My presentation on geophilately at the Geological Society of America meeting

For those of you only want the link to the Slides show of the presentation, you will find it here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11uigQohlpkoor0E6n5_XLtwLmSy5SVKWfB4vNEo_xWQ/edit?usp=drive_link

Although I have been very quiet here, I have been keeping busy with my two geoscience-oriented philatelic collections, the one on the International Geophysical Year that I have been working on for 20-some years that I highlight in this blog, and the more recent one -- last three years or so -- on U.S. earthquakes. 

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the U.S. did not initially issue a stamp commemorating Explorer 1, which was the second satellite to orbit the Earth, after the Soviets' Sputnik 1. A document signed by CIA director Allen Dulles stated that "it might be unwise to issue such a stamp in view of the obvious disparity which now exists between our accomplishments in the satellite field and those of the USSR."

Well, apparently there is what I think is an analogous reason for the fact that the U.S. has never issued a stamp about an earthquake or any other natural disaster. I mentioned the U.S. Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee in an earlier post. The Committee stated its criteria for possible U.S. stamps in 2019 as given at https://about.usps.com/who/csac/#criteria. One criterion on the list states that:

The stamp program commemorates positive contributions to American life, history, culture and environment; therefore, negative occurrences and disasters will not be commemorated on U.S. postage stamps or stationery.

That would seem to rule out earthquake stamps, as well as being second to the Soviets. 

My collection consists of about 250 postcards, some letters, and a few cinderella stamps about U.S. (and a few other North American) earthquakes. My ideal item is a postcard that was posted from the epicentral region soon after the earth occurred with a picture of the affected region and a written message related to the earthquake.

Other nations do issue earthquake stamps, either to raise money with so called semi-postal (charity) stamps, because of the historical significance of such events, to honor those who were impacted, or to recognize recovery efforts. (I have a few such stamps, one shown below, but I am not collecting them.)

Commemorative mini-sheet of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, from my collection

Anyway, back to the presentation I will be giving. I winnowed my professional memberships after retirement. I had stayed a member of the American Geophysical Union, but resigned from the Geological Society of America. But a couple of months ago, I had a look at the GSA website, and noticed the GSA annual meeting was coming to Pittsburgh, in my state of Pennsylvania albeit on the other end. I had wondered whether my stamp collections in the general area I like to call geophilately would warrant a presentation at a professional meeting. You know, add a bit of professional veneer to my hobby. And I noticed a session at the meeting entitled Outside the Classroom, Beyond Fieldwork: Innovative Approaches to Informal Geoscience Education in Non-Traditional Settings with this description:

This session highlights informal education projects that combine innovative approaches to geoscience education with non-traditional settings and open unique opportunities to reach novel audiences.

I decided that my modest efforts to share my collections with both philatelic and geoscientific audiences, including this blog, could be the subject of a talk. So here is the Slides show of the resulting presentation that I will be making (still subject to edits) this coming Wednesday:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11uigQohlpkoor0E6n5_XLtwLmSy5SVKWfB4vNEo_xWQ/edit?usp=drive_link

Two sample slides are shown below.