How Lucky You Are – Today You Have Choices
William J. Elliott, CPG-04194
In today’s world, with modern equipment and technology, things can be done and accomplished that couldn’t have even been imagined only a few tens of years ago.
Let’s take a brief look back at satellites, for example. In your great-grandparent’s generation, the earth had one natural satellite – the moon. It was a literary favorite for poetry and prose – love, insanity, mystery, and never ending specula- tion about its composition. During the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year, the first artificial earth satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union. In May 1961, with the space-race and the cold-war going full tilt, President Kennedy challenged American ingenuity to put a human on the moon before the end of the decade. Apollo 11 rose to the challenge and safely transported three astronauts to-the-moon-and- back in July 1969. Just for fun, ask your mature relatives if they remember where they were when Neil Armstrong first climbed off the Eagle Lander and stepped onto the lunar sur- face. Eugene Cernan and geologist Harrison Schmitt were the last humans to walk on the moon in December 1972. We have learned much since then, including that the moon is composed of basic/mafic rocks.
Things we take for granted (not granite) today were trans- ferred from someone’s fuzzy ideas to napkins or the back of envelopes, and then refined on wooden drafting boards. Think about it. Space travel in the middle of the last century was engi- neered with pencil-paper-eraser, logarithmic tables, and – of all things – slide rules (Figure 1). Our infrastructure of the 19th and 20th century also was engineered with these same primi- tive tools. Examples include the Erie Canal (1825), Brooklyn Bridge (1883), Empire State Building (1931), Hoover Dam (1936), and Golden Gate Bridge (1937), to name only a few.
water, and a backpack filled with lunch, first aid kit, and a few cloth sample bags (with a thick paper ID tag stitched into each bag’s seam).
Fast forward to the early 21st century. Now-a-days, with Global Positioning Satellites, the Internet, handheld tablet computers, and an “app” for just about everything, a day in the field, if you choose, can be about as challenging as walking around pushing buttons on one or more handheld electronic devices. At the end of the day, a final button push can present you and your home-office with a geologic map and structure sections documenting the day’s activities. Equally, your super- visor will have been able to direct your every move via your satellite connection to the internet.
So, catch 22, you are damned if you do rely on technology and you are damned if you don’t.
The advantage of using modern-day technology includes: accuracy of location and altitude, computer-generated graph- ics, and a false sense of security and accomplishment. All that is left for you to do is to record attitudes by laying your smart- phone compass/inclinometer on planar surfaces, photograph outcrops, fill sample bags, and make preliminary assessments of rock/soil types, color, texture, porosity, and other project- specific data. Done! Not a lot of critical, multi-dimensional thinking required. Then, off to the diner, a couple of brewskies and bed – all to be repeated the next day, and the next. Boring, but your boss loves it!
During the 20th century, geologic mapping was done wear- ing field-boots, snake leggings, and wide brimmed hats with chin straps to keep from being blown away by unexpected gusts of wind. The basic tools for a typical field geologist included a map board, paper topographic maps, printed black and white stereographic aerial photographs,a portable stereoscope, paper notebooks, marker pens, lead pencils, colored pencils, Brunton compass, rock hammer, tape measure, hand lens attached to a rawhide neck lanyard, steel WWII canteen of
But technology alone cannot duplicate the thinking geolo- gist, who can continually process and incorporate data as it is collected. The advantage of doing field work the old fashioned way, using your brain to check the geologic reality and the internal consistency of your technological gadgets, is that at the end of the day you will have had to stretch the muscle between your ears to think in 6 dimen- sions (X, Y, Z, Time, Geologic Processes, and Interaction-with /Changes-in Geologic Processes over Time). And most importantly, you will have developed a mental model of what the geologic map and structure sections should look like after you’ve completed them in camp or in your motel room. You will intuitively know where you want to go the next day to look for contacts, faults and missing strata – an energizing and fulfilling feeling that can only come from applying your geologic sense and skills to make those critical decisions. With each day in the field, the geologic puzzle will become clearer and your self-esteem will grow. Then, at the end of the project, the exhilaration of presenting your hand-drawn results (that improves or cor- rects the technological version) to your boss will provide an emotional achievement that cannot be taken away from you!
So, it may or may not be up to you – how you want to do field work. But, if you have a say in the decision, do it with your brain engaged in the process and experience the feelings of self-esteem and self-worth that come with good old fash-
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