#geology things

[i-like-rocks22]

YEAAAH CHRISTIAAN, GANT CHARTTTT BOIIII

[quixoticanarchy]

im so conflicted about gravel on the one hand it’s usually full of quite cool looking rocks and they’re very small and easy to pick up and pocket but they’re also almost certainly carted in from elsewhere and therefore don’t tell you anything about the ‘real’ geology of a given place and aren’t a good souvenir bc they’re so generic. I mean they’re specific to someplace but once they’re dumped out on the side of a road they lose all original geographic ties. however they still look cool and ill still be picking them up

[plaguedocboi]

I’ve been doing some field work with geologists this winter and I’m kind of amazed by how these dudes can pick up a handful of dirt and talk about it for an hour using terms I’ve never heard of. Like wow you see a whole universe in there that I don’t. The world is truly full of beauty and we only comprehend a fraction of it.

[amnhnyc]

Today’s Exhibit of the Day? The Museum’s giant amethyst geode. Standing 9 ft (2.7 m) tall and weighing around 11,000 lbs (5,000 kg), it’s one of the largest specimens in our halls. How did this dazzling geode come to be? About 135 million years ago, the continental plates carrying South America and Africa began to separate. Magma poured out from fractures in Earth’s crust and large gas bubbles escaped from within the magma—becoming trapped in the rock as it solidified, forming cavities. Groundwater flowing into these spaces brought dissolved silica, which crystallized into quartz. Over millennia, most of these quartz crystals turned into rich purple amethyst. Spot this and other amazing specimens in the Museum’s Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals!

Photo: D. Finnin/ © AMNH 

[quixoticanarchy]

[id: text reading “Note: Tasting the dirt and water is a bad idea, and therefore it is not advised to take young children or geologists to this site.” end id]

Found this while researching places to visit

[whoisandyloam]

When my professor starts lecturing on one of my special interests

[ttsquid]

HOT PINK PRINCESS BERRYBOO SQUIDDLE BASS AVALIABLE NOW ONLY $599!!!!!!!!

[twofacedgods]

A little bit of lava. A first attempt at embroidering an effusive eruption, in the style perhaps of fissural eruptions in Iceland or Hawaii.

[gaystropod]

Hey geology guys

Why?

[friedmagazinebouquet]

I can't even play minecraft like a normal person anymore because every single time I do anything my thoughts are just

"That is K-spar rich granite"

"Andesite is a fine grained intermediate igneous rock and diorite is a coarse grained intermediate igneous rock"

"I like that they included the presence of mica when they were designing the granite texture"

"Hey look at all the clay in the river. DID YOU KNOW THAT CLAY IS EXTREMELY FINE GRAINED SEDIMENT THAT-"

"I love the different rocks that minecraft has added, but I think they should be even more specific. Where's my gabbro, minecraft??? You gave me basalt, now I want gabbro"

"Tuff is pronounced so weird AND IS ALSO A PYROCLASTIC ROCK. DID YOU KNOW THAT"

[bananafrog26]

Hey geologists I need a bit of help with my worldbuilding.

So I'm adding dwarves to my setting but not your typical short stubby fleshy dudes. But rather short stubby rocky dudes. There are three types of dwarves upper crust, mid crust, and lower crust. They grow at different levels in the earth's crust and are made out of different rocks depending on what's available at that level. Like if they're closer to the surface they're made out of rocks and gems and such that naturally grow at that level.

Small issue though I have no idea what grows- forms? At those different levels farther or closer to the surface and I also don't know in what amounts. What's rare and what's common? I imagine diamonds don't grow in the same place as amethyst.

If you guys could help me out it would be much appreciated!

P.s. I did try googling it first but I couldn't find anything.

P.p.s. a visual representation like a rock map or something would be nice but is not required.

P.p.p.s. please don't be mean to me I'm not an expert on rocks I don't know exactly what to search for which is why I'm asking for help.

[good-night-space-kid]

Geology and The Terror

As a geologist who is incapable of turning off their geology brain even while watching shows for fun, one of the things that baffles me a bit about The Terror is why they continuously refer to the landscape as shale when both King William Island and the filming location in Pag, Croatia are dominated by limestone. Given the desolation of the landscape, the geology is rather at the forefront of many scenes so it was fun to try and parse it out as I watched.

King William Island, Nunavut, Canada

According to the official map of the bedrock of the region as published by the Canadian government (Harrison et al., 2015), the entirety of King William Island is mapped as dolostone, dolomitic limestone, and limestone with only minor components of shale, sandstone, conglomerate, and breccia. This is a shelf marine deposit dating back to the Late Cambrian, so this is very old sedimentary rock but younger than most of the surrounding hard rock that composes various parts of the Canadian shield. Notably, the pink units mapped on the Boothia Peninsula are Paleoproterozoic in age (2.5-1.6 billion years old), potentially up to 2 billion years older than the limestones of King William Island.

(This is an absolutely massive .pdf file with some scaled features so I would recommend viewing via the official publication to actually read anything or see fine details: publications.gc.ca/pub?id=9.557274&sl=0)

Notably, this map was published in 2015, 8 years after the novel was written. However, according to the bibliography for the map (which can be accessed via the previous link) a preliminary geologic map has existed for the area since at least 1967, though I was unable to track this publication down online. The novel was clearly thoroughly researched and Dan Simmons could have easily accessed this publication and others through multiple institutions.

The surficial geology of King William Island has also been mapped, and is predominantly glacial, as one would expect given it's location. For those unfamiliar with glacial geology processes, this is basically saying that the bedrock is buried under a bunch of glacial deposits. Glacial till is composed of rocks and sediments plucked from the bedrock and ground up. This is why the surface of the island is not one big rock, but a bunch of smaller pieces. Interestingly, the material on the southern part of the island is sandier because it contains more material derived from the Canadian Shield further south. If you're interested in glacial geology, I highly recommend zooming around a bit on Google Earth because the features here are GORGEOUS.

(This map is absolutely massive and the lines scale with zoom so it's hard to see at this resolution, access it here: publications.gc.ca/pub?id=9.834073&sl=0)

(Google Earth Pro, satellite imagery from 2020)

According to the surface geology map and Google Earth, the actual landscape of King William Island is much more water logged than it appears in the show. It's not entirely impossible that there has been some geomorphological change since 1848, but most of the features mapped would have been formed during the last ice age and as the glaciers melted and not more recently. This would have been handy for the men of the Franklin Expedition because each of these pools is filled with freshwater.

Pag, Croatia

Tracking down a geologic map of Croatia was somewhat challenging as I don't speak Croatian. I was able to find a map of the whole country, and while it's all in Croatian the symbol for the geologic time periods is universal so time periods can be correlated. This shows that the units that make up Pag are Cretaceous and Paleocene-Eocene in age.

(Map accessed here: https://www.hgi-cgs.hr/en/geoloska-karta-republike-hrvatske-1300-000/)

I was able to find a .pdf (access here: http://kig.kartografija.hr/index.php/kig/article/view/158/274) that had a bit more information on the map above but at a lower resolution. This states that the Cretaceous units are dominantly carbonates from the Adriatic sea and the Eocene units are also carbonates. This makes sense as both the Cretaceous and Paleocene-Eocene boundary/PETM are times of increased global temperature correlated with increases in global sea level.

As always, the best geology website out there, Macrostrat, also came through on the unit lithologies. I was unable to access the source listed on Macrostrat, but both the Cretaceous (green) and Paleocene-Eocene units (orange) are listed as limestone.

(Source: https://macrostrat.org/map/#x=16&y=23&z=2)

One of the best views that we get of the geology on Pag is the last scene with Bridgens in episode 9. During the zoom out of this scene we get a really nice view of the bedrock and debris covering it.

Given all of this, I'm really not sure where the landscape description as shale came from. If there is historical precedence for calling the rocks on the island shale, let me know! I have read a few books but none of the primary sources from the expeditions to this region, so if it comes from that I wouldn't be surprised.

Overall though, I have to say that the filming location was well chosen given the similarities it holds to the geology of King William Island.

[gottalottarocks]

God ok so some family friends have been clearing out their elderly fathers science lab that was set up in their basement so they can sell the house… they were like oh you like science what do you want?

I GOT A MICROSCOPE MOTHERFUCKERS

[amnhnyc]

💎 Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry is now open! This show is curated by guest curator Vikki Tobak, and guest co-curators Kevin “Coach K” Lee, and Karam Gill. The advisory includes Slick Rick, LENNY S., Mandy Aragones, Timothy Anne Burnside, Tanisha Ford, Alex Moss, Peter Nice, and Bevy Smith.

✨ Shout out to Mr. Flower Fantastic and DJ Clark Kent for helping us kick off the opening of Ice Cold.

[nocinovae]

Minecraft feels like it doesn’t know what to do for big updates any more so they’re doing like small miscellaneous updates collected together. I wish they’d move on from trying to give them a theme bc I feel like that’s just confusing.

One thing I wish they’d do is do updates from time to time and go back and add pieces to old update. Like maybe add more fish or tree types.

Specifically what made me have this thought is that I’d love if they’d add more to the geodes. Like the amethysts are lovely but I’d love if there was a whole range of crystals to find in geodes!! I feel like that’s along the line of the archaeological stuff they’ve done recently! Digging into the earth for history and stuff!

Also if they ever do a forest update I’d freak out. I’d love if they revamped their nature bc I feel like that part of the over world specifically has been the same since the beginning era of minecraft. Like ocean, nether, caves, villages, NOW FOREST. And end.

Feels like natural progression of their universe growing! And I like feeling like the updates can have a “story” like aspect to me. Especially bc worldbuilding. Favorite idea when it comes to minecraft lore

[overthemoonminerals]

Fluorite from the Green Toad Pocket of the Lady Annabella Mine in Weardale, England