Field School (a more light-hearted journal entry)
Well, I don't have any photos yet (seeing as my friend was the one with the camera and I have to wait until she sends them all to me).... But the trip was awesome... if all school was like that... well lets just say I wouldn't have any trouble getting up at 6:30 in the morning for classes!
Our professors (Creaser and Froese) were completely awesome as were the TAs... not to mention great people to hang around a bar with. The mark was basically based on all the assignments and your field notes you took, the final exam was worth only 30%.
Other than that how cool is it to be hiking through back country looking at rocks, rock formations, outcroppings etc all day and getting credits for it!
Our route was basically Edmonton - Drumheller - Lethbridge - Waterton - Fernie - Radium (hot springs) - Jasper and then back to Edmonton
But we stopped at so many places in between...
At the hot springs, actually, we were looking at all the calcite formations, calcified leaves, bacteria drapes, tree trunks etc... and guess what we found? A calcified sock! It was completely coated in calcite but still recognisable as a sock. That gives an idea about how quickly things can be preserved in areas like that... Creaser took it back to the UofA as an excellent sample, of course.
The only bad thing on the trip was that we had to miss one of our planned stops because our bus broke down and it was dark by the time we reached it... I was very dissapointed that we didn't get to see the Crows Nest Volcanics... which are alkalic volcanic rocks (rich in alkali minerals such as orthoclase feldspar) But that are also the only type of volcanic rocks in which garnet forms (Garnet is normally only found in metamorphic rocks)
We still got to see a sample because there was a boulder of it at the Frank Slide... the stop at which our bus decided to break down... but I would have liked to have seen it on a larger scale... not the least because the garnets apparently just erode right out of the rock being more resistant to weathering than the rest of the minerals in the rocks' makeup.
Not only was the trip cool... the field notebook was awesome... its waterproof! Completely waterproof! it rained a bit one day (and of course that didn't stop us from going out
) and the water just beaded on the page and you could just wipe it right off! But pencils write on it just as if its normal paper!
Anyhow now I just have to wait for the pictures
Over and Out
~Em
Our professors (Creaser and Froese) were completely awesome as were the TAs... not to mention great people to hang around a bar with. The mark was basically based on all the assignments and your field notes you took, the final exam was worth only 30%.
Other than that how cool is it to be hiking through back country looking at rocks, rock formations, outcroppings etc all day and getting credits for it!
Our route was basically Edmonton - Drumheller - Lethbridge - Waterton - Fernie - Radium (hot springs) - Jasper and then back to Edmonton
But we stopped at so many places in between...
At the hot springs, actually, we were looking at all the calcite formations, calcified leaves, bacteria drapes, tree trunks etc... and guess what we found? A calcified sock! It was completely coated in calcite but still recognisable as a sock. That gives an idea about how quickly things can be preserved in areas like that... Creaser took it back to the UofA as an excellent sample, of course.
The only bad thing on the trip was that we had to miss one of our planned stops because our bus broke down and it was dark by the time we reached it... I was very dissapointed that we didn't get to see the Crows Nest Volcanics... which are alkalic volcanic rocks (rich in alkali minerals such as orthoclase feldspar) But that are also the only type of volcanic rocks in which garnet forms (Garnet is normally only found in metamorphic rocks)
We still got to see a sample because there was a boulder of it at the Frank Slide... the stop at which our bus decided to break down... but I would have liked to have seen it on a larger scale... not the least because the garnets apparently just erode right out of the rock being more resistant to weathering than the rest of the minerals in the rocks' makeup.
Not only was the trip cool... the field notebook was awesome... its waterproof! Completely waterproof! it rained a bit one day (and of course that didn't stop us from going out
) and the water just beaded on the page and you could just wipe it right off! But pencils write on it just as if its normal paper!Anyhow now I just have to wait for the pictures
Over and Out
~Em
posted by Old Earth Accretionist | 3:10 p.m.
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