@earthstory / earthstory.tumblr.com
This actually happened in my geology lab 2 years ago. Two rocks were indistinguishable from each other except in taste, so we had to lick them to differentiate them. Add that to the list of things we absolutely cannot do in 2020...
200819
images from thin sections in today's sedimentology lab! each slide contained a heap of fossils that can be used to determine the environment and rough location of depositional settings-i.e., palaeogeographic details about certain areas!
only week 3 and my maps are already getting so much better 😍 practice really does make perfect
This semester I'll be doing a mix of geology and geography courses again:
•Geophysics & Seismicity,
•Water resources,
•Sedimentary geology and
•Earth surface processes.
Also doing Spanish as well. I think a language is pretty important if you're gonna be in the field a lot.
Excited as much as I am anxious to go back but I can't wait to share whatever I learn with everyone and spread the joys of Geosciences 💖
Note: I'll also be stepping down from the Presidency role at the Astronomy club in my college to the Vice Pres. We're building our own telescope for members to use. Can't wait to see how things go 🤩
field mapping homework 😅 what a task
I love the half worn out NASA Meatball.
Tfw you’re thinking of changing your major again, and you’re only a sophomore,,, Yike ? I’ve always loved geology, but overall the anthropology classes at my university seem much more interesting, and double majoring is starting to look insane,,, (I think I’m finally realizing that indecision is my fatal flaw, whoops.)
The WHITE ROCK vs BLACK ROCK Conundrum
When you are a freshmen studying geology, a professor hands you a black rock and a white rock. The black rock, he/she says, is basalt. The white rock is limestone. Simple, right? Black basalt. White limestone. No problem.
The same year, on a field trip, you see a black rock and a white rock, and when the professor nods at you, it’s obvious: “Black basalt, right? White limestone, right?”
Several courses in petrology later, during your field mapping, you run into another black rock and white rock, scratch your head, consider the dozen sorts of lavas you now know about and sixteen varieties of limestone, then deduce: “maybe the black rock is basalt, maybe the white is limestone, I think.”
By the time of your doctoral orals, out come the black and white rocks once again. You’re now a specialist in black and white rocks. “Hmmm – this black rock possibly is basalt. The white one possibly is limestone.”
By the time you’re a professional geologist (if so blessed), it gets even worse. After years of experience, including mapping large areas of black micritic limestone and white hydrothermally altered lavas dating to the Precambrian, when faced with the white rock / black rock conundrum, you are now reduced to the stage of: “theoretically it’s conceivably a basalt; theoretically, conceivably, it’s limestone” as you scratch your head.
And no, limestone doesn’t always fizz in acid, assuming you didn’t leave your acid bottle behind since it has a tendency to eat holes in your pockets no matter how tight you think the cap is screwed on. And I have known black lavas to fizz when they include zeolite-facies calcite in vesicles, or underlie a large limestone formation through which the percolation of ground water has introduced calcite into every fracture in the lavas…
Sometimes the more one knows, the harder it becomes to be positive about anything.
And that's why we take lots of samples back to the lab even when we are confident that the black rock is basalt, and the white rock is limestone.
Annie R
Cartoon by Vincci Lau Original anecdote by: Prof. George Migiros, Agricultural University of Greece Some source material: Rassios, A. and Geo-friends of the Aliakmon Legacy Project, 2008: Rocks in the Wild, IGME, Greece, 128 pp. Book, sadly, nearly out of print, a few copies left. http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Unusual%20lava.html
I’m studying for my Geology final tomorrow, and I thought we’d have some fun. (Or at least try to) These are questions I am studying for my Geology final. Just send me in a number and I’ll answer it! It’s a bit more fun than just notecards.
Please only send 10 at a time (at max, because I know someone will say *all*). If it’s a statement, not a question, it’s a true/false.
Thank you guys! I hope I do well on this. I should have a similar post to this based around Unit 3 knowledge soon.
I wish I’d seen this post 2 days ago, this person probably took their exam yesterday.
My camera roll is cramped with images of rocks… Still not a rock expert
geology notes and a little scheme I did on explosive eruptions~
Hornblende PPL and XPL
6 days later, and my geological map is starting to take some shape!
PLASMA!
I was getting trained on a new ICP-MS today… it’s so much nicer than the OES I’ve been using! I love how the plasma looks, it feels very Blade Runner.
My advice for learning a new instrument from a lab manager or older student: ask literally any question that pops in your head that would help you understand how it works or clarify something about its operation. Don’t worry about feeling dumb — it’s much better to know stuff than to not! And TAKE NOTES. Take photos. Draw sketches. You’ll thank yourself later.
I lead a wild life
[28/100 days of productivity]
Today I went to the Mineralogy Museum to finish this year geology course. Bought a little labrador and snowflake obsidian.
(28 01 2019)
My petrography course is over.
