GeoConclave

Thinking about my days in undergrad, one of the best things that we had to do was what we called GeoConclave.  Every spring, the weekend before Fall Creek Falls State Park opened to the public, the geology departments around Tennessee would gather for a weekend of fun and geology.  The staple schools were UT Martin, Austin Peay, Middle Tennessee State University, and Tennessee Tech.  UT Knoxville would sometimes show up, depending on if they felt like they would win or not (they certainly didn't come to socialize).  I'm told that there have been years when schools from other states (Kentucky, North Carolina, maybe others) have also joined in on the festivities.

All in all, it was a great time.  The different schools (the staples) would take turns "hosting" it.  Being host meant that you came up with the field trip before the games.  This was generally a place in your neck of the woods.  I think when UTM hosted, they'd go to Coon Creek, because that's what we've got in the west.

In 2005, the last year I went, I think Knoxville was the host.  If not, it was Tech.  Either way, the field trip was around the area of the Sequatchie Valley.

Here our guides are pointing out to us where we are.

The Sequatchie Valley (which structurally is an anticline).

 Lots of outcrops were looked at over the day.  Some were even climbed, because, let's face it, we're geologists and all geologists are part mountain goat.

Our lunch stop, of course we had to climb up to the little cavern.

We were quite happy to stay up there.

Some outcrops were for learning, not climbing.

I'm sure I learned a lot that day, but it was 6 years ago, so I don't remember it now.

 After the fieldtrip was done (we spent the whole day out and went to various places to look at lots of fun rocks and geological features) it was back to the park and our camp ground.  Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the insides of the cabins, but I will forever be amused at the evacuation route posted inside.  The cabin is a small box with one door, but this was deemed necessary.

But...WHERE DO I GO?!

 Not much else to do with the fist day but cook a meal and drink some beer.

Around the campfire.

 The main reason for Conclave was the competitions of course.  Which school had the best grasp on geology?  Grad students aren't allowed to participate and, ideally, the specimens brought to be identified had never been seen by any of the students before (we're not sure that that held true...Tech always won mineralogy, and they were the ones that brought those specimens.

The morning competitions were split into two groups.  One was the ID: Rocks, Minerals, Fossils.  The students who chose to do those had about an hour for each (Minerals at 8, Rocks at 9, Fossils at 10).  While that was going on, there were three other competitions: Pace and compass, structure, and map reading (same time format, so if Minerals and Pace and Compass were at the same time, you'd need two different people).

Byron does pace and compass.

Josh takes the strike and dip.

Trying to figure out the mapping exercise.

Robert trying to identify the rocks.

Gibson helps clarify some part of the fossil competition to an MTSU student.

Same student still working on the fossils.

Once the morning competitions are done, everyone frets over how they did. "I should have known the name of that phylum, why couldn't I think of it?!" "Crap! I just remembered the chemical composition of corundum." and other such laments.  It's a very serious competition and obviously each school wants to do the best.

Between the morning and afternoon competitions is a good time for lunch, and a group photo.  Here's the 2005 UTM Conclave team.

Front row (L-R): Dr. Self, Josh, Biscuit (Robert), Dr. Gibson, Andrew. Middle row (L-R): Matt, Byron, Robert. Back row (L-R): Frodo (John), me (Beth)

 After lunch, the next round of competitions begin.  These would be the not-so-serious competitions.  Things like rock hammer throw and geode roll.  Not so serious, but no less important!

The first few rounds are distance.  How far can you throw the rock hammer? How far can you roll the geode (it's a special geode used just for Conclave).  You also have male and female competition.  Which is great, you know, if you have more than one girl on your team.  It's not so great when I'm the only girl and have no arm strength.  I still tried though!

Bryon throws the rock hammer for distance.

I attempt the same.

Frodo (John) rolls the geode for distance.

And again, me too.

 After distance, it's accuracy.  A pole in the field is the target and the winner is whoever gets closest.

Josh tosses the rock hammer for accuracy.

Byron rolls the geode for accuracy.

 Rock hammer throw and geode roll are always played at Conclave.  There are other games that run through depending on what the host school wants to play.  This particular year we had golf.  Teams of two (boy and girl) took their rock hammers and attempted to get a golf ball to hit a tiny little stake.

Look at my perfect form.

 Somehow, some way, Josh and I won that competition!  It was really the only thing that we won all weekend, so we were proud!

Afternoon games done, it was time for dinner.  A couple of our group left for a beer run while the rest of us fixed dinner.  When the beer run group came back, they came back with the absolute best thing ever: a whiffle ball and bat.  None of us could wait to finish dinner so that we could get a game going.

Pick up whiffle ball game.

Dr. Self even came out to ref for us!

 We had so much fun playing the game, we didn't care that it started to get dark or that we had one more competition of Conclave.  Eventually, though, the profs got us in, and the Rock Bowl started.

The Rock Bowl is actually the thing everyone really wanted to win.  Yeah, the morning and afternoon stuff is something we want to do well in and win, but the Rock Bowl...the Rock Bowl we want to WIN.  It's the classic College Bowl type game, only with geology questions.  You buzz in, get points, and really really hope to kick the other team's butt.

The UTM Rock Bowl team: Andrew, me (captain), Josh, and Matthew.

 This was not the year for UTM, unfortunately, but we still had fun.

Conclave was one of the best things we had to do as an undergrad in Tennessee.  Do other states/schools do this type of thing?  I haven't heard of it in other places I've been (Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina) and it seems like a waste of a chance to get departments together for a little fun and competition!

First Citation!

I have achieved my first citation!  I am quite happy about this.

For our research group, we read papers and discuss them, you know, like you do in research groups.  Jeff suggested the very recently published paper by Ausich and Kammer titled "Mississippian crinoid biodiversity, biogeography, and macroevolution."  I highly approved of this suggestion because it is clearly something that I am interested in and to me is much more enjoyable of a read than papers on statistics.

I started reading the paper, and maybe a paragraph in it dawns on me exactly what they are doing (I can be a bit slow on the uptake).  They are comparing crinoid faunas between North America and the British Isles during the Mississippian.  Well, my dissertation was on Mississippian crinoids of North America, particularly of an area very poorly studied.  On a whim, I skipped to the references to see if maybe, just maybe, I had gotten a cite.

Sure enough, there it was, my name in big letters with my dissertation title right next to it.

I HAVE MY FIRST CITATION!

I'm getting somewhere as a scientist.

Just too bad that they couldn't cite my real paper coming out this month and had to go with the unpublished stuff of the DFC.  But you know what? Who cares.  I certainly don't!

My First Earthquake

SOME BACKGROUND

I grew up in Northwest Tennessee.  And if you know anything about that area, you know it sits smack dab on top of the New Madrid seismic zone, home of some of the largest earthquakes in the contiguous US 201 years ago.

Those earthquakes are said to have rang the church bells of Boston.  They certainly caused the Mississippi to run backwards and that black blob above known as Reelfoot Lake was formed from those crazy messed up waters.

Fun times.

When I was in the third grade we had the big earthquake scare.  Iben Browning claiming that there was a 50% chance that a large ~7.0 magnitude earthquake would hit the area withing the first few days of December, 1990.  There was public panic and our school gave us permission to stay home the weekdays of the prediction (the absences only counting against the "I wasn't absent this year!" aspect of the school).  I remember being so angry at my father who still made us go to school.  Sure I was only three blocks from home (my brother, a grade older, was farther) but who wanted to go to school!?  Dad reckoned that if the earthquake hit, then authorities were more likely to hit up schools faster than homes.

Dad and his stupid logic.

So, I was off to school even though many were absent (didn't seem to worry about the quake hitting during the Christmas parade.  THAT was ok to go to) and one of my fellow classmates remembers having only three people in her class during that time.

As with predictions of that sort, the earthquake failed to happen and life in the rural area went on as normal.

MY FIRST

You would think, being in a fairly active seismic zone, I would have felt an earthquake early on.  Yes, the quakes in the area are small, but there were certainly many times when the people around me would be asking "Did you feel it?!" and sadly, I would say no.

My first earthquake wasn't felt until I neared my 21st year.  This may have been a good thing, as I may not have recognized it as one had I not been schooled in the hows and whys of earthquakes.

It was an early morning in June.  I was laying in bed, considering getting up to ready for my morning walk with one of my best friends, when suddenly things started to move.  My bed just started moving back and forth, from my feet to my head.

"What is going on?" I wondered.  My bed was not supposed to move unless I was making it so, and I certainly wasn't doing anything to make it so.

Instantly, logic took over.  Why would my bed move in such a way?  I started to think of earthquakes and the different movements of the waves.  The swaying motion certainly would fit that of the Love waves.  And as I learned later that the  epicenter was north of us, it certainly makes sense that the motion was the way it was in how my bed is arranged in the room.

Had I not already had my geology training, I may not have put any thought into what I had felt.  Maybe I would have realized what it was when I saw the news and it said that it was a 4.5 magnitude quake, but maybe not.

Almost exactly two years later, I felt my second, a 4.0, still someone along the New Madrid, though my personal journal doesn't give any more information than that.

The third, and final, quake I've thus far experienced was the 5.8 Mineral, VA one from 2011.  I was still in my early days at App State, using the conference room as an office.  That one had me more confused as to whether or not it was a quake because construction stuff was going on in and around the building, so it wasn't until the Twitter-sphere exploded a few seconds after my world stopped shaking that it was confirmed to be an earthquake.

Here's to many more (and as inconspicuous) quakes in the future!

New Blog!

I thought I might try out this "blogging" thing.  Keep it geologically related and more specifically, my own adventures as a geologist.

This idea came about the other day when, for whatever reason, I was thinking about the first earthquake I felt and how I determined it was an actual earthquake.  That shall be my "first" post.

I also figure that this would be a good distraction from postdoc stuffs.  Sometimes sitting in this office all day can get wearying and as most of the stuff I'm doing right now is just looking at illustrations of crinoids, not much fun.  Therefore, if I start losing focus, maybe I can find it again after writing something here.  'Tis a thought.

I basically have 13 years of greenhorn geology training behind me and years and years in front of me, so maybe I can update this somewhat frequently and make it interesting.