This contour map isn't a topographic map... |
Blaettler's assignment was, apparently, to improve on the job Soren Bagley had performed back in 2009 for eHow.com. We'd like to think that Karen, who claims to have worked as a geologist for a while (LinkedIn says 6 years working for a geotechnical engineering firm, her bio says 10) would do a better job than a film school grad, but nope...
Like Bagley, Blaettler immediately zeroed in on topographic maps:
"Topographic maps show the contours, or shape, of the land. Every map has a legend that explains the different colors and patterns. Normally contour lines will be brown and waterways will be blue..."
"A map's legend usually identifies the contour interval on the map, but sometimes only part of a map is available."To which we say, "Snort!"
While Blaettler's process for determining an unknown contour interval is (overly wordy, but more or less) correct, that's not the point of her Dumbass of the Day award. The point is that she does not serve science by using at least half of her post to explain how to use topographic maps. Instead, Karen G. would have been a better teacher if she had mentioned that contour lines can be used to depict any numerical data for which you have geographic information. To that end, we suggest that Blaettler, her content editor, and all the folks at Leaf Group look up the following words: isoline, isochron, isopach, isobar, isopycnal, isobath, isotherm, isoechoic, isohaline, isotach, isogauss... just about any word with the prefix "iso-." Heck, Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton once compiled and contoured a (subjective) "Beauty Map of England"; so yes, anything! |
¹ Lo and behold, Leaf Group sent Karen's version to yet another member of the rewrite team... It wasn't even there long enough to be captured by archive.org. So sad...
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