Fun With Geology

[unjonharley]

The meek shale inherit the Black Rock City

[maryanimal]

The meek shale inherit the Black Rock City

Amen unjon! *hug*

[Trishntek]

The meek shale inherit the Black Rock City

Amen unjon! *hug*

What's a meek shale? Is that plural or singular?

I thought the dust inherit Black Rock City,,, no?

Is there a geologist in the house?

[Scatter42]

'Is there a geologist in the house?'

Dr. Rhino

Paging Dr. Rhino....

[mudpuppy000]

He's full of schist!

[ygmir]

just don't take him for granite.

[Sham]

I am so stoned!

[Scatter42]

Rock on...!

[FIGJAM]

How long do I have to hold them till they start to count?

This one is getting hungry and starting to wriggle.

[Ugly Dougly]

There's got to be a certain pleasure in being the flakiest person in the camp. Maybe better to be the second flakiest, so you can always point to someone who's worse than you.

See? I am already making concrete plans for 2013.

[theCryptofishist]

I hope you're not trying to build something on a foundation of flakey concrete. Especially near the San Andreas.

[^Rhino!]

"Dr. Rhino

Paging Dr. Rhino...."


You rang?

I got the question. Hmmm...the meek SHALE inherit the earth......or is it ashes to ashes, DUST TO DUST?

I'll briefly tell a story from the 2012 burn to illustrate my point, stay within the boundaries of the board, a stay on topic.


One of the most accountable and hard charging individuals we had at the Black Rock Beacon this year was Ringo Firefly. Absolutely a joy to be around...wonderful million-dollar smile and positive attitude went a long way towards making my burn that much better. I'm glad I met her. She had one weakness that she took care of herself, that of what she called 'sissy la la coffee'. Basically it was nothing more than the high-dollar Genreal Foods' Internation Coffee in hazelnut flavor. She had to have it, until the intervention of Dr. Rhino:

"Hey Ringo, how do you make that stuff anyway?"

***she hands me the coffee tin which IDs its contents for me.

"'Did you read this, Ringo?"
"What?", she resoponded, her curiosity on the rise.
"Look at the ingredients. Tell me if you see silicon dioxide in thi list..."
"Yeah, but so what?"
"Silicon dioxide is quartz. Inert. It does nothing in the can other than serve as an 'anti-caking agent'. And with this stuff, it's probably silt-sized particles. You know what that means, don't you?"
"It's nothing more than freeze-dried hazelnut coffee plus playa dust. Quartz IS the major ingredient in playa dust, you know?"

Next morning, Folger's Instant was sufficient for her needs.

To add insult to injury, I put a teaspoon of playa dust in my coffee, and quaffed the beverage greedily.

A little knowledge goes the wrong way a long way.

[Snow]

hey we are having corny geology jokes and no one invited me?

some light geology reading


During a heated discussion Opal screamed at Amber, telling her that not
only was she not a jewel but she wasn't even a mineral.

"Is that so," Amber snorted, stating flatly that Opal had no cleavage.



Rhino, I know its been a long time since we chatted about this but has a good analysis been done on the makeup of playa dust (other than bob's heating ang eng properties)? I was actually considering a sampling method that is easy for people to have in camps to get a rep sample of what's flying in the air out there.

[Snow]

What do you do with dead geologists? ..........Barium





Geologists will date anything.

[wh..sh]

Geologists will date anything.

[Bob]

Book 'em all, Dano...

Aggregated Vesicular Basalt.

[mudpuppy000]

*snort*

[^Rhino!]

Bob, I must say you really scoria-ed with that last one.

[BTW, the City of Dallas actually buys all the basalt produced by one quarry I know of in Oklahoma. They use it as a passive settling pool substrate in their main sewage treatment plants. Sun hits the raw sewage, the digestion process is accelerated as the bacteria is warmed up, and they treat greater volumes of wastewater because of it.]

I knew this discussion would get flushed sooner or later.

[Bob]

Poor little Texas, they don't have a state mineral. I nominate dickite, because it comes in quartz.

[^Rhino!]

Bob, I suppose that the California state mineral is cummingtonite?

In the Grand Canyon, there's a Devonian formation known as the Surprise Formation. The reason for its existence is its occurrence in Surprise Canyon. USGS has a protocol for the use of geographic place names for formational nomenclature, and it fit the bill in more ways than one. They had just determined that a new and unexpected Devonian-aged sedimentary rock deposit occurred there, so it truly was a Surprise Formation.

BTW, whatever happened to the subject of the thread?

[ygmir]

[media]

[wh..sh]

USGS has a protocol for the use of geographic place names for formational nomenclature, and it fit the bill in more ways than one.

Hmm, I am confused. I am sure there is a pre-cambrian formation called "Vishnu". Named after the Hindu god, I suppose...
Of course, I know nothing about Geology. So, my understanding could be way off.

[ygmir]

USGS has a protocol for the use of geographic place names for formational nomenclature, and it fit the bill in more ways than one.

Hmm, I am confused. I am sure there is a pre-cambrian formation called "Vishnu". Named after the Hindu god, I suppose...
Of course, I know nothing about Geology. So, my understanding could be way off.

*faints*

[Ugly Dougly]

Please. Be careful around Ygmir. I think he's got the vapours.

Wh..sh, the early explorers of Grand Canyon were probably so overwhelmed by the formations there, that only names of deities would serve. I think they raided a number of mythologies, er, religions for this purpose.

[Snow]

Damn I still have the formations of the grand canyon memorized from my Stratigrraphy class. I try to forget but they just won't go away.

[theCryptofishist]

Damn I still have the formations of the grand canyon memorized from my Stratigrraphy class. I try to forget but they just won't go away.

Don't say that. Larry will use them for street names with some sort of geology theme...

[Foxfur]

Methinks the OP will exceed the popularity of the male flying nocturnal mammal and perhaps even the producer of optical media...

[^Rhino!]

USGS has a protocol for the use of geographic place names for formational nomenclature, and it fit the bill in more ways than one.

Hmm, I am confused. I am sure there is a pre-cambrian formation called "Vishnu". Named after the Hindu god, I suppose...
Of course, I know nothing about Geology. So, my understanding could be way off.

*faints*

Named for Vishnu Temple, one of the prime monoliths rising from the inner canyon floor. by John Wesley Powell (2nd USGS director and widely acclaimed as the 'father' of the USGS) in 1869 during the first expedition down the Colorado. The Precambrian Vishnu Schist of the inner canyon is the deepest formation exposed there. It also acts as a giant reflector oven in the early spring, heating up the inner canyon to uncomfortable temperatures if you're working to map its occurrence. You say, 'Oh, schist!" and get away from it quickly before you overheat.

One of the inner canyon rims is known as the Esplanade. If Larry finds that out, he might name streets at the event something geologically, in all probability. Of course, I've never met the man, so I can't speak for him.

[wh..sh]

Named for Vishnu Temple, one of the prime monoliths rising from the inner canyon floor. by John Wesley Powell (2nd USGS director and widely acclaimed as the 'father' of the USGS) in 1869 during the first expedition down the Colorado. The Precambrian Vishnu Schist of the inner canyon is the deepest formation exposed there. It also acts as a giant reflector oven in the early spring, heating up the inner canyon to uncomfortable temperatures if you're working to map its occurrence. You say, 'Oh, schist!" and get away from it quickly before you overheat.

One of the inner canyon rims is known as the Esplanade. If Larry finds that out, he might name streets at the event something geologically, in all probability. Of course, I've never met the man, so I can't speak for him.

Yeah, I did notice few names of Hindu Gods.
Thanks for the info. Grand Canyon is definitely one of the magnificent places I have had the opportunity to witness in my lifetime. Just blows your mind!

[^Rhino!]

You're quite welcome.

I'm still in awe of the place myself, even after hiking down to the bottom. I guess I'm even more awed when I begin to realize what a huge time frame is there, and what a huge time frame ISN'T there. Considering that the vast majority of sediments in the modern record are from two or three-day storm events over hundreds or thousands of years, what you're seeing is a massive set of disconformities let alone the 'Great Unconformity' under the Cambrian beds. Add to that that the top of the Grand Canyon is Permian in age (greater than 225 million years old) and you're seeing just a MINUTE FRACTION of the sedimentary rock record.

Look at it this way. You go down to Florida today in the Florida Keys, and you start taking cores of the sediments on land, and all you see are storm deposits left by hurricanes. Three inches here from Andrew, three to six inches there from Betsy, and eventually you get down to the Pleistocene after seeing a myriad of storm deposits. Bedrock may be twenty inches down or it might be a number of feet, and it's all that's left after the last 100,000 years of repeated cycles of erosion and sedimentation. If you measure sediment accumulation (and believe me, the University of Miami, the University of Florida, the USGS, and every geologic organization and entity have looked at it at one time or another) then you see that offshore sediment accumulation rates are measured in millmeters every few hundred years. By comparison, the Grand Canyon is what, a mile or more deep? That's over 1.6 million mm.

You do the math, and geologic time makes you feel insignificant compared to its vast tapestry. It makes your day when you realize that you can view the color, the beauty of it all and it was over a billion years in the making. Friggin' AWESOME.

That's why the God seen by evolutionary theorists is so much more awe-inspiring than that seen by creationists. He had the time to do it right, not a few thousand years to cut a 'big ditch'.