Steve Dutch About Me

Steve Dutch: About Me

Professor Emeritus (Geoscience), Natural and Applied Sciences, University of wisconsin-Green Bay
e-mail: dutchs@uwgb.edu

Personal biographical information

(Sorry, nothing incriminating!)

I received my bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969, meaning I was there at about the most interesting possible time. I then went to Columbia University for a year of graduate school and was drafted. I spent a year in Turkry, 1971-1972 and then returned to finish my graduate work. My thesis dealt with the Creighton Pluton on the margins of the Sudbury Basin.

In 1976 I joined the faculty at the University of wisconsin-Green Bay, retiring in 2012 after 36 years.

In 1982, I joined the U.S. Army Reserves. I realized two things. First, despite attending two of the top universities on the planet, my year in Turkey was the single greatest educational experience of my life. I joined the 432d Civil Affairs Battalion. For nearly a decade we trained to deal with the Cold War turning hot in Germany. Then, in 1991, we were mobilized for the Gulf War. After serving in Kuwait, we were sent to Kurdistan. in 1996 we were mobilized again for Bosnia. In addition to those deployments and numerous trips to Germany, my military travels included Hawaii and Bulgaria. I retired in 2001 as a master sergeant, proof they'll promote anyone if he hangs around long enough.

From 1990 to 2008 I did about 15 speaking tours for the American Chemical Society. Since 2006 I've done nine speaking tours on cruise ships.

Courses and Lecture Pages

Research and Personal Scholarly Interest

geology

Mapping

Other Science Topics

Publications and Presentations

History and Travel

My Web Philosophy

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know thit is not true. (Robert Wilensky)

Because according to the internet, Ron Paul will be President and Serenity is the best movie evah (Fizzyland)

  • It's not so much surfing as Dumpster-Diving. I used to wonder how bad it could be if we just let anybody publish their ideas. Now I know. Real bad.
  • I like computers. I am awed by them. I am delighted by what they can do. But I don't trust them! Electronic storage is ephemeral and fragile. Not all of that is bad. The useful half-life of most information is a few years. But I do not assume I will always have a Web to access or even floppy disks to read. If I find some useful information, I download it. If it's really important, I may even make a hard copy. If a national emergency breaks down our telecommunications, the Web is history. If a rogue nation or terrorist sets off a nuclear weapon 100 miles above the U.S., most P.C.'s are history (check out something called EMP). I still have a slide rule.
  • graphics? GRAPHICS? WE DON' NEED NO STINKING GRAPHICS! Too many Web pages are cluttered with useless graphics (eye candy). See this campus's web page for a case in point. See how long it takes you to figure out what classes we offer, where, and when. In case you're not aware of it, data storage and transmission capacity are finite resources. Given the spatial nature of geology and some of my avocational interests like geometry and polyhedra, I have a lot of graphics, but I try to keep them to the necessary minimum in number and simplicity. Drawings are mostly 16-color, with no sound or unnecessary animation, to keep download time short and keep material accessible to users with low-end systems. Photos are standard JPEG format, 24-bit color.
  • Chunky, not creamy. I figure if you're looking for information you want to get it, so my pages tend to be on the long side, rather than broken into short segments connected by links. It may take longer to download the page, but once you do, everything is there. Nothing is more infuriating to me than to burrow six levels deep into a site only to find out that what I need isn't there.
  • Links. I know where my own stuff is. I have enough to do keeping track of my own pages without worrying if somebody else paid his Compuserve bill. I have had enough experiences chasing from one site to another, only to reach a dead end or have a crash, to conclude that links to remote sites are often useless. If I use them, they will go as directly as possible to the item of interest. Unless it's a stable site, like a government agency, I won't link to it. (Even some agency sites have shut down, and sites are being reorganized all the time.) In most cases, if I am aware of sites of interest, I will mention them so you can look them up with a search engine. For this reason, I don't cross-link.

Citations

I occasionally get requests from people who want to use material from this site but who want a formal citation. In general, works that are integral to the page are cited. If there is no citation on the page, it's for one of two principal reasons:

  • The content is my original work but not published in a journal. There is no other reference.
  • The content is covered in many sources (for example the pages on stereonet constructions or structural geology methods) and any of those standard works are suitable citations.

Created 15 December 1996 Last Update 31 May 2020