Rodeo

We turned in our 3rd and 4th projects tonight at 4pm. Then we had dinner.

Nearly everybody in my class is going to the town rodeo tonight, but I am opting not to. My awesome roomie also doesn't want to go, so that's cool that I don't have to be the only one not going and hanging out alone in the dorms.
I told my field partner the only way I'd go to a rodeo is if I were protesting it.
Meh

I just heard a crash of thunder outside my dormitory room window and it filled me with glee. I love thunder and lightning!!

The past few days have been crap.
Our field area at Lime Gulch was enormous, had HUGE peaks to climb, which we did cuz we rock, and confusing metamorphic/igneous contacts to map.
The area we started today, with no break in between, is large, but (smaller) rolling hills, and packed with confusing metamorphic Archaean and Proterozoic gneisses and TONS of quartz and granite dikes.
The cool things about the area however, are that the metamorphic gneisses are 3.5 billion to 1.7 billion years old - so old, no life existed on earth except bacteria mats and mounds (stromatolites), and the mineralogy of the planet was such that basalts didn't exist yet - the material in the mantle was still too primitive (far too low in silica).
Also, there are HUGE FUCKING GARNETS in the gneisses/schists.
Pictures to come later.
Mostly, we just mapped a shitload of dikes today.
Anyway, it's cool to me...



Oh, AND my digital CAMERA broke today. No more photos of rocks for you guys. The zoom is jammed/broken off it won't even turn on it says "error", but at least I can get the pictures I took before it broke today off of it. I didn't do anything to it either, I took photos this morning of the mountains and then after I took photos of some garnets and put it back in my pocket, it broke. Did nothing! Gah. Oh well.


Tonight they're serving VEAL in the school cafeteria, so I'm not going. I think most people I talked to aren't going to eat it, but I wouldn't want to see anybody else in my school group eat it, it would alter my opinions of them, as strange as that sounds... and I just plain don't want to see it.

Bday at Yellowstone

Sorry it's been a few days - was in Yellowstone park, and then had no time in between getting back to the dorms and celebrating my birthday at the local bar and starting in a new field area today with a new field camp instructor to blog.  

I still don't really have time, cuz we just started a new area today, which was huge and had HUGE relief, and was complication metamorphic and igneous rocks not nice straight-line sedimentary rocks, and it was HOT out today, so I'm exhausted.

Yellowstone:

Camping was cold, beer was fun, seeing lots of elk and bison was cool too. Also, saturday afternoon I did yoga with a classmate in the meadow covered in rhyolite glass shards on the coast of the river right next to our campsite, while my professor and another classmate fly-fished in it. My hands = ow, during downward dog.

We lost one professor, and gained another. Not a total loss, these two teachers sharing field camp instruction this summer are my two favorite geology professors I've had, so it's a dream team to me, but it was still sad and I almost cried when I hugged him goodbye when we left the campsite.  In a small geology department like ours, you get very close and attached to your teachers and classmates. 

Oh yeah, and it was my birthday on father's day (and my twin's), and upon arrival back at our dorms I opened a box from my mom full of chocolate vegan cupcakes she sent for me and all my classmates. <3>

I have Doctor Who to catch up on now.  

Anyway, meanwhile, here's some photos from Yellowstone of things we saw.  Personally, I thought all the rhyolite was cooler than the geysers, but it's mandatory to see them, right? Pictures include silly photos with bison, Old Faithful, the Terraces,  and Artist Point.  Enjoy!

Hot springs

Today for our free day we slept in, ate breakfast, went back to sleep, then took a trip to the nearby Elkhorn Hot Springs.  It was about a 45 minute drive from our dorms at UM Western and was worth the $6 admission.  It was snowy outside the ~95º pool, up in the mountains in a national forest - a great contrast.  Afterward we went in the 105º sauna.  It was soooo relaxing - such a good way to spend a free day.

After dinner today we went out in the field and played frisbee for awhile. Lots of running around, felt good though, it was fun.

We're leaving at 10:00 am tomorrow for Yellowstone national park, where we'll camp for two nights, and where our second professor will join us for the second half of field camp :), and we'll lose our current professor :*(. Be back sunday night.  Remember, sunday is me and my twin sister's 22nd birthday and father's day! I hope I have cell reception on sunday to make phone calls.

Project #2 done

Our second project was just turned in at 6:00 pm! 

We worked on our day off on it all day, on the 8th, and we worked all day on it yesterday and today... 48 hours like, STRAIGHT.  It was tough.  

We're all going out for beeeers.

And, our field test was cancelled/is optional for tomorrow. So we get a real off day tomorrow. The last off day on the 8th was actually used as a work day, so we got the test day in the field cancelled as a reward for working so hard. 

Friday morning we leave for Yellowstone for a field trip within this giant field trip.

snow day

I totally forgot to mention this yesterday!

During our field day on the 7th, it snowed!  It was awesome!  The entire day was filled with removing beanies and jackets and replacing them with caps/visors and just wearing light sweatshirts, because it kept getting hot and sunny and then very cold and threatening, and then it finally snowed for about a half-hour, almost tiny little hail-balls.

We could see the curtain of snow moving over a valley towards us right before it hit us, and then we radio-ed to others on a ridge next to us that it was snowing, and they were like "not here - oh, yes it is!" when the wave hit them.

It instantly improved my mood. I love snow.

It was the first snow ever for a member of our field camp group who is from Thailand.

It snowed again for a few minutes around 1 or 2pm, and other than that it was on and off chilly and warm.  Montana is a land of strange unpredictable weather.

Rat's Nest

Yesterday me and my field partner visited "the rat's nest", a small but very complicated area of our field location near Block Mountain, MT, which all of us have been avoiding.  It sucked and was really perplexing, and we have to revisit it tomorrow.  

But for now, today is our day off. After we left the field at 5:30 yesterday we stopped at the "taco bus" a local authentic mexican place, where I actually found a vegan dinner for $3 (everybody else's were $7 or $8, and they got second plates because that was just for three meat tacos).  It was just simple nachos with meatless beans and all the avocado they had left, and a delicious spicy salsa.  

Then last night we went out for beers at Rookies, that was a lot of fun.  I slept in til 10:00am, but my roommate got up at 7:00~ish for breakfast in the dorm caf, and she got me a banana like I asked, which made my breakfast.

Then we went out to errands. Then came back and napped.

Currently watching V for Vendetta ($10 DVDs were on sale buy one get one free at the local Alco) while working on a stereonet for the anticline in the field area, and a topographic profile for a cross section through a hypothetical potential well location in the area to look for hydrocarbons.

I really love this movie.  Stephen Fry!  Natalie Portman!  V!

I also got to download and watch friday's Battlestar Galactica episode, which was totally great and made me cry.  Best show ever!

and jenny just sat on a stereonet tack hahaha

I am enjoying this day off.