Alexandra Matiella Novak's Blog
Posted by Alexandra Matiella Novak
The American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting takes place every December and invites geoscientists from all over the world to attend and present their research. I'll be going this year as a representative of the National Suborbital Education and Research Center, which is a cooperative agreement between NASA and the University of North Dakota.
I've already organized my itinerary for which presentations and posters I will be viewing during the week. I'll be blogging about these presentations and sharing some of the more interesting conclusions with you. There will also be some live webcasts on some important lectures. A schedule of these webcasts can be found here.
The posters and talks I plan to go to are (*authors):
Volcanic Threat in Central America: Assessment and Comparison of Volcanic Hazards and Associated Vulnerability in
A-Train satellite observations of the 2008 Chaitén eruption clouds F Prata, *S A Carn, M Fromm, N A Krotkov POSTER
Posted by Alexandra Matiella Novak
The USGS has a great webpage called "Collecting Rocks" that can guide you on how to start or expand a rock collection. Most people don't even pay attention to rocks as they walk by or over them; but knowing what kind of rocks are around you can give you a lot of information about past or present geological processes that have taken place near your home.
I recently wrote an article titled, "How to Identify Rocks". In this article, I explain the main differences between the three types of rocks - igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. This article is far from complete when it comes to being able to identify rocks in the field. One of the biggest challenges is that you can hardly be prepared to just go out in the field and start naming rocks. It's much easier said then done, mainly because there can be dozens of variations and descriptions for any one kind of rock.
Your greatest chance of success is to already know what kind of rocks are supposed to be in your area. This can be achieved easily by contacting your local geologist and just asking that question: "What kinds of rocks are in our area?" You'll find that most geologists will be more than happy to answer that simple - at least simple to them - question. Take notes - the names will be unfamiliar to you and you may forget them if you don't write them down.
Once you know what you are looking for, the next step is to buy a rock guide or reference book, easily found in your neighborhood bookstore or library. This will give you a clue as to what the rock is supposed to look like.
The next thing you need to do is get the right tools - a rock hammer and a rock lense (or a magnifying glass). Rock hammers are necessary to hammer out chunks of rock with fresh surfaces. Weathered surfaces can be misleading and you can't see the full brilliance of the minerals you are looking for. A rock lens will help you see small minerals or grains clearly.
If you are lucky and live in a geologically interesting area, such as an area where there is a fault that causes two different rock types to meet at the surface, you may find a fun variety of rocks in a small area. A jackpot location for rock hounds is an area where glaciers have been. Glaciers transport and deposit rocks from all around the hemisphere.
One very important thing to mention: You are not allowed to take rocks out of National Parks. If you are on private land, make sure you have permission before you take rocks home with you.
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Posted by Alexandra Matiella Novak
On a recent trip to Nevada, my husband and I decided to take a tour of the Hoover dam. As always when we are exploring new areas, my husband challenged me to identify the rocks around us. From the car - also known as "road-side geology" - it was hard to tell. But as we toured the inside of the dam, I was able to get right up to the bedrock. I could tell at least one thing - it was definitely some kind of pyroclastic flow, meaning that it had originated from an exploding volcano. I could also see lapilli (individual fragments of rock, including pumice) in the rock.
Later, while watching a show on the History Channel about Hoover Dam, I heard the name "andesite breccia" to describe the type of rock that the Hoover Dam was built into. The "andesite" part made sense to me - andesite is a type of lava rock. The "breccia" part, however, did not make sense to me. I'd always associated the term "breccia" with sedimentary rocks. A breccia is a type of conglomerate that is made up of angular clasts.
I decided I needed to refer to my trusty rock bible, "Rocks and Rock Minerals", by Richard Dietrich and Brian Skinner. This is the book that was assigned in my first Geology class, called Mineralogy and Petrology. I looked up "breccia" in the index, under which there were many kinds of breccia, including sedimentary breccia and, there it was, pyroclastic breccia.
Pyroclastic breccia forms as a result of magma being extruded violently during an eruption and, in the process, ripping out chunks of the magma chamber that are solid rock. This was the lapilli that I could see in the rock. Since the andesite itself contained angular-shaped lapilli, geologists named it "andesite breccia".
This is why being a geologist is so fun - a simple tour of Hoover Dam turns into a quest to find out exactly what kind of rock the dam is built into. Or, as my fellow geology student from Minnesota used to say, "You betcha, breccia!"
Posted by Alexandra Matiella Novak
How many people have every taken a geology class? Not many. In my experience as an Earth Science educator, I've found that most students get their Earth Science education as a small part of a general science class. What an injustice. The Earth Science field encompasses so much, it's impossible for students, at any age, to fully understand its potential as a career field when they only get a few hours lesson.
My fascination with the world of Geology started out (and my peer always laugh at me for this) after I saw the movies Dante's Peak and Volcano. I had always been interested in science - from elementary through high school - but it wasn't until I saw these movies my senior year in high school when I started to seriously imagine a career as an Earth scientist. A volcanologist, to be exact. Even when I started my freshman year at UCLA, I still didn't have a good concept of what I needed to study in order to become an expert in volcanology. The world of Earth Science was completely absent from my field of vision.
Towards the end of my freshman year, and as I became more aware of the majors available to me on campus, I came across one major that seemed to be able to offer me everything I wanted. The major was Geology and it was offered through the Department of Earth and Space Sciences. I had heard of Geology before, but never in the context of an education, or as a career.
My very first preparation as a Geology major was the hardest. A demanding class-load stocked full of physics, calculus and chemistry lectures and labs. These were the absolute basics to my education in geology, and the combination is quite unique from other majors. Sure, biology majors have to know their calculus and chemistry, but not much emphasis is put on physics. And physics majors have to know their physics and calculus, but not much emphasis is put on chemistry. Geology majors had to know the entire suite of sciences - it's all about understanding the world around us from the most minimum to the most maximum scale possible. These classes were very challenging for me and I struggled through them.
The greatest reward came when I actually started taking geology classes. What's the first thing every geology major learns? Rocks. My first class was called Petrology and Mineralogy and it was taught by an incredibly patient professor who understood that the vast majority of us in the class had never even heard the words "petrology" or "mineralogy" before. He opened up a whole new world to us and I have never looked at a rock the same.
Yes, the world of Geology can open your eyes to so much more than you even realize is around you. It's like knowing a secret that few others are privy to. Walking down a pebbled beach takes a lot longer, because you have to stop and examine each rock, trying to identify its origin. Driving through a mountain pass is so much more entertaining because you now notice the layers of sediment and you can see how some layers are made from a different material than others.
We need to focus more of our children's education on the Earth Sciences. We can't afford just a few hours in a school year to gloss over the subject and then never go back to it. It needs to be one of the core science subjects, like chemistry, math, physics and biology. We can't afford to let our children's education be so void of understanding the planet to the fullest extent. If we are going to rely on future generations to fix the problems of the natural world (energy, natural hazards, climate change, etc.), than we must arm them with the education to do so.
To get your kids started, the U.S. Geological Survey offers some great websites that are aimed at introducing K-12 students to the Earth Sciences. Here are some links:
- USGS Earthquake Hazards Program - Earthquakes for Kids
- USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory - Information for Future Volcanologists
- USGS Education - Schoolyard Geology
- USGS Landslides Hazards Program - Landslides 101
- USGS Energy Resources Program - Energy in a Nutshell (PDF)
