The Status of the Geoscience Workforce 2016 report is based on original data
collected by AGI as well as from federal data sources, professional membership
organizations, and industry. The report integrates all of these various data sources
into a comprehensive view of the human and economic parameters of the geosci-
ences, including supply and training of new students, workforce demographics
and employment projections, to trends in geosciences research funding and
economic indicators. This edition highlights the issues facing institutions of higher
education as they prepare future geoscientists as well as the current economic
and personnel issues facing the geoscience workforce.Authored by Carolyn WilsonThe 2016 AGI Status of the
Geoscience Workforce Report
The 2016 Report (ISBN-13: 978-0-
913312-54-4) is available for sale
either digitally as a PDF for $10.00
or in print for $30.00.For more information and ordering
information, please visit
http://www.americangeosciences.org/
workforce/reports..KRMXMSRF](SQIX$
The coincidence of the four sepa-
rate fires in Chicago, Peshtigo, Holland
and Manistee led to speculation about a
potential common source for the fires
beyond the dry conditions and winds. One
hypothesis was raised in 1883 by Ignatius
L. Donnelly, a congressman from Minne-
sota and amateur scientist with an affinity
for catastrophism. He published many
works on the destruction of past civiliza-
tions by floods, comets and meteors, and
he proposed that the fires were caused by
pieces of Biela’s Comet breaking apart and
hitting Earth as meteorites.
The idea was revived in the 1985 book
“Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet” by Mel Waskin, the
title of which refers to the idea that the Chi-
cago fire was started when Mrs. O’Leary’s
cow kicked over a lantern. (Mrs. O’Leary
and her cow were exonerated in 1997 by
the Chicago City Council.) Another article
in 2004 by Robert Wood called “Did Biela’s
Comet Cause the Chicago and Midwest
Fires?” supported the fire-by-comet theory.
While massive impactors such as the
Chicxulub bolide, which hit Earth about
66 million years ago, are thought to have
ignited widespread fires due to the tre-
mendous heat and friction produced upon
impact, small rocky meteorites are gen-
erally poor conductors of heat. NASA
debunked that particular ignition method
in 2001 , noting that there has never been
a historically documented case of a small
rocky meteorite igniting a fire.
The combination of conditions that
caused the Peshtigo fire and others in
the Midwest in October 1871 — normal
land-clearing methods, extensive drought
conditions and a particularly windy
weather front — was not unique or even
especially rare. Beginning in spring 2016,
wildfires ripped through the Fort McMur-
ray area in Alberta, Canada, burning more
than 600,000 hectares. “There was a mild
winter and not a lot of meltwater from the
mountain snowpack,” said Mike Wotton,
a research scientist with the Canadian For-
est Service, quoted in a 2016 CBC article.
“Then there was an early, hot spring, and
everything got very dry. Then on top of
that, it got windy,” Wotton said.
“This really shows that once a fire like
this is up and running, the only things that
are going to stop it [are] if the weatherchanges or if it runs out of fuel to burn
up,” said Mike Flannigan, professor of
wildland fire science at the University of
Alberta in Edmonton, in the same article.
“With a fire like this, it’s burning so hot
that air drops [of water by firefighters]
are like spitting on a campfire.”
Since the late 1800s, major advances
have been made in firefighting and public
safety that will likely ensure that there
will not be another fire as deadly as
Peshtigo. But wildfire will continue to
be a regular occurrence, Flannigan said
in a 2017 Global News interview. “These
were not one-offs. It is not a fluke,” he
said. “It is going to happen again.”)IVSYMRMWERIHMXSVMEPMRXIVREX*&78-8LI PERHWGETI EVSYRH 5IWLXMKS ;MW
EJXIVXLIJMVI
(VIHMX ;MWGSRWMR-MWXSVMGEPSGMIX]TEKIȍȟ•4GXSFIVȶȉȦȮ• EARTH • [[[IEVXLQEKE^MRISVKBenchmarks