(Opening Music)
Welcome back geology fans! The motto of
ninjas, Boy Scouts, and geologists is "be
prepared", and this episode is intended to
prepare you for safe, productive,
spiritually rewarding, and even
fun field work. At the most basic is
clothing, starting with proper footwear
to cover rough terrain. Good traction,
waterproof, and ankle support are some of
the key features to look for. The rest of
your clothing is mostly determined by
the climate, weather, environment, and the
work to be done. In general, long pants
are best for going through rough brush
or protecting against biting/stinging
plants and animals. Many prefer the long
field pants that zip at the knees to
make shorts. Many field sites start off
cold in the morning and uncomfortably
hot by the afternoon.
Being able to unzip your knees for
circulation can really help as the day
goes on. Your shirt will depend on the
situation, but generally a light-colored
long-sleeve breathable shirt protects
against sun, bugs, regulates temperature
well. I've been very grateful to carry a
good-quality windbreaker with zips to
allow more circulation when windy, wet,
and warm, or you can zip up and strap
sleeves in colder conditions. In colder
conditions a knit hat and hoodie work
well up top. Good sunglasses are
essential but be aware that polarized
lenses can affect what you were seeing;
in this case, desert varnish on this rock
face is polarizing the sunlight and
causing interference with my polarized
glasses. And then comes your head wear,
which is more important than you might
think.
You can't stay under a tree in the shade
all day and get any decent geology done,
so carry your shade on your head. Should
the biting insects, or just the little
buggers that fly up your nose and in
your ears, be a hindrance a bug net over
your hat will be a blessing. And I have
actually resorted to putting in ear
plugs and tissue up my nose in
emergency cases. Because temperature
regulation is important, I have a few
field hats, with my heavier winter hat
and my lighter and breathable summer hat.
Note that both have a wind strap, which I
keep tucked up usually with low wind, and
then of course pull it down and snug
when the wind picks up, and it's no
coincidence that some of the highest
winds will be on cliff edges where a
breeze taking your hat just a few feet
away from you means you have a long hike
ahead to retrieve it, or admit it's lost
forever.
Speaking of sun protection, the long
sleeves and hat only go so far,
especially for us pasty white humans, and
red hair does have higher susceptibility
to skin cancer even if like me you are
the child of a red head. Sunscreen goes
on before you walk out into the field
and gets reapplied every few hours
depending on your susceptibility; and bug
spray for the bugs if needed. On your
back should be a simple backpack to
carry your lunch, water, and things you
don't need constant access to. A
Camelback water pack is recommended so
you don't have to carry a water bottle
in your hands. You will need your hands
to take strike and dip, crack rocks, and
write notes and fill in your maps. In
hotter conditions, I have frozen my water
bladder the night before when I have
access to a freezer, and thus have a back
cooler and colder water at least into
the early afternoon. As for lunch, think
about the weather and what food will
keep in your pack all morning without
turning liquid or generally disgusting,
possibly stomach-churning mess. Fried egg
sandwiches and popsicles are not
recommended. Turning to more traditional
field equipment, you should be carrying a
rock hammer, but there is more than one
kind, and you should know what kind of
rocks you will be working in before you
go so you know what to pack.
Working in tough igneous or metamorphic
rocks you
may need a chisel and a crack hammer,
while chisel edged hammers are better in
softer rocks, and my wife and I have even
used old bayonets to part soft shales
while looking for dinosaur bones. But the
classic geology pick hammer works well
for everything in between, and so every
geologist should have a basic geology
pick hammer like this, and I recommend
getting the leather holder so you can
carry your hammer easily accessible on
your hip. When breaking rocks, realize
that fragments can come off sharp and
fast, and it is critical to protect your
eyes from getting hit with these rock
bullets, which means you also need to be
aware of others around you and warn them
when you're breaking rocks. In the last
two episodes, we covered use of the
compass and measuring strike and dip. The
Silva can be worn around the neck, which
gives easy access but often needs to be
removed to access certain rock surfaces,
so some prefer to loop the cord around
the belt to hang the compass, which may
bang against your leg more but it's
easier to access a rock surface quickly.
If you go with a Brunton, note that east
and west are reversed and the azimuth
dial increases counter clockwise around
the dial. The Silva is a bit more
intuitive with east to the right of
north, but you have to turn the dial to
get the reading. With a Brunton setup, you
just get an immediate reading from the
magnetic needle. Again, the belt holster
is useful for carrying your Brunton. Many
geologists consider the hand lens to be
up there in importance with rock hammers
and compass. Remember that your hand lens
is not a magnifying glass, and that you
don't put the lens to the sample to look.
You put the lens to your eye and bring
the sample up into focus. You can use a
tether to wear the lens around your
neck, or keep it an easily accessible
pocket. I also carry a hydrochloric acid
bottle on my belt with a leather holder,
which you really only need if you think
you might be encountering carbonate
rocks. I tend to always carry my acid
bottle in the field, partially to be
prepared, and also because the holder is
the perfect place to snap the camera I
use to film much of the series. I can
access it easily and be filming in a
matter of seconds. You need a field
notebook, and a write-in-the-rain type is
essential as you're bound to end up in wet
weather if you spend enough time in the
field. We will discuss what kind of notes
to take in a later episode. You will also
need to be working on your map in the
field, and a map board is your best
friend here. A cheap map board can be
made from Plexiglas and duct tape. Most
home improvement stores will sell
pre-cut Plexiglas, and different projects
end up using different sized base maps, so
I have made a couple of map boards of
different size and use the smaller one
if possible and the larger one only when
necessary. For my smaller map board, I use
11 by 14 inch Plexiglas, but
whatever size use fine sandpaper to
smooth off the sharp edges so they don't
cut your pack. They need to be able to
fold together like a book, so lay them
directly on top of each other, maybe with
a few sheets of paper about as many as
you think you might be carrying out in
the field in between, and then secure the
long edge together with the duct tape.
Now it can be opened and closed and has
enough room to hold the map material
inside. A little velcro in the corner can
help keep it closed but easily opened.
Now you can protect your map and still
see it, and have easy access. You need
pens and colored pencils to mark your
map as you go. The Koh-I-Noor pen set gives
a selection of line widths to choose
from, and you should have enough
differently colored pencils to cover the
formations you are breaking out on your
map. In this modern world, I consider a
smartphone to be one of my essential
tools as well, and enough so that I carry
a thin lightweight battery pack and
charging cord, and tend to charge up over
the lunch hour. In a later episode, I will
cover some interesting applications you
can download to your phone for use in
the field, but just noting that your
phone is your watch, your sound recorder,
your camera that can shoot still images
and movies (even time-lapses), your GPS, and
backup compass, that's enough to consider
that it's a great field tool. However, the
most thought of use of a smart phone,
communicating with the civilized world,
is often useless in the field as most
field locations are not in covered areas,
and I have spent days and weeks outside
of any cellular phone network. For this
reason, carrying a satellite phone can be
an essential safety tool in case of
emergencies. A small bar magnet, hardness
plate, and streak plate are handy to have
as well, though a set of hardness pens is
easier to use and less likely to break
in your pack than a glass plate. And if
you think you'll be collecting rock
samples, sample bags are easy to pack,
though they get a bit heavier and
bulkier when filled. My wife recommends a
pack of wet wipes as well for, well, I
can't repeat what she says so just use
your imagination and I'm sure you can
come up with many uses for wet wipes.
Past this it is up to you to realize
what a specific site may require of you:
laptops, iPads, gold pans and sluices,
reference charts and books,
scintillometers, mag-sus meters, portable
XRF, your newest drone. If you're not
going to definitely use these, then they
are probably just dead weight and can be
left back at the office or at least back
at the camp. I don't carry a gun in the
field as I've never needed one, but in
some field locations it is another
essential piece of gear to protect against
certain animals like polar bears in the
Arctic Circle, or religious
fundamentalists in Texas, but that is
more of a safety issue than a practical
geology issue. Safety in the field is
very important, as an accident in the
field is already an order of magnitude
more serious than one at home or in the
city. It's best that we simply avoid the
accident to begin with, or plan to deal
with it should it occur. Yhe most basic
safety rule here is to always go out in
the field with a partner and do your
best to stay in eye contact with each
other, or at least within earshot, but if
you do separate to cover more ground
make sure you have a game plan and a
meeting time and a place so that the
partner will know within an hour that
you are in trouble and where to look.
That partner is also useful in bouncing
ideas off of. At the very least, tell
someone where you are going and when
you are going to be back in contact so
again it will be only a matter of hours
before your tragic situation is realized.
I know that you're a self-sufficient,
independent geologist, but you make a
crappy geologist if you're dead and
being eaten by coyotes, so establish
check-in times. We always make our
students sign into the field, and that
includes into mines and into caves, and
sign out again when exiting the field.
Know your best exit from the field, and
the nearest hospital that might be able
to help you get trained in basic
first-aid, and carry a first-aid kit with
knowledge on how to use it. Most of the
other safety concerns are individualized
and so you know best what medications
and limitations may apply to you. Don't
be ashamed of limitations as I have
known blind geologists, geologists with
cerebral palsy,
and deaf geologists who do amazing work in
the areas where they know that they can
excel. Just respect your limits, and learn
to work around them
and with them. If you are a committed
viewer of Earth Explorations, please know
that I don't expect you to go out and
get all this equipment immediately. Start
slowly accumulating the items listed
here, perhaps starting with your first
field notebook as that will be a
priority, and you'll have plenty of time
for the rest before we hit the actual
field geology videos. Your field notebook
will be filled out extensively before
you even leave the for field area, so we
still have quite a bit of groundwork to
lay down before hiking into the great
adventure of exploring the unknown. When
we come back next time we will discuss
how to prepare for a field exploration,
before diving into actual field mapping
strategies, including the right mental
attitude for fieldwork. May positivity,
excitement, anticipation, eagerness,
enthusiasm, curiosity, and fascination
flow through you so you're ready for our
next episode, here on Earth Explorations.
