Accretionary Wedge #40- Geo Pumpkins

Michael Klaas put out a call  for Geo-Pumpkins  here. And here's the finished Accretionarly Wedge #40.
To be honest I really wasn't in the mood to carve a pumpkin since I've been around them for a month, selling them to give the proceeds to local charities.  I was in charge of the discovery center and for a week I talked about pumpkins to 3 - 5 year olds.  I had about 2500 students come by.  Its lots of fun to see their reactions and I find it very rewarding. 
   I decided to do something very simple.  I had a little baseball pumpkin that I decided to use.  He had been tossed around and I was surprised he had not cracked open.  I thought of him being as hard as a geode.  It just made sense to turn him into a geode.

Geode Pumpkin

   (I am having a lot of trouble down loading images. Geode pumpkin took more than one try and two different images, I had moved on to another image when it up this one up, of the baseball pumpkin next to a geode.)

 

 I did show the pumpkin patch here with one of the unusual pumpkins.

 This was the sign I used to show how a pumpkin grows.  It also showed some of the world record pumpkins.  The largest was 1810.5 lbs grow by Chris Stevens of New Richmond WI on 10-9-2010,  and also the world record largest pumpkin pie 3,699 lbs baked in New Bremen Ohio.

I'm going to include some of the pumpkins I had the kids see and touch.  I thought that they were all pretty interesting. 
So here are my pumpkin friends that I would show.
The first one got called Casper the ghost since he was all white. Geode pumpkin is right next to him, before he metamorphosis into geode pumpkin. He could be considered to be chalk since he is so white.

 I called this one dendritic I mean trellis because of the way the color was channeled on him reminding of that type of drainage. Here's more views of it.

trellis drainage looking pumpkin

The next ones are shale in color so I called them that.

shale pumpkin

This was shale pumpkin since it looked like shale.  Here's another view of it.

 
 The next one looked Metamorphic to me.

This one I called serpentine since it was mostly green.  also it had that zone where it looked like it had been metamorphized into the color it was. This pumpkin had definitely undergone some usual processes for it to end up the way it did.

( This is really frustrating its not downloading what I want it to and is taking repeated attempts to get anything and when I do get it its not in the order I want it.)

Lava pumpkin

And this pumpkin would get the most reaction with a oh yeak!! I didn't know what to call it.  Maybe this should be my conglomerate pumpkin.

pumpkin floating in water

 Here's my square pumpkin I used when I would read about Spookley the Square pumpkin.

Now I muse upon what pumpkins I'll have next year.  Because they are always so different and varied.

Accretionary Wedge #39- dress Barbies as geologist

The AW call has been made by Evelyn  Geonery's .  She wants us to dress our Barbies or Ken's as geologist.
I'm having trouble down loading images with Blogger right now so I don't know if I'll be able to post my image or not.  But thinking about Barbie's has brought back some memories that I'm going to first share instead.

    When I started kindergarten in the fall of 1960 all of my new friends seemed to have Barbie Dolls.  They had recently come out and were very popular.  I started to want one.  So for Christmas I asked Santa for a Barbie Doll along with a couple of other things.  I got a Baby Doll instead.  I came from a large family and Santa only brought us one gift and my parents would give us cloths.  I knew that was all I was getting for Christmas.
   I had to wait for my birthday.  My birthday came in September and I didn't speak up and say what I wanted.  Again I knew I would only get one gift.  We had had a fire in our house that year and my bed was destroyed in the fire.  I got a new bed for my birthday gift - it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I knew it was all my parents could give me.  It was more important for me to have a good bed to sleep in than it was to have toys.  I had to swallow my tears and accept things for the way they were. I would wait for Christmas.
   I decided I would ask Santa again for a Barbie.  Instead I got a stuffed, pink,  musical Teddy Bear that I called Hunter because of the hunter green cloths she had on when I got her.  She played 'Rock a by a baby in a tree top,'  I loved that Teddy more than anything else and had her for many a year. She finally disintegrated away from being loved raw because she was held so much.  She was a lot better gift than a Barbie doll because I could snuggle and sleep with her, she was my best friend and constant companion.  I figured Santa really knew that teddy bear was a better toy for me.  My parents did surprise me and gave me a toy sewing basket instead of cloths. (I didn't play with that sewing basket much until I finally did get my Barbie.  I would spend hours sewing cloths for her and that started a love of sewing that has lasted to this day.)
   I had to wait for my birthday to try again for a Barbie.  I figured out that I probably wouldn't get one from my parents but had better luck if I got one from a friend.  I had gone to a couple of my friends parties and the most popular gift given was a Barbie doll.  So I asked for a birthday party instead of a present.  My mom was reluctant at first but then gave in and I had my birthday party.  I had about 8 friends show up.  I got Barbie outfits but no Barbie.  Everyone there had assumed I had already gotten a Barbie since most of them were already owning more than one Barbie by that time.  What they wanted most now was the cloths for her, so they gave me what they wanted to get not what I wanted.  I didn't mind so much because I could bring the cloths to my friends houses and I could still play dress up with their Barbies.  But it just wasn't the same as having my own Barbie to play with.  I wanted a Barbie more than anything else. 
  By then I was becoming more and more of a tomboy since I enjoyed playing outside so much.  Since I had so few toys, I discovered the wonders of nature.  I found there were things outside that could keep me entertained for hours and hours.  There was always something new and exciting to see.  I started to pick up rocks and see how different they could be.  But I still was a child and wanted toys to play with too.  So I had to wait for Christmas to try again.
   This Christmas it was going to be different.  I decided since Santa only gave me one toy I would make sure he knew I just wanted a Barbie and nothing else.  That was all that I put on my list - 'BARBIE'.  That was all I asked for.  I thought surely he would understand since I had just the said the one thing that was what I wanted.  Instead I got a Madame Alexander doll - 'Beth' from the Little Womens' series.  Beth was beautiful and a whole lot more expensive than a Barbie doll, but she just wasn't a Barbie.  I took her and put her in my toy drawer and basically only pulled her out when I couldn't go outside to play. (I found out years and years later, the reason my mom gave me that doll was because she had always wanted one.  Since I didn't play very often with dolls unlike my sisters, she knew I would keep it in good condition. I still have her and my other Little Women dolls I had gotten as I got older, they sit in a box in the closet - nothing much has changed.)
  Getting back to Barbie, by then I figured out that no one was ever going to give me a Barbie.  The only way I was ever going to get one was I would have to go out and buy one.  I had gotten a dollar from my grandmother for Christmas. I went to the store to get one and found out that they cost $2.99. I was seven years old and realize if I just waited for Christmas and birthday money it would be years before I would have enough  money saved up to get one. I had to figure out a way to get the money sooner.  I asked how I could get money and was told I could earn it. 
  Back then in our neighborhood you could recycle glass bottles.  You could get 1 to 5 cents for them depending on their size.  Most were about 3 cents. I remember taking our families red wagon to my neighbors houses and asking them for their glass bottles.  No one was willing to give me any until one elderly neighbor asked me why he should give me his bottles when they were worth money to him too.  I was very disappointed and started walking away until he called me back.  He told me he would work out a deal with me.  If I took the bottles to the store for him he would let me keep one cent for every bottle I took.  One cent was so much better than nothing and I readily agreed to do it.  I found that solution worked well with some of the other elderly neighbors as well.  It took about about a year for me to get the money together since they would only let me come by every couple of weeks, but eventually I did get the money together.
  It was one of my happiest days of my childhood when I was finally able to go to the store to buy my Barbie.  I had the 2.99 saved up, only problem was no one had ever told me about taxes.  She really wasn't $2.99 but $3.03.  I was not able to get her at that time. It really tore me up as I had to put her back on the shelf since the sales lady wouldn't budge on the taxes and my mom just wouldn't give in and cover it.  I had to go and earn the four cents more.
  Finally I was able to get one.  At the time, I had blond hair and blue eyes.  I wanted  the one that looked like me that I had picked out earlier.  She was no longer there.  I had to settle on one that was a brunette and blue eyes, like my sisters. She just didn't grab my heart like the first one.  I got her home and played with her all day.  But after a couple of days playing with her, she was boring and not near as much fun as I had envisioned her to be.  I like my outside nature 'toys' so much better.  I would only play with her when the weather was bad.  Most of my playing with her consisted of me sewing clothes for her.
   Most of the time she just sat in my toy drawer.  Then one day my  younger sister was home sick and decided to play with her.  She cut her hair to make her look like her.  She was ruined to me and I gave her to my sister since it was so obvious she wanted her. I was hardly ever playing with her by then and it made no sense to me to keep her.  My sister loved playing with dolls and was doing it all the time, she was overjoyed to get her. She treasured her so much more than I ever did and it made me feel good to know that she was with a better mama than I was ever going to be with her.  I never played with or had any other interest in Barbies again.  I ended up having three sons and never had a reason to get another one.
    Now this Accretionary Wedge is to dress a Barbie up as a geologist.  Needless to say I had to go out and buy one.  I was amazed that after 50 years I could get one for $5.47 at Walmart.  I thought for sure they would be more expensive than that.  Well I wasn't so totally off by that -- there were some collector ones that were in the 75 dollar range and there were some fancy ones in the 25 range,  yet I was still able to get one like I had always dreamed of getting for just $5.47.  She came with just the basic swim wear stuff just like my first one.

   Now I muse upon the fact that even though I never played much with Barbies she did teach me so many  things. She started me in the habit of recycling items my whole life. She made me aware of the environment and  how fragile it is.   She taught me how to work and earn some money. She taught me how to save my money so that I can get the things that I want. She taught me about taxes, a lesson I never forgot after that. She made me realize Santa wasn't real.  She created a love for sewing in me. She taught me the joy in giving things to others.
   Barbie, also made me realize that growing up in middle class America I should be satisfied with all that that I did have.  All I really needed was the basics to live  - food on the table, a relatively safe shelter over my head, a few cloths to wear and a warm bed to sleep in.  Anything more than that was a blessing and should be something to be valued, treasured and appreciated to its fullest and not taken for granted.  For the record I never considered my family poor.  I grew up in the suburbs of middle class America, with hard working parents that paid their taxes and made sure our basic needs were met. There was very little money left over for other things like toys.  I was grateful for all that they could give me. My family was very typical of those in my neighborhood and we all considered ourselves very fortunate to live where we did. (I love the USA). To me that was being middle class. Besides what could be more middle class than that - to own a Barbie, which I did?
  I'm sure there are other things she taught me too but right now I can't think of them. 

Now  for her  Accretionary Wedge debut.
Miss AW-39 from LA.
Gold Digger Barbie

 She can't tell the difference from galena which she is resting on top or or copper which she is leaning against.  All she did find was fools gold, just like me.
Now that she's all pooped out - here she is doing what geologist seem to do best.

Hold a beer!  Look how revived she looks.


PS here is what she looked liked before the rock hounding hit her.

 (addendum 1-27-12 I went home for Christmas and brought back some old family photo's that I've been scanning into the computer for my family and guess what I found? A picture of me playing with my sewing material and me making cloths for my doll from that Christmas.)

Two calls for the Accretionary Wedge

Dana over at En Tequila Es Verdad
posted  the call that is shown below.  I was wondering if we were going to have a Accretionary Wedge for this month.  Imagine my surprise to find out there's two call for posts.  I'm grateful she posted this information. Now I have to get to it.
  I'm debating how much trouble I should go to since I've had so much trouble with Blogger this week and have been avoiding it so that I don't destroy my computer.  Also I've been working in the pumpkin patch and haven't had time to get on the computer very much.

   I might not get to carving a pumpkin - I'm kind of sick of them right now because I've been working with them since the first week of Oct.  But I can share a pumpkin I worked with over the last couple of  weeks that got the kids going - oooh yuck. So now I'm going to try to see if Blogger will let me include the image.

This is so frustrating.  It didn't include the first image of the pumpkin I wanted but it did include the one I wanted of the patch itself. And it did include another image that I thought would be good to include also.

Pumpkin patch

 Here's another 'yuk' pumpkin.  This one will be kind of hard to carve, but its interesting and goolish in its own right and really doesn't need anything done to it.

Unusual looking pumpkin

As for the Barbie stuff I'm musing on that since I've never been one to own or play with Barbies.  I was always more interested in collecting and looking at rocks and playing in mud holes.

Accretionary Wedge: Deadlines Fast Approaching!

October 28, 2011 at 4:35 am Dana Hunter

The Accretionary Wedge carnival’s starting November with two back-to-back kinda-Halloween-themed, um, themes. Posts are due soon, so you’d best scramble if you’re planning to wedge yourself in.
(Please forgive that last little joke. I know it wasn’t funny. I’m functioning on fractional amounts of sleep just now, and I think my sense of humor went to bed without me.)
Deadline November 1st: Dress Barbie Like a Geologist! Or any sort of scientist, really. And it doesn’t have to be a Barbie. In fact, since I haven’t got a doll, I might be doing a doll’s house sort of thing, if I can get my crap together. Those of you with children, or who have friends or relatives with children: steal a doll away from their toy chest. Rip it from their chubby little hands if you must! Sure, they’ll weep now, but wait until you return their dolly all scienced up. They’ll not only have the most awesome doll on the block, they’ll have inspiration for a future career doing something much more interesting than standing about in implausibly high heels in a shocking pink house with a horrid pink car in the driveway.
Deadline November 7th: Geo-Pumpkins! You were going to carve a pumpkin for Halloween anyway, right? Make it geo-riffic! You don’t even have to have a blog of your own for this one – Michael will host your pics for you.
Instructions for submissions are at the links above. Get crack-a-lackin’!

Accretionary Wedge #38

 Anne Jefferson put out the call for post for the Accretionary Wedge -38

here

 This got me thinking about things.  I would have been a professional student if I had enough money to stay in school.  Unfortunately my money gave out when I finished my masters.  I decided to go to work for a couple of years and then head back to academia and try for a PhD.  But along the way my plans got waylaid and I never did get my PhD in geology.
  While I was in school there were always some geology course being offered that I felt I just had to have to be a well rounded geologist and ended up taking those instead of other elective classes.  At the same time I would sign up for the geology classes, my dad was always after me to take some business courses and asked me why I hadn't gotten into the courses he wanted me to take. Since I was paying my own way I thought I knew what was best for me. I was going on the advice of my geology professors.  Besides it was too inconvenient for me to take those business courses.  They were in a different college and you had to get special permission to be in them.  I didn't want to go through all the trouble of getting all those forms signed ect...   In the long run I never did take the business courses when my dad wanted me to take them. 
    After I graduated I wished I had listened to him.  The first thing my company did was to encourage me to go back to school and to get a Masters in Business Administration (MBA). They were a business and they wanted everyone who worked for them to know how a business operated.  Having an MBA was important to them and I quickly realized that if I wanted to have career with them I needed to go back to school and round out my education in the areas were I was lacking.
  Well guess what to get a MBA you first have to have the basic business courses. I needed those business courses now. So I was back in school taking the require curriculum to get a business degree which I needed so I could obtain a MBA.  After awhile I did drop out of my classes because I found working on wells and going to school don't necessarily agree with each other.  I had to drop everything when I got caught on a well for over a month and missed my midterms exams. 
   Later I was able to go back to school and I did take all the course work so I could become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).  I thought being a  CPA would be more beneficial for me than a MBA since more people had MBA's but very few had a masters in geology and were also CPA's.  I never did take the CPA exam for personal reasons, but I did use all of my accounting background.  They were especially helpful to have when my husband went to work for himself and I could do his books from our home. The biggest benefit  was the flexible hours and being able to be there for my kids when they had school activities that needed parental involvement. 
  In the end I was glad I went the accounting route since that kept me working during the oil bust of the late 80's when you couldn't find work as a geologist in the oil industry. Just about everyone I knew who was a geologist at that time ended up having to change careers. - very few of them were able to keep gainfully employed as geologists and most of those did it as independent contractors/consultants.  I did try to be an independent contractor for awhile, but as time went on I did less consulting and concentrated more on my husbands business since I couldn't generate enough business on my own and his was really taking off.

So now all I have to say to geology students out there is this: try to get as much business background as you can because if you want to work as a geologist you have to know basic things about the business.  If nothing else you should be able to analyze their income statement and balance sheet to make sure they are a viable company to work for.  If you go into academia you still need to know how to make a budget, and write grants - its all about the cash flow.

Accrectionary Wedge #37 - Sexy Geology

Lockwood put out this call for  Accretionary Wedge 37 on July 27.  Its hard to believe the deadline has arrived.  Normally I like to do these things early, but I've been having major computer troubles ever since Yahoo and Mozilla firefox has had updates which ended up crashing my computer.  The computer has been in the shop and I just got it back today.  Just in time so I could get something out for the wedge.

Call for Posts, AW #37: Sexy Geology

July 27, 2011 by lockwooddewitt

This month’s Accretionary Wedge asks the titillating question, “What is ‘Sexy?’”  Hint: we’re not talking Victoria’s Secret.

I mean geology that makes your heart race, your pupils dilate. Rocks and exposures that make you feel woozy and warm. Structures and concepts that make your skin alternately sweaty and covered with goosebumps. Places you’ve visited, read about, or seen photos of that make you feel weak-kneed, and induce a pit in your stomach.

Click over to read the full description of what this month’s topic is (and is not) meant to entail. If you have a post to submit, please leave a comment and link either here or at the original call for submissions, so I can find it when I go to assemble this edition.

   When I saw this there were a lot of different places that came to my mind.   But then I narrowed it down to one.  But after reading this Roadtrippin'  post by Dana  and seeing the pinnacles at Crater Lake with this Volcanic ramblings part 1 teaser @ Outside the Interzone post at Lockwood's I'm torn between which one to choose. Now he's added even more pictures of those pinnacles at this post what-is-sexy-geology that make me even more titillated .  With both of these locations I have never been to, but just the thought of them sets my heart racing. Decisions, Decisions.  I'm in such a corundum. Which one to choose.
   So my two choices are both in U. S. National Parks.   I've read about them and have heard people talk about them a lot.  Everything I hear about them just makes me want to go all the more so and gets me so excited just thinking about them.  The two are BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, TEXAS. and  CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK, OREGON. The one thing I've noticed about both of these locations is that they have unique volcanic structures associated with them.

   I studied Crater lake in school only when we studied it, the instructor was teaching us about 'caldera's' and said it should be called 'Caldera lake not Crater'.  That caught my interest and ever since then I've wanted to see it.  To me it was pretty neat thinking the lake formed in the center of a volcano. While Big Bend I never heard about until I got out into the workforce with a petroleum company.  But its Big Bend that's won the coin toss, which is good because I know Lockwood and Dana Hunter are going to do such a good job with Crater Lake.

  If first heard about Big Ben when I went to work for Marathon Oil.  On the 1st or 2nd day on the job I asked my boss a simple question.  "How did Marathon get its name?'  I was expecting an answer along the lines of something to do with Marathon running or something about Greece at Marathon  or events relating to the battle and the legend of Pheidippides.  The answer surprised me.  He said they were named after the Marathon mountains in Texas.  He then clarified his answer by saying that was the area where the Old Ohio Oil company found a lot of its reserves that lead to the company being able to be the size company it was at the time.  He then told me if I wanted to find out more about the company I should read the book "Portrait in Oil" by Hartzell Spense (1962). Its all about how Ohio Oil became Marathon.  (It took a while to find a copy of the book but I finally got one and read it).
   After I had talked with him I was curious about the Marathon Mountains.  I went to my Rand McNally Road Atlas of Texas and looked for them.  Well Texas is a big state and I couldn't find the Marathon Mountains on them.  So I went back to my boss and asked him exactly were they were.  He said they were part of the Permian Basin in west Texas, just north of the Big Bend National Park, where the Rio Grande river dips down into Mexico. My boss was the main geologist for that office and he just loved geology.  He then said something that got me intrigued about the area - he said 'Now that's a park for a geologist if there ever was one.  It's got a little bit of everything there.  You should go there sometime.  If you ever end up in the Midland office you most definitely will get a chance to see the park then.'
   I went back to my office to find the Marathon mountains- I couldn't find mountains but I did find the Marathon basin and the town of Marathon just like he said it was--just north of Big Bend National Park.  Since it was such an important area to my company I felt like I needed to learn as much as I could about the area as possible.
  I thought I would make an weekend trip so I could see Big Bend for myself.  I looked my map of Texas and realized it was about 750 miles away.  I knew from driving to other areas that it would be a two day trip just to get there and another two day trip to come home.  Also I knew I would want to spend as much time as possible there once I got there. I would need a whole week of vacation just for that trip (and I wouldn't have that for at least one year)  Driving was out.  So I looked into flying there.  That was out too because it is in west Texas and there just is not much there.  The closest place to fly into is El Paso but you still have hours of driving to get there.  The price of the flight was outrageous too, neither location is popular destination spots and it just about made me pass out when I saw how much it was.  So flying was out also, and all I was left was to dream about it and add it to my bucket list of things to do before I die.
   So whenever I heard of anyone going to the area I would ask them to tell me all about it.  Every time I heard anyone talk about it, it just would make me green with envy with wanting to go there. One geologist friend said to me 'imagine a volcano, that is dormant.  Now imagine a river cutting it in half and you can traverse through that volcano.  It was the most incredible thing he's ever done.'  He must have been talking about the Chisos Mountains in the center of the park.
  Another friend that went there is an artist and she said it was an incredibly beautiful place to visit.  It gave her a lot of inspiration just staying there. She really felt like she was in a desert when she went there.  She liked the way it was so remote and she could get back to nature.   I found this very interesting because I love places that get me back to nature.

   While I was with Marathon I would very occasionally come across some of the electric logs in that area that was north of the park and other areas associated with the Ouachita Orogeny.  It was highly faulted with thrust fault from the Ouachita Orogeny. Imagine that during the Paleozoic Era there being an deep ocean where shales, limestones, chert and novaculite were deposited.  The chert and novaculite have a very distinct characteristic look to their formations and make it very easy to map over large areas because they were so massive since they were in the deep ocean.  It would blow my mind to see these same sequences layer one on top of each other over and over again.  Each layer was there because it was thrust on top of the other when the northern continent collided with the southern continent to from one huge land mass.
    In the book 'Geology of National Parks, 6th ed' by Ann G. Harris, Ester Tuttle & Sherwood D. Tuttle (1975/2004) Chapter 53 pgs 791-804 Big Bend National Park, they talk about being able to see some of this in the northern part of Big bend at the Persimmon Gap area.  In fact not only do you see the thrust plates of the Ouachita Orogeny but the effects of three Orogenys.  As they put it 'The Paleozoic rocks in the thrust slices are the result of the Ouachita orogeny.  Later, during the Laramide orogeny these rocks and their Cretaceous cover unites were altered by overthrusting.  More recently , the rock unit have undergone extensional faulting due to Basin & Range deformation. (Tauvers and Muehlberger 1988  Persimmon Gap in Big Bend National Park, Texas; Ouachita Facies and Creatceous Cover Deformation in a Laramide Overthrust. Geological Soc. of America South Central Sec, Centiennial Field Guide v.4 p 417-422. )
Just imaging that boggles my mind.- thrusts upon thrust then normal faulting also.  How they ever figured that out must have taken an incredible amount of time and imagination.  Now I want to go see if their interpretations are reasonable.  (I bet it is just from the seeing the subsurface stuff that I have seen).
   Also what I keep on thinking about is here we have sedimentary rocks that must be changed into metamorphic rocks.  Not once but twice- I'm sure there has to be some pretty unique geologic features associated with that.
  Then it dawn upon me that the Big Bend park has all three rock types: sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous.  What could be more exciting to a geologist than an area where you can observe all three types.  Not only that the rocks come from three distinct Eras: the Palezoic - shelf to deep ocean; The Mesozoic with Cretaceous formations that are transitional, shallow marine deposition, to the top formation (Javelina Formation) that is non-marine deposition complete with dinosaur bones (pterosaurs) and silicified wood. And finally the Cenozoic with igneous intrusions, volcanic ash, hydrothermal mineralization and normal erosion, deposition feature. I could go on about other things it has like anticlines and canyons but I think you get an idea what the place is like.
   Talk about a complex area!!!  I would have been happy to go there just to look for dinosaur fossils in the Javelina formation.  It's a good thing its in a national park and you can't gather samples there otherwise I would have figured out a way to get there a long time ago.

   To me this place seems to have it all, and that is why I muse upon Big Bend being such a geologically sexy place to visit.   

Oops I forgot to add the link for Big Bend National Park info it's here.

I want to thank the ones who helped me AW#36

I just want to thank On-the-rocks, Meg and Cujo359 for your comments to my blog post here; about being able to download slides to the computer.  Your suggestions have really come in handy and I really, really appreciate them a whole lot.  Words can not begin to describe how thankful I am to all of you.

As soon as I read On-the-rocks comment  this weekend, I went out to Best Buy and Radio Shack to see what they have.  I was able to pick up a Ion Film 2SD for about $70 (Tiger direct had them for $64 but this way I got it right away and I didn't have to pay shipping and handling. Plus they were able to show me how it work to make sure it was exactly what I wanted.)  Then have spent the rest of the weekend going down memory lane.  It may not be the best one out there, but it is so much better than nothing at all.  I went with this one because I could transfer the stuff to SD-cards which I later plan on storing in a lock box or a safe because they are so small and can store so much data.  The SD-card also lets me download it to the computer.

Some of the pictures have turned out great, and some not so great.  A lot has to do with the slides themselves.  I couldn't get over how some of the slides had faded or turn yellow so much.  I could tell different slide material - Kodak verse Fuji made a difference.  And some I know I took to professional photo shops to get developed while other times I took it to Wal-greens.  In the end you get what you paid for.  Being a poor college student at the time, I always went the cheapest route.  But I have gotten years and years of enjoyment out of them so I've always been grateful to have them.  Some of the ones that I have shown a lot - (I guess the bright light of the hot bulbs caused it) have really faded while others in that series that weren't shown as much have not. 
   Well I can't show you all of them but I can show you a few of what I'm talking about.

Here's one that turn out well, but I never had it printed up because the strobe for the flash was off and it didn't take the full shot - this is what I was thinking about when I wrote you never knew what type of photo you would get.  Unlike digital nowadays were you would just simply reshoot the shot.  Or photo edit it.  Which I did. 

 Can you guess who this is? - I'll give you a clue - he has had stuff in the geoblogsphere. ( Here's what I can do with it now-a-days with editing - does this help any more?.)

How about this one does that give you a better guess?

Here's a shot that I did have made into a photo and you can see the difference in the two.   I must admit because I was getting so many things developed at that time I did go the cheapest way possible with everything.  You  can see it yellowed a lot and the blues have faded but there is over 30 years of fading with the slide.  But like I said its better than nothing at all.  I did keep the photo in an album in a controlled environment, while the slides were stored in an attic that could have also led to some fading due to the storage conditions it was subjected to.

The shot was taken on July 4, 1977 while we were having a break during field camp.  We made an excursion over to Lake Tahoe, CA.  I thought that lake was the prettiest thing I had ever seen, this was after weeks and weeks in the desert with very little rain.  All that wonderful cold water.

Some of them aren't the best but they still bring back the memories.
 Like I'll never forget learning to repel at Clifton Rocks Ohio so that I could go rock climbing. Knowing those techniques were sure handy when we climbed to the top of Seneca Rocks in West Virginia.

Clifton Rocks, Ohio Oct 78

Clifton rocks Ohio, Oct 78

rock climbing at Clifton Rock, Ohio Oct 78

 

 Here I am  climbing up.  Someone else was using my camera and didn't know how to adjust the lenses for being in the shadows. So it was always dark to see, thus no prints made.

I was so proud to make it to the top of Seneca rocks and to add my name in that band-aid tin box that had peoples names had who made it up there.  There were not as many as I thought there would be.

Seneca Rocks, West Virginia at sunset.  May 1977

Or I'll never for get silly things people did on field trips.
Like this one where we were looking at an oolite (forgot to write down where the oolite was located just labeled the slide oolite.  Now I can't remember anything about it except it was somewhere near the east coast, in the mountains.)

Or my friends getting bored and decided to horse around on a log while we were studying the erosion process of the Chargin River, Ohio.

Or the geomorphology professor's field trip, where I'll never for get him showing us erosional features. With him going into his own world, not paying attention to any of the dangers,  but so excited about showing us things, and getting us just as interested as he was. Then to top it off we got a flat tire and the silliness that ensued with that..

 This was some feature associated with glaciers.   I think it may have been an end moraine, but I really can't remember exactly what it was.

Erosion on a river in Ohio

Here he is walking over this overhang not caring that there was about a 20 foot drop to the river below.  There was no way I was going to go over there and check out what he was so excited about. I could see the effects of river erosion very well just where I was.  Besides I didn't think that ledge could hold all of us.

 Then the flat tired happened and the field trip came to a complete stand still. We all just sat around and watched, well not all of us watched some did other more constructive things. There were just so many people that could help change a tire.  We made jokes about how many geologist does it take to change a tire and things along that line.

And then there are some pictures that seem to get better with age like this one of the sunrise over the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

or this sunset in Nevada on Highway 50.

Highway 50, Eureka Co, Nevada  July 1977

And finally here's the one image I wanted to share and got all the help with again thank you for getting a good image of Eureka, Nevada on July 19, 1977.

Oh the memories how wonderful they are, especially the ones of my loved ones that have moved on to other places.  Again Thanks for making this all possible.

Now I'm musing what photo editing program I should try to get these more back to their original colors.  When I get that figure out there probably will be more stuff to come.

Accretionary Wedge #36 - Whad do you regret leaving behind at a geologic locality?

 On the Rocks over at Geosciblog - Science has put out this call.

Call for Posts, AW #36

July 9, 2011 by lockwooddewitt

“What do you regret leaving behind at a geological locality?” In other words, what samples, specimens, or even photographs do you regret “not getting enough of”?
Read the full description at Geosciblog- Science; deadline is ~July 16.

In case you haven't noticed I love looking at other peoples pictures and taking pictures for myself.  The thing I regret most is not taking more pictures when I could have at any place I visited on a field trip but most especially at my field camp and my thesis location. There were a number of reasons why I never got enough photos.  The main one was not taking my camera to certain spots because I didn't want to get it ruined or it was too heavy. (below is shot of the different cases I used to use to carry my cameras.)

( Old case verses new case, quite a size different and load.  The older I get the less I want to carry in and out of the field.)

Or not owning a good camera sooner than I did.
  When I first got into geology, I realized having a good camera was a must for me.  I wanted to have keepsakes of all the wonderful field trips I was taking.  Now I just want to have a camera that works-- anything is better than nothing at all.  The smaller and lighter it is the more I like it- the more photos to be had.  Here's the different cameras - old verses new.

  Back in the 1970's, there were very few photos in the text books I was reading.  To really understand what the books were trying to teach you, you just had to go out in the field and see for yourself.  I saw some absolutely amazing examples of  geology such as anticlines with s & z micro folding in them demonstrating some structural geologic concepts. Or seeing some thrust faulting verses normal faulting.   Or going and seeing the clues that glaciation was a major reforming feature of the region.  These things were explained in the book, and I understood what they were getting at but once you saw it in person, you never would forget it.  I'm a visual learner and that is how I learn by seeing and feeling things.  Words usually go in one ear and out the other and if I'm really lucky some may stay stuck inbetween the two ears, while a pictures with it's beautiful colors and patterns just say with me for a long long time.  I just plan learn better seeing things and that was why I loved going on field trips so much and taking pictures.
    So in the 70's I got a very nice Olympus camera from a friend that was updating and getting a more advanced camera for himself. Not only did he sell me the camera it also came with all the darkroom equipment I needed to develop the films and pictures that I took.  I quickly learned that darkroom projects and I were not compatible.  To work in the darkroom first you had to have a very dark room (preferably no windows or a very small window that you can tape aluminum over to block the sunlight and light) and running water.  I found a room in my house in our attic that fit that bill and it became my study area (very hot in summer no a/c, poor ventilation,  trouble was it was also a working bathroom.)  But to do dark room work you needed long blocks of time- minimum of 2 hrs -where no one will open the door or let light in,  with it being a working bathroom it was hard to keep people out, so if I did work in it I had to wait until the other members of my family had gone to bed. I missed my sleep too much to stay up late developing photos.  The other draw back with darkroom work was you could only take black and white photos.
   Here's an example of my darkroom work.  A picture of an ammonite I did a research paper on.

Epicenites loeblichi

  I would do darkroom work in black and white if I had to but I preferred working with color.  To do photos in color at that time cost an absolute fortune in equipment and chemicals.  No, dark room work just wasn't for me, so that left doing things commercially.
  
   At the time there were two ways of getting photos commercially.  One was to buy regular film, get it developed and then have photos printed up from the negatives.  The other way was to take slides and then print from the slides.  Different paper was needed for each way.  From negatives you needed reverse negative paper, because the colors on the negative were the reverse from the printed colors.  With slides you used positive paper, which meant that the colors on the slide were the same color of the prints.
   It was cheaper to get slides than it was to go with prints from negatives.  It broke down like this you had to buy the film type you wanted.  The more sensitive the film the higher the cost, but general outdoor film ran about $3.00 for 24 shots (keep in mind this was in the 70's and minimum wage was $1.65/ hr i.e. two hours of work for me to buy a roll of film.).  If you were lucky you could find 36 shots for that price.  This cost was the same whether you got slides or prints.  The most frustrating thing was planning ahead and having the right type of film in the camera for the type of pictures you wanted so you never wasted the film.  Taking pictures indoors required different film than taking them outdoors.  If you used outdoor - indoors you had to have a very good flash to use with the camera.  Most of the time I would use outdoor film.  I always felt I was limited by the number of shots I could take because I had to buy rolls of film in 36 or 24 quantity and the expense.    Because of that I never took as many photos as I wanted to. 

   You had to get the film developed.  This too ran about $3.00 and was the same whether you got slides or if you got prints from negatives. Even if the whole roll of film was ruined you still had to pay this amount to see what pictures you had gotten or not.   It was cheaper to go with slides because now you were done and could use the slides.  So I went with slides much to my regret.  At the time I did it, it was because I was a poor college student.
  Each slide ran you about 25 cents (which is about spending 1.25 today). So each roll of film ran you $6.  If you really liked the picture a lot you could always take it in and get a print made of it for about 75 cents (3.75) for an additional expense.  Needless to say I did not get very many prints made from my slides because it used to be so expensive too.  Much to my regret. 
  The other benefit of having slides was if you ever had to give a talk you could use them in slide projectors.  It seemed like every classroom I was in had slide projectors, plus you could check them out from the libraries. I never thought of the day when you couldn't find or use a slide projector.  I always thought they would be around forever.  

  Now getting back to printed pictures, you still had to pay the same for slides plus you had to pay for the actual printed picture.  That usually ran between 15 cents per print  for 3 week delivery or it could get even higher the faster you wanted it done - $.25 for 3 day and $1.00 for an hour.  I always went with the cheapest of .15 per print.  Again because it cost so much I never took as many as I wanted to.
   I also remember always hoping that the picture would turn out.  I would hold my breath when I would get the package back and say please let there be some good ones on this roll of film.  You had no way to know if they would turn out or not, not like today where you can see instantly on a digital camera.  The opportunity to take another photo would be long gone.  You had to be happy with what you got.  Frequently they could be blurry, or the lighting bad so they would be too dark or washed out.  You just never would know until you got them back or did your own developing.  I remember one time the film had been exposed to an x-ray machine and nothing turned up on the film.  Another time the film got jammed in the camera and all the photos were on the one spot.  Because you never knew how they would be I had a tendency to take very sparingly so I wouldn't be wasting money on things that were no good.  I knew some people who would only get the negatives developed and then get the prints made, but the trouble with that it was a lot more expensive like it was to get prints made from slides.  That's why I went with slides. 

  Now it is many years later and I have all of these wonderful slides but no way to view them easily.
  I always told myself one day I will have these slides made into prints, the trouble was when I had the time I didn't have the money.  And when I had the money I didn't have the time to do it.  I finally got to the point where I had the time and the money to do it but the store that used to do that has gone out of business. Now I'm just stuck with the slides at least they are better than nothing at all. I have hundreds of slides like this.

Here's what I'm talking about - one page of many, many pages:

 A page full of slides from my field camp days in Eureka, Nevada. 

Two photos from that page, One of Lone Mountain as seen from Highway 50 (I'm just glad Silver Fox over at Looking for Detachment has shared some of her photos of  Lone Mountain - Thank you Silver Fox!!!!), the other of the town of Eureka on 7-19-77.  Even though I could get another picture of Eureka, Nevada it will never be quite the same as when I was there back then in 1977.    And here's a closer look of that slide trying to scan it into my computer.  Not much detail.

 I've tried using different lighting for the same picture but it still is hard to get a good clean image of it but there is more detail than the one above but still not as nice as when you can properly view it.  Here's two more attempts. 
 

My thesis material has this same problem as my field camp photos they are mostly on slides.  I did have a couple of  slides printed up of the people who were helping me at the time.  I did that so they could have a keep sake and to show my thanks to them. I'm glad I have at least those few prints and can view them easily now in photo albums. 

This has been my biggest regret all these wonderful geology pictures that I can't share with others on my blog. 
If I could have done it over again I would have had some prints made to go along with the slides. If I had a digital camera back then I definitely would have taken a whole lot more photos.  It just boggles my mind that on one little camera I've taken over 600 photos on a SD card that costs less than $9 to buy and nothing to down load to my computer.

Now I'm musing about:  Be this as a warning to others to make sure you have backups and more than one way to access your images, because technology is changing so much, and what you once thought would last doesn't always.

PS -7-18 Here's more on the slides issue.