Thursday, October 26, 2017

A nice note

Got this note today from a recent graduate of the U Arkansas Geosciences Department:

Hello Dr Liner,

I hope this email finds you well. I was hired and currently working for an environmental consulting company ECS Mid-Atlantic as an environmental technician. The recommendation you provided on my application went a long way in helping me secure this position. 

The project I am currently assigned to is focused on environmental remediation of a coal ash pond from Dominion Power Company. In my role as a technician, I run lab tests checking the quality of the water being treated and report to the site supervisor when the water quality drops. 

I plan on being in this position for a while and hopefully continuing to graduate school with this experience. 

Thank you all your help and have a great day.

Yours Sincerely, 

Asher S.

----------- my reply ----------------------

Hi Asher,

What a wonderful note! Thank you for letting me know about your new career. I will share this with the new Careers class I am teaching that meets tonight. Several of the students know you.

Continued good luck and best regards,

Prof. Christopher L. Liner
Department of Geosciences Chairman
Storm Endowed Chair of Petroleum Geology
University of Arkansas

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Python easy earth globe

You can make a stunning earth globe, including topography and bathymetry, with just a few lines of python. Just now, I am interested in New Zealand, so we can put it in the middle. Here is the code:

from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
map = Basemap(projection='ortho', lat_0=-30, lon_0=170, resolution='l')
map.etopo()
map.drawcountries()
map.drawmeridians(np.arange(0,360,30))
map.drawparallels(np.arange(-90,90,30))
plt.show()

Below is the result, not bad for 9 lines of code!