LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Adam,
Hey, great edition last time. I always love the Tales from the Field. We should be able to get even more. There have got to be some great stories. Not as much fun as sitting around a table full of fellow geologists with beer, but still good to read.
And the Geosites article was also top-notch. Jim Burnell, CPG-11609, Golden Colorado
I graduated high school in 1971 and started my freshman year at the Colorado School of Mines. During the summers of 1973 and 1974, I worked for Rocky Mountain Energy, a part of Union Pacific Railroad. I learned how to sample coal seams, sample preservation, and mapping outcrops based on burn observations of overburden.
The curriculum at the Colorado School of Mines included many one-day field trips, a six-week field course in survey- ing, and a six-week field course in geology. The geology camp included camping in tents and six, one-week problems in map- ping, cross-sectioning, and building stratigraphic columns.
Dear Editor Heft:
When flipping through the July/August TPG, I realized how much the full-color edition makes the magazine pop. Geologic maps, photos, and titles – just the whole edition looked great. And that was a fantastic choice of a photo for the cover. The sky colors were stunning and of course the subject matter (ore dock on Lake Superior) was so appropriate for the upcoming meeting in Marquette. A special shout-out goes to photogra- pher Sara Pearson for that fabulous cover!
I’ve got the magazine in my reading pile, and I’m looking forward to getting into the many articles. In the meanwhile, though, I just wanted to tell you that the change to all-color was very noticeable and that your efforts in putting out a quality magazine are much, much appreciated.
Dawn Garcia, CPG-08313, Tuscon, Arizona
Then I went to work in phosphate ore mining and prelimi- nary mining in Idaho. This entailed complex cross-sectioning, field mapping, and execution of drilling programs. All for mine planning. Then I went to work in oil shales, executing drill plans to observe efficiencies of rubbilization created by various blast patterns. Then I worked in the geotechnical Engineering business beginning in 1982 to retirement in 2018.
I’ve effectively bridged the professional life between the old ways of doing things and the new ways of doing things. Old and new ways, in this case, defined by the amount of change inflicted by technology on aspects of professional business.
Old ways should not be abandoned because of technology. Technology should not override the old ways or the fundamen- tals. For example:
It should be a skill to do math functions by hand before relying wholly on an electronic calculator;
Drafting should be a skill with tools like LeRoy ink sets, square, table, innate neatness before relying wholly on
computer programs;
Editor’s note: This letter was transcribed from a handwritten letter from the author received at AIPG headquarters…
Reading the
Jul.Aug.Sep 2022 Edition of TPG, I had particu- lar interest in two articles: “Teaching Field Geology Online”; and a “Letter to the Editor”, by Bognar. Both articles touch on the future teaching of geological subject matter.
In high school, I spent two summers working in the field for a geologist who was gathering and interpreting field data for his PhD thesis at the Colorado School of Mines. The field work entailed measuring and describing approximately 40 to 50 stratigraphic columns through the Upper Cretaceous Fox Hills Formation. I was taught fundamental things like the operation of a Brunton Compass, strike and dip, the use of the Jacobs Staff, fossil types and effects (bioturbation, etc.), paleoenvironments, etc. The work was completed in the field in 1969 and 1970.
In the Summers of 1971 and 1972, I worked for an engineer- ing and surveying company as a chainman, instrument man, and rodman. I learned quite a bit about plan reading and laying information on the ground for construction.
4 TPG •
Oct.Nov.Dec 2022
Surveying should be a skill (with a four-man crew or two-man crew with a plane table and alidade) with
the ability to field fit any erroneous data from plans, as opposed to a one-man crew with a GPS not knowing what the survey says without subsequent download at the office and review by a licensed surveyor;
A geologist’s observations in the field with rock and magnifying lens in hand, as opposed to one’s observa-
tions from the computer monitor;
Concrete proportioning done by hand should come from the engineer’s knowledge of the materials and not
simply based on one or two laboratory results plugged into the computer
We don’t want to lose our professions wholly to technology. We shouldn’t think ourselves experts or professionals by read- ing and regurgitating snippets from Google. The true story may be something different. If we master and understand the fundamentals, then we can use and control technology, rather than technology controlling us. Just seems like good business.
John C. Bozner, CPG-08066, PE
www.aipg.org
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
