Through the eyes of a geologist

I've just came back from a days fun work at the TGMS Jr. Education area where I volunteered on a Dino Dig booth. I can honestly say I think I had just as much fun as the children involved. When you find something you're so passionate about, work doesn't seem like work. Each year, the UofA SESS students organise an educational area which is visited by over 2,000 children over the TGMS weekend. We aim to share our wealth of knowledge, inspire the younger generation and answer any questions they may have about minerals or the Earth. Booths ranged from geomorphology to tsunami models, all with the aim of actively stimulating the young minds. I volunteered on the Dino Dig where I encouraged and supervised children when being paleontologists and digging for toy dinosaurs. I got to actively engage with them to gather what knowledge they had already. It was great to talk to the parents too, whom had flew from distances such as Sweden just to be at the event. I also got the ch

Today I tried something completed new. At the end of the day, this is what my year abroad is about, trying new experiences that I would otherwise not do in the UK. However, not all experiences have to be good for you to grow as a person and I think that explains today's experience quite well. From the people I have met so far on my travels in the US, the topic of guns is highly debatable. For myself, growing up in a country with strict laws and licenses, guns aren't something you come across. I'm not saying gun crime doesn't happen in the UK, it does, however my views aren't shared by many friends in the US. However, I know no different than to fear guns. Arizona has lenient gun laws compared to other states in the US and the rest of the world, as citizens of AZ state do not need permits to own such a weapon. Many friends who I have met from university carry fully loaded guns in their cars for protection purposes. This makes me feel very uneasy. It scares me tha

The previous weekend I spent wilderness camping in the Superstition Mountains for my Volcanology fieldwork. One word - cold!!! It felt like Scotland. We arrived in the darkness of the night, raining heavy, fighting mother nature as we erected our tents for the evening. No stargazing for the night due to the epic amounts of clouds, however slightly entertained by the coyotes in the distance howling.  However Saturday began on a slightly drier note. We headed for a hike to the top of a mesa in order to map the opposite cliff faces on topography maps. This wasn't something I had done before. Having to estimate elevations from hundreds of meters away and map by birds eye view, yet what I was seeing what the cross-sectional view. We spent most of the day on top of the mesa, mapping a km or so, using our knowledge of cross-cutting relationships in order to separate and distinguish different lava domes and tuff deposits. Luckily, the day had continued to stay dry and I was certainly lo