DARK AGE here means the time when I'm completely physically dark. But why only this year? I wish It is only this year. Because I want to settle all field works before the new year, so I'll be going for maybe around 15 days field work on May, August, October and probably December if I don't have enough data. So during those 15 days on each of those months, I'll be dating with rocks and try to get to know them better. Not just that, I have several other field works between them, probably a week or two, depending on how much data my supervisor needs. So yeah, this year is going to be LEGEND........wait for it(I need to finish my food)....DARY. LEGENDARY!!!
Recently I just had a little conversation with friends from the past. The last time I saw them was after the primary school's exams. It was good to get in touch with them again after all these years, but there is one question that truly bothers me. First of all, it is not that I hate them when they ask me this question, but I think they should at least heard about it. Not completely clueless, since most of them are already working they should know about it and besides, it is an old thing, it is not something new. It bothers me when they ask
"What is geology"
Because after they asked that, they wanted a proper explanation, so I gave them as simple as brief as possible. But, they wanted more, so then I just gave them the wikipedia answers, since that's gonna be the best explanation and hope they understand. If they don't, the whole conversation will be me telling what geology is. To make everything clear, Geology is not the same as Geography. But there is a good thing behind that, I now have something to write here since I have no clue at all after the Sarawak's fieldwork.
So it has come to this
WHAT IS GEOLOGY??
Simply said, it is the study physical and substance of earth or to be more specific it is the study of rocks and what's inside them. This study will give you a story of how a rock is formed and what are the processes associated with it. within a rock there are minerals, minerals are like cells in human, animals and plants. The combination of minerals create a rock. They're formed at specific condition. so rock is defined by its mineral composition. Three main types of rocks are igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks come from the crystallization of magma both inside and outside the earth surface. Sedimentary rocks are formed from the eroded or weathered (physically or chemically) igneous rocks, animals and plant remnants, are deposited at certain environment and then lithified. Metamorphic rocks are formed from sedimentary rocks that are buried deep enough for the grains to recrystallize due to heat and pressure. I don't want to go further coz it will take forever once I go into one topic and yeah that's what I think geology is in general.
We as geologists do not scare of anything, we are designed to overcome almost everything and can survive in the worst condition imaginable. Thus, that make one of the toughest people in the world other than polices, athletes, wrestlers, soldiers, martial art masters and Chuck Norris. Earth is our home and we are free to explore them, unless mining sites or highways, we need to get permission to stop there. True geologist must not afraid of height, because sometimes we need to reach out a certain height due to the present of outcrops. When we see an outcrop let say about 15 meters height, and the outcrop has inclination of 45-70 degrees, we can reach that effortless. Somehow we have spider-man DNA in our bodies, which enables us to climb more than average human being. If you are walking with geologists in a fieldwork and they find an interesting outcrop, they will run towards it, if not at least they will fast-walked. If it is high from the ground with inclined surface as I've mentioned before, they will get there before you know it. You blink for 2 seconds and they're already up there, but since we are also human beings, getting down is sometimes a little bit problems.
Since everything is about rocks, we have some tools that every geologist should bring to deal with rocks in the field others than pens, pencils, erasers and books or papers. There are also tools for the lab's works, but I wont mention it here since I don't really know some of their names and besides certain tools are only used for certain branches of geology.
This is the famous geology hammer. This hammer is not sold in any general hardware stores. Because until today I still haven't found any which means that I still do not have my own hammer. We need to order online to get it and this hammer is quite expensive. Like in a game, it is a must have tool. Because this hammer is stronger than normal hammer. The handle and the part-where-you-use-to-hit are one component made from steel, otherwise it will break easily when you are dealing with rocks. Because last time during my last field work, we were required to take some rock samples for the lab's work. So we saw one good sample laying freely like waiting for us to beat it. So my friend used a sledge hammer(not sure about the spelling) to break that rock and it was granite(igneous). After hitting for 2 minutes the hammer broke, so we take another sledge hammer from the van and the same thing happened. So we only had one more sledge hammer left. My friend did the hitting for like 1 minute. Then he seemed to be pretty exhausted and finally with all his strength, with a single blow, he hit the rock so hard and finally, it broke. I mean the hammer broke, so the rock won the battle and we didn't get the sample. Then the professor from utrech used a geology hammer, three hits on other granite in the same area and GG. The hammer won. Not sure it was the professor's luck or my friend didn't really hit at the right spot perfectly. *true story
This is the geology hand-lens. It is used to see mineral composition in the rocks as well as to check grain size in sedimentary rocks if you can't figure it out by touching. The way to use it is place the lens as close as possible to your eye and place the rocks around 5 mm from the lens.
This one is the geology compass. Other than to show you which is north and south this can also be used to take measurements of the rock's orientation, like strike and dip of a bed rock, displacement of rocks by measuring striation on the fault plane or direction of palaeo-current in sedimentary rocks and there are many others. There is a little mirror placed inside the compass. I don't know if there are any others but based on my experience the mirror can be used to locate your exact position in a map during fieldwork and since some of us are women, it can be used for a quick make up just in case they see someone attractive.
This is HCL (hydrochloric acid) but not so concentrated. Why do geologists need acid? Well, rocks are formed from different types of material, like what I have mentioned before rocks can also be formed from remnants of dead animals (bones or hardparts) physically or chemically. Mostly sea creatures that have alot of hard parts, like shells and fish's teeth. So the accumulation can form a rock which is called carbonate rock. This carbonate rock will react with acid and it can only be formed at certain environment. So two rocks might look a like but the composition might not be the same, which mean that the place where they were formed was different. So the acid gives other information about the rock. Besides that If your eyes are red due to irritation caused by dust or whatever, you can put a few drops to make it clear. I mean white clear and you will probably blind after that. *not recommended and don't ever try.
Water rationing has been happening in the place I live due to the severe drought season that has been going on since February. Because of this, forest-fire were everywhere due to high intensity of the sun. During my last fieldwork when I was about to identify the rock, suddenly, bushes just burnt in front of my eyes. I've never seen something like that in my whole life and I believe this drought was the worst so far. Fortunately, the condition is getting better since the last three weeks but still water rationing has not been stopped. There was one time when I was p**ping, I did not know that, that day was the day that the water in my block was cut, so when I was about to clean my self, I took the hose (the one beside the closet), turned the water tap and nothing came out. So I panicked, then screamed, calling for help(my brother). Luckily my parents have been saving some water and I asked my brother to transfer some water from my parents's bathroom to the everybody's bathroom by bucket. That day was the day I didn't take shower for the whole day and thank God it was Sunday.
Farewell is hard, it does not matter how long you have been together with someone, coz once you see them going away somehow a part of you is just gone. I had this farewell lunch with students from Utrech University, the ones I worked with for probably two weeks, these guys are awesome. We shared knowledge, experiences, stories, jokes and even some personal stuffs, it was just simply awesome. It is sad that they need to leave but that's life. So before leaving, we got a chance to take pictures together and hope we meet again.
Life is like an airport. People come and eventually will go, some may stay a bit longer than the others and some may just leave immediately, including myself. Nothing is forever. That's probably why I only have good friends not a best friend, because they just come and go. So my best friend will be my wife(which is not here yet), coz she'll stay the longest. Some people bring good lessons, some bring nothing and some just bring or create problems. So now it comes back to you, which one are you? Are you pearls or shells in the beach or just the sand? It sounds harsh but that's just how life works. I have a friend who got mad when one of his friend left and hanged out with a new guy. Well here, I don't really know whose fault is this. Many factors can cause such a thing and we can't really blame someone for this. We tend to blame the other person. But we can't just simply do that, it will be totally bias, since we have not even asked the person on the other side. It could be that it is actually us that don't really understand how the system works. So everyone needs to learn how to accept. It is hard, but possible.
Funny sayings"Truth can be painful and lies can be beautiful, but sleep is always wonderful"
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