Revising glacial processes today (why is a geologist studying glaciers you may want to ask, well it’s because I ran out of options to choose so it was this or hydrology)
Lines, lines, more lines, and more lines, and regression
Been looking at seismic lines everyday this week for my advanced sequence strat course. Made me realise that I think I want to go into petroleum after my masters.
However, all the lines and 9-5 everyday thats been happening this week is starting to make us all go a bit retarded and silly.
So much so that several people wore pyjamas to the class today.
Seismic lines (2D ones that is) is pretty much, 99%, only used in petroleum (although some researchers use them to look at deep structures and Earth science phenomenum like the Moho).
For all those who are interested, this is the sort of shit we’ve been doing, e.g. using seismic lines in stratigraphy to interpret past environments, sea level, tectonics, etc. BUT we’ve also been analysing areas for source rocks, reservoirs, traps, etc. for hydrocarbons:
This is how I feel after stayping up last night until 6:40am writing my report for my field project which is due tomorrow.
To add a twist to it, I need to hand it in today as tomorrow I’m going home to see the doctors.
BUT IT’S ALL GOING OKAY.
Only got the abstract to write, so thats like 200 words, and my original cross section which I thought I lost has now been found!
Gonna get baked like a gateaux on Monday evening.
I (sort of) know what my lab project is on
Had a meeting with my project advisor today, and basically I’m going to looking how different lithologies of bed-load sediments affect the longitudinal profiles of rivers and the impact rivers have on the environment.
At least I think that is what it’s on.
He later went on to say that I could even include how different lithologies affect sedimentary basins (which is more of a geological thing to look at) as then you can look at a present-day sedimentary basin (or do other basin analysis) and have a better idea of the river system.
I think that’s my project.
This is all going to be using a mathematical model in a spreadsheet, so no faffing around booking equipment or costs and other things.
GOOD
Woop
Got a first for my field slips/maps from my summer mapping project and a 2.1 for my cross section, just the report to do now :) So happy
Pyroclastic Density Currents (PDCs)
or when igneous petrologists trick students in to thinking you will never need to graphic log igneous rocks THEN BAM!
PDCs are pretty to cool to look at, pretty shit to be stuck in one.
In essence, they are a combination of very very hot gases and debris from the volcano (range of sizes from ash to tuff to pebbles to large minerals that have been scraped off the sides of the volcano and are just ejected out).
When PDCs turn in to rocks by wizards, these are called ignimbrites, which can have a range of textures depending upon the PDC which formed it (google ignimbrite grade continuum or read Branney & Kokelaar 1991).
This is a Light microscope image of a welded ignimbrite, composed of eutaxitic lapilli-tuff as seen in thin section (Long dimension is several mm). The glass shards (mostly brown) sometimes become welded together when the deposit is still hot, and can be deformed by flow and compaction about crystal fragments (clear).
Here is one showing a fiamme texture:
Imagine Mr Burns (that Simpsons guy) saying “a-hoy-hoy” but it’s actually “pa-hoy-hoy”.
His voice always comes into my head when someone says pahoehoe
Also, gutted if your car was on this road.
Very strange collumnar jointing, note how it’s step like around the edges and then vertical in the middle, and suddenly a random pond (it was filled with pebbles).
Nummulites, and why you should be impressed.
These creatures are basically the giants of the microfossil world. They are foraminifera, and are protozoans (single celled organism). What you see in the photos are the tests (solid insides made of low-Mg calcite) and they would have been surrounded by a slimy cytoplasm so they would have been a lot bigger!
Nummulitic limestone is what the pyramids in Egypt are made from, and they are a big deal in terms of correlating rocks in the Eocene of the Mediterranean.
What is astonishing about them is that they are single-celled organisms, but grow to a massive size! There are still debates about why, but it is believed that they had algae symbionts (diatoms) which helped boost the nummulites’ metabolism so they could grow bigger and live longer!
It’s my birthday
Today I turn 22. I thought about revising, but thats obviously not happening as that would be silly.
Have a fun day geologising.
My crappy map from Ardnamurchan the other week. Currently writing a report on the geology encountered and I really can’t be arsed
