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January 4, 2009

Com descobrir un geòleg….

Filed under: Pensaments

To spot a geologist in the wild, look for: Someone awkward and unsure around people who don’t know the difference between a rock and a mineral Someone who thinks the best topic of conversation involves new fossil and dust discoveries!! Hand-lens, compass, pen-knife, handcuffs, etc., tied round neck with string (which he refers to as a “lanyard.”) Someone with a beard and Sandals… Jesus was a Geologist (actually, carpenters back then were also stonemasons, so there is some truth to that statement) Someone who owns a pet rock and is not eight (in the case of paleontologists, this will be their closest friend), with said ‘pet’ often found hanging from keys. Someone with not much enthusiasm on the subject of dinosaurs. Geologists consider an event a ‘mass’ extinction only if 80% of the living organisms die and get buried in sediment for conservation. Someone explaining to airport security that a sidewall core covered in gunpowder residue isn’t really a weapon. Someone who only includes people in photos for scale, and has more pictures of his/her rock hammer and lens caps than of family and friends. Some who, if they could travel to Jupiter’s moon, IO, would think the coolest part about it was the volcanoes and not the space travel. Someone with a collection of beer cans/bottles that rivals the size of his rock collection. Someone lighting a cigarette with a handlens focussing the sunlight, or a coat hanger stretched between the battery terminals of a University van. Someone who brings beer instead of water when hiking. Someone whose lunch consists of rocks, instead of ordinary bread. Someone who consumes tonsil-killing chili for dinner every night of the week, and warms it up in a can on the drill rig engine block. Someone whose child is trained to know the geologic timescale before being able to walk. Someone with hair in a pony-tail (this applies to male or female geologists). Someone who considers a “recent event” to be anything that has happened in the last hundred million years. Someone who licks and/or scratches & sniffs rocks or in case of china clay will eat it to prove it’s perfectly safe. Someone who eats dirt and claims to be “getting an estimate of grain size” Someone who will willingly cross an eight-lane interstate on foot to determine if the outcrops are the same on both sides. Someone who can pronounce the word molybdenite correctly on the first try. Someone who has hiked 6 miles to look at a broken fence that was “offset by a recent earthquake”. Someone who says “this will make a nice Christmas gift” while out rock collecting. Someone who thinks a “sexual exploit” is lying naked on an outcrop so the satellite will photograph them on the next pass. Someone who hires student assistants with an eye to whether they can run slower so the bears get them first. Someone who can jump start a campfire in wet weather with the judicious application of a beer fart. Someone who from personal experience knows the difference between Arctic grade and summer grade diesel fuel. Someone who even on an average day in the field can make Indiana Jones look like a bit of a klutzy wuss Someone who looks at scenery and tells you how it formed. Someone whose pockets tend to be filled with bits of rock. Someone whose rockery moved into their spare room. Someone who has more pairs of hiking boots than shoes. Someone who wears hiking boots constantly, even for formal functions, and occasionally sandals with (obligatory) socks Someone who thinks of woodlice as trilobites but would tell anyone off who said so. Someone who, when on a beach, will collect shells and try to explain their muscle scars to you. Someone who prefers to explain the sequence of events shown in a cliff face to sunbathing. Someone whose collection of petrified wood samples is stacked like cord wood. Someone who plans extra time on trips to investigate road cuts along the way. Someone who almost crashes his/her car looking at road cuts while driving. Someone who often explains how their boozy coffee with whipped cream resembles a layered igneous complex. Someone who knows the phylum, kingdom, and genus of every ancient creature lodged in stone, some of which look nothing like an animal, but can’t remember his/her mother’s, or spouse’s, birthday. Someone who uses a geologic hammer to halve a boiled egg. Someone who modifies his/her one yard pace to one meter in order to simplify pace-and-compass mapping. Someone whose radioactive ore specimen collection glows in the dark. It is so bright you can: use it to read by. illuminate your front yard. use it as a landing beacon. see it from Mars. Someone who can identify the chemical formula for Cummingtonite…and chuckles like a junior-high kid every time. Someone stuck on the side of the road without a spare tire because it was removed to make more room for samples or alcohol (or the spare is already being used on the other side of the van). Someone who, when asked what this rock is says, “Leverite, so leave her right there.” Someone unwilling to improve their personal situation, resigned to the fact that the sun will explode in 5 billion years anyways. Someone who walks out of a bathroom and asks if you noticed the fossils in the stall dividers. Someone prone to Linnean mnemonic devices such as Keep Privates Clean Or Forget Getting Screwed. Someone who can only relate to one “Rock Band” (besides BIF): Are We Not Men, We Are Devonian! Someone who enjoys their topography: Subduction leads to orogeny, and orogeny leads to relief. Someone who walks into an art museum and looks at the floors and columns commenting on the stylolites and fossils, rather than looking at the paintings. Someone whose shorts expose way more leg than you ever wanted to see. Someone who rocks the party and is the schist everywhere they go. Someone who can say, “Gneiss Cleavage” or talks about slaty cleavage and means it in a non-derogatory sense. Someone who takes special interest in your granite countertops in the kitchen and after a few minutes will even produce handlenses before giving other guests an igneous petrology lesson. Someone who gets really upset when the countertop, which is obviously mafic/aphanitic/metamorphic, is called granite and takes 20 minutes to tell you why you’re wrong. Someone who has an odd obsession with Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek etc…and often dresses the part! Someone who can’t use a street map because it doesn’t have contour lines. When helping someone move and you ask “is this box full of rocks?” They answer “yes, be careful.” Someone who always carries a small squeezy bottle of hydrochloric acid in their pocket Someone unsympathetic at the prospect of extinction for the long-haired woolly-horn red-butt moose, replying “Glaciers woulda killed him off in 10,000 years anyways.” If you remain unsure, ask the subject to draw an annotated diagram of a trilobite. A true geologist will immediately reach for their waterproof notebook - this is your opportunity for escape.

(extret de Uncyclopedia.com)

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