Wrote a nice letter of recommendation to USU Natural Resources for a recent graduate (1.5 hours) - Accepted a service responsibility to join a review panel for this year's USGS Earthquake Hazards Proposals. It will be nice to provide some service to this organization which helped support my Ph.D. work and some of my pre-tenure research here at UVU.  - Watch more of SCEC 2024 (1 hour)  - Wrote more of Chapter 1 of my Adv. GIS Book (2.5 hours)  Crushed a solid road ride part way up American Fork Canyon, beating my PRs for every segment past the turn to Tibble Fork Reservoir and also got a few other PRs on valley side of the ride, mostly on short hills. Basically, all indicators are that my cycling fitness is as good as it has been in the past six years. I was on pace for 4-5 minutes faster up Timpanogos from the Am fork side had I had time to continue, but I had to return back to make lunch for my father-in-law. Oh well... Still 43 miles, 2800 ft o...

This weekend I have been watching recordings from the 2024 Annual SCEC meeting (Watched through Day 1), so that I am up-to-date for hopefully attending the 2025 meeting and, in parallel, I wrote a about 4 more pages on chapter 1 of the Advanced GIS course textbook. I put in a total of about 5 hours of work between the two days and I just have two more figures to create and I need to write the two practical application parts of the chapter (also, I will reedit everything once I have a full draft of the chapter). The goal to finish chapter 1 will be by the end of this week!   Learning points from SCEC 2024 (just a couple): AI/machine learning on seismology data is immensely densifying the earthquake catalog across California which should help improve the velocity models across the state which is important for engineering and more!  SCEC is indeed becoming Statewide, there were geologic studies of the Lassen Peak area (northern Walker Lane) and even crossing the state line i...

Today I wrote three pages of the GIS textbook briefly describing various GIS data sources (at a hierarchical level) including Government sources (comparing National and local), NGOs, For Profits, Government Adjacent (supported), International, and I also covered GRAMA requests, the need for user profiles, the hidden gem of published papers and digital supplements, as well as API possibilities. I again worked for about 3 hours (my ideal amount). So far I’ve got a 17 page book and there are still three application subsections to chapter 1 left to write. Seems like this will be a 120 page book, at least, with six chapters. Need to pick up the pace (more hours) since it took 10 days to write this much! Actually, what I need to do is start working in parallel on the academic papers as well, so I can get saturated with one type of writing and move over to another.  The weather was HOT the last two days, but now we’ve got four days of nice and cool weather coming. Will have to put in some...

Really got some flow with my textbook writing today, wrote 5 pages in about three hours time. Most of the writing was about methods of raster interpolation and how to properly compare rasters (accounting for units, coordinate systems, datum’s, pixel size, and grid registration!). Yikes!!! Lots to consider to get a good result that means something. 

Over the past ~ week I have slowly been making progress with the advanced GIS open textbook. So far I have written about 10 pages of content. Writing has been intermittent writing in 2-4 1 hours spurts per day totaling about 3 hours per day of writing. I am feeling good about the product so far, but it is amazing how what can be said in two 1-hour lectures takes 10-20 pages of writing which means several days worth of work to create a nice product!  Other things going on, got my first oil change and tire rotation on the Forester, found out the spare full size tire needs a TPMS valve, so back to the dealership for that tomorrow. Deb and I did a nice hike on the Aspen Grove side of Timpanogos, up to the second waterfall (800 ft over 1.3 miles) with the doggos. We've been doing our usual evening walks and Debjani finally got back on her bike for the first time in 2025. Hopefully that becomes more routine. I have been riding a bit, but resting up a bit to take advantage of some cool we...

Glad to see many protesters across the country and locally here in Utah today. 2% of the country protesting is important, that’s probably 10 percent of the voters. Debjani was one, her Dad and I joined after the morning protest on The U of U Campus. We did not attend the evening protest where gun violence broke out.  I Spent an hour writing on the GIS textbook in the AM. ran the dogs, mowed. 

Today, I had a 45 minute meeting with Weihong, Matt and Steve Johnson who has agreed to teach GEOG 3600 as an adjunct faculty member in fall 2025. I was there since my course will be used as a shell to help him get started with teaching the class. We advised him about all of the nuances and idiosyncrasies of running the intro class with various student computing experiences, providing students with ArcGIS Online accounts, managing the lab, student attendance and dealing with the proliferation of cheating on journal assignments (basically, journals have been made obsolete because students cannot help themselves from cheating, so instead they should be given pop quizzes and in class assignments only for their graded portions of the class). My introduction to Geology students are going to have a rude awakening to this when I return from sabbatical. The classroom has to be flipped such that graded assignments are done in person and low stakes learning has to be done at home, otherwise 1/2 ...

Today, I spent a couple hours (about 2.5) beginning to write what will become an open access textbook for GEOG 3650 students at UVU. I have drafted the title page and began writing an introduction to the book.  Some things I am pondering about this book: 1. Whether to embed links and make the book very dynamic (with links to my youtube channel, articles, etc.), but also becoming vulnerable to breaking down as soon as links change, etc. (I think this will have to be the case, but perhaps I can write it in a way that the links are all located in one part of each chapter, making them easier to fix later on).  2. How to set the balance of the book with both lab (practical) and content (theoretical) content.  3. How to make the book attractive enough that students will want to read it. It will probably be easy enough to write the content, but embedding figures may take some time!  I also did a 16 mile road bike ride (got a few short segment PRs), flatted due to no more tu...

Today I recruited Kristen Smith (MS in Geology @ BYU in progress and UVU Alum) to help me lead a couple of field trip stops as a part of Peter Edmundson's summer course for science teachers looking to get a certification for teaching Earth Science classes. It was a fun group of teachers! Teachers make some of the best and engaging students!!!  We met at Spanish Oaks Reservoir at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon with a vantage point of West Mountain and great views of Lake Bonneville shorelines and triangular facets all around. It was so windy, so unfortunately we didn't dare unfurl the latest poster from RM GSA, so we made due with print outs. My main objectives were to talk about the Wasatch as a fault zone, rather than a single fault by discussing West Mountain and the faults that run along both sides of that mountain and link up with the Utah Lake faults and possibly the Nephi segment of the Wasatch fault. Also, I wanted to discuss shorelines and river terraces and how these...

June 7th (Saturday) was a pretty low key work day, mostly working on things around the house and prep work for some upcoming travel. (1 hour on academic work) June 8th (Sunday) was Pride Day and we took Deb's father to the SLC Pride Parade and he and I watched the parade as she marched in it with the University of Utah's (unofficial) group. U-Pride. We also went out to Dosa at SV cafe in South Jordan, great again! In the evening we watched a bit of the Pacers v. Thunder game 2. (no academic work) June 9th (Monday) I completed a 60 mile ride on the Raleigh Tamland Gravel bike: Orem to American Fork Canyon, picked up a Parks Pass at Timp Cave, Up the Canyon to Summit Trailhead, Down to Cascade Springs, Out into Heber Valley, Along Deer Creek Trail, and Back home via Provo Canyon. It was epic, started early enough, didn't bring enough food, but hydrated fine despite finishing in 90 degree heat. 5,000 feet of climbing and 60 miles, should have done another two miles to complete...

  After review by my alumni colleagues, our IAG abstract for the Conference in Christchurch, NZ is set and submitted!  I also gathered all the files I need to print for next week's teacher field trip and successfully recruited Kristen Smith (BYU MS student and UVU Alumnus) to join and help lead the day!  Finally, I did some professional development learning watching a landscapes live lecture by Dan Parsons about flood modelling. The main point was that rivers are dynamic and all of our flood models are fairly static. So they are implementing ways to account for deposition and channel change to have more dynamic flood models for various recurrence intervals. Of course, to do this on a wide scale it all has to be course and based upon a bunch of assumptions, but the point and talk was quite compelling.  I plan to do a bunch more of this type of learning over the sabbatical. For others interested here are two great links: Geomorphology Talks via Landscapes Live: https:/...

Today, my major accomplishment was finalizing (through Best Buy) the official replacement of my iPhone 12 Mini battery. It was not as easy as I thought, I made an appointment through Apple last week, but that really was just an intake diagnostic with Best Buy (apple makes it is seem like you'll get everything taken care of that day). After ordering the part, waiting for the arrival, I survived the 4 hours without having a phone. For $70, I now have restored from 75% to 100% of it's charging capacity. After 12 hours of heavy use today (June 6th) including 2 hours of streaming audio books, 1 hour online shopping, my usual 1 hour of surfing the web checking stocks etc. It still has 45% charge remaining. Before the change over, it would have needed charging midway through the day! This will be very helpful for upcoming travel adventures over the sabbatical year and I feel like I just saved spending $1200 on a new iphone pro. So that's nice!  Rest day.  Did some housework.  Ba...

Doug and Rachel hosted a Chicago Style Hot Dog extravaganza party at their house, celebrating the summer, their recent wedding, and unfortunately the departure of Dr. Daniel Stephen from UVU. Debjani and I had a great time, but I wished the night could have lasted longer.  Dan was the last remaining faculty member that was on my hiring committee in 2011. Other faculty included Dr. Bill Dinklage (now a Professor at Santa Barbara Community College), Dr. Jim Callison (recently retired), and Joel Bradford (also recently retired). Either Dan or Bill was the search chair, but I cannot recall exactly. One of our admin's Kellie Hancock (still at UVU) was the fifth member of the committee and of course Dr. Bunds was the newly elected Department Chair (Mike's still here too, hopefully for some years to come) .   From the start of my time at UVU, Dan and his ex-wife Catherine were very welcoming to me. I recall joining them and Danny and Renae for a music festival in Park City befor...

Today, I spent about two hours on updating digital measures/faculty success entries, updating my CV, and planning about what I will present on with Peter Edmundson's Historical Geology for high school teachers looking to get certified to teach Earth Science.  The rest of the day was a dogter appointment for Badger, some shopping, and house work. The weather this week is sublime here in Orem, 75 sunny and breezy. I went to hard last evening on the South Fork ride to have a meaningful ride today, so I am planning to hit it hard tomorrow. Perhaps Timp...???

In addition to finalizing most of my Jan/Feb New Zealand travel plans and tentatively submitting my conference abstract yesterday and resubmitting my travel request today, I spent a bit of time planning a morning rendezvous with Peter Edmondson's Summer Historical Geology Class for Teachers.  I have spent a morning with Peter's Teacher development class each of the past two summers and I am looking forward to doing it again. This year, I will talk to them about the work I have been doing on the Faults in the WFZ hanging wall in Utah Valley and along West Mountain. I'll meet them at the Mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon on Wednesday June 11th along the Delta/Shoreline of Lake Bonneville and we'll talk about the shoreline, rebound, and faulting there along the mountain front and then I'll show our recent poster from Rocky Mountain GSA and talk about faulting within the hanging wall and overlap zone with the Nephi segment and what that means for fault segmentation and earth...

Over this weekend, I drafted my conference abstract, here is the title:  Examining Normalized Channel Steepness within the Basin and Range, Colorado Plateau and Transition Zone Physiographic Provinces of Utah, USA. Extending the work I've had ongoing with Parker Farnworth and Veronica Richards since their final semester at UVU. In this talk (hopefully), I'll look more closely at the geospatial relationships across Utah's geographic provinces at both range scale, catchment scale, and importantly, I will first subdivide all areas up by rock resistance/strength for more appropriate comparisons. \ I also booked two nights hotel in Auckland, a flight to Wellington with one hotel night there, my hotel in Christchurch for the week-long conference, a flight to Queenstown for exploring the Southern Alps (hope to take a biking trip and a fjord cruise), and finally a flight back to Auckland along with one night's accommodation there before flying back to the US. Should be a wonder...