EDITOR’S CORNER
Federal Rules on Fossils, Thoughts on Marches, and Exotic Island Geology.
John L. Berry, CPG-4032
In this quarter’s TPG there is a very good article by our ethicist, David Abbott. It covers a variety of topics, from how to make the best use of conferences, to a discussion of proposed new federal rules on the preservation of fossils found on public land, to safety and de-licensure. David would like to retire from the Ethics Committee and the preparation of the Ethics Column: if you, or anyone you know would make a good ethics committee person and journalist, please let us know. Thank you David for a wonderful job done over many years!
Much of this issue is taken up with announcements of the annual meeting and its field trips and social events. There are also the bios and statements of the candidates for national office. Please look this material over: we need your educated votes and I think that you will enjoy our Annual Meeting in Nashville even if. like me, you prefer musical genres other than those popular there. What could be better than to learn about the world’s longest cave system, or see where 8 priceless Thunderbirds (er, Camaros? er, oh well, they were priceless sports cars) disappeared down a sinkhole: in a museum yet!
In this issue of TPG we have contributed pieces repre- senting a wide range of topics, from the antics of inebriated miners (Lamarre), to the best way to deal with regulators (Horbaczewski), and a short piece on looking for MVT’s in Missouri and (Turner). We have two great stories concerning new and inspirational approaches to education. Liniger tells of how to use one of the more spectacular properties of rocks to reach out to many hundreds of children in grades 4-12. If only more of us could find the inspiration and the kind of energy that Doug showed in stepping in when his state cut back on the educational budget! Kackstaetter and EchoHawk tell about the very successful field-based approach to teaching geology to “non-traditional” students at the the undergraduate level at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Makes me wish I were going back to school now! More importantly, these students are going to learn practical things in the field and lab that many R1 (hate that acronym - I think it stands for Rank1 Research University) students are expected to master by groveling before the “owner” of the piece of equipment that they need to learn to use. Michael Urban’s Educator’s page brings this focus into our professional realm with a discussion of the options available for continuing professional eduction.
Aaron Johnson has a well-reasoned piece on AIPG’s atti- tude, as an organization, to the recent March for Science. I would personally have loved to have taken part, but couldn’t. Professional organizations are in a weak position when it comes to taking part officially in anything that can be seen as lobbying, or trying to influence politics, because of both their tax position, and their openness to charges of self-interest. In particular, we see more and more the accusation from some
members of the public that som scientists deliberately try to scare the people and their politicians in order to bring in more grant money. That, to me, leaves science and branches of science emasculated in ways they shouldn’t be. Some other countries have very efficient systems by means of which the government itself reaches out to scientific and technical insti- tutes (such as, in Britain, the Geological Society of London or the Institution of Mining and “Metallurgy”, to ask for unbiased white papers on specific issues. It is left to the scientific bodies in question how to ensure thorough and unbiased input: but their continued positions of public respect depend on their being able to do so.
I’m writing this to you from Germany, en route to the three large islands of the western Mediterranean: Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, where I hope to observe some of the fascinating local geology, as well as the archeology and local culture. Sicily I already know something about: the island is formed of a series of large nappes from the north (i.e. thrust out of the Tyrrhenisn Basin onto African Crust. As a result the evaporites of the Messinian salinity crisis, laid down on this African crust, can be anywhere from 7,000 feet below sea-level to nearly a thousand feet above sea level. Gypsum has been mined for centuries, but bitterns are present, too. In the nine- teenth century British companies mined potassium (sylvite), exploiting children as young as 6 years old to carry loads up and down stairs hewn in the narrow and steep inclines which gave access to the underground. This gave Agrigento-born Luigi Pirandello (playwright and novelist) good reason to hate the English. Today potash is produced from deep boreholes between Caltanisetta (where the Sicilian School of Mines is located) and Agrigento, an ancient Greek town on the south coast. Etna also sits in part on the evaporite basin. While in Sicily I will be field-checking the results of a project I have recently done in the hinterlands of Selinunte, another beauti- ful Greek city on the far SW coast, for an archaeologist friend,
Sardinia has its nuraghi (ancient stone towers), but it also has a varied geology. The NE of the island consists largely of granites, basalts and metamorphic rocks, whereas the SW portion is largely limestone, and contains some apparently Mississippi-Valley-Type Lead-Zinc deposits. The NE corner of Corsica contains a Tertiary (Alpine) ophiolite complex thrust westward onto a Permo-Triassic igneous complex which itself inrudes Panafrican crust.
We need more really good articles for TPG: my I encourage you to send in any good ideas you have!
I shall be keeping in regular touch with Dorothy Combs at the office, so TPG will go on as usual.
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