Geology and Politics

The other day I was on Facebook and one of my friends retweeted an image of a political map by county from the 2012 Election between Obama and Romney. The purpose of the original tweet was to highlight a curve of blue (democratic) counties in the southeast United States. Here is the original tweet:

A retweeted image that shows the results of the 2012 Presidential election. The tweet reads: "See blue belt on Obama?Romney map? That's Cretaceous coastline. Fertile soil later led to high cotton production + high slave population.

When I first saw this image, I was very intrigued, but I also wanted to check the accuracy as well as learn more about the geology. Below I am attaching a paleogeographic image of the Late Cretaceous shoreline from Google Earth provided by Ron Blakey.

This image shows North America during the Late Cretaceous (~90 Mya). 

If you are not familiar with looking at these paleogeographic maps, it may be difficult to visualize exactly where the shoreline is compared to the modern day North America. I am now going to attach another paleogeographic map from Ron Blakey's website that shows the paleogeography with outlines of the states, and I have approximately overlain the political map.

An image that shows an overlay of the 2012 political map and the paleogeography of North America in the Late Cretaceous (~85 mya).

The last Google Earth image I want to show is the location of Cretaceous rocks in the United States.

An image of the United States that shows the location of Cretaceous Rocks.

The previous images clearly show that the democratic votes line up well with the location of the Cretaceous shoreline! I didn't think the person who posted the tweet was lying, but it is fun to look for yourself!

I was also curious about why these soils are the best for cotton growth. According to an eHow website, cotton grows best in sandy loam soils or loamy sand soils that drain well and have a pH in the range of 5.8 to 8. Without getting too much into soil classification, sandy loam is approximately 60% sand, 10% clay, and 30% silt particles. Loamy sand is about 60% sand, 10% clay, and 30% silt. This site also mentions the color of soils but I won't get into that. If you are interested in reading more from this site, here is the link: http://www.ehow.com/list_6606124_types-soil-cotton-plants.html.

I hope I don't say this in any kind of bad way, but the south tends to vote republican, but the African American community tends to vote democratic. The sad part of the political image is that it implies that the people who lived and voted in those democratic areas are descendants of the slave population. This point was also obviously stated in the original tweet.

Geoscientist - Good Career Path?

Yes.....

Okay, in all seriousness I have recently begun to think if being a geoscientist is a good career path. When I talk about a good career path, I am talking about high job prospects, good growth, as well as a steady job market. I have thought about this topic for two reasons: 1) I have recently been laid off very shortly after starting my first job as a geologist, and 2) My daughter was born recently and I wonder what kind of career will choose. I  also wonder if I should help steer that path or let her choose her own path hoping that either way she is successful in life.

I want to make something clear, I do not regret one bit my career path. I love, absolutely love geology, and I feel very lucky that I get to pursue a career in one of my passions in life. Life has highs and lows, and unfortunately, right now I am in one of those lows. I feel that very often though I hear older generations complain that millennials are going to college for their passion, and not for degrees that have high prospects of finding jobs. Geology is a science, and is considered to be part of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field that we are told are highly valued right now and in the future.

According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook on the Burea of Labor Statistics website, the job outlook for geoscientists from 2014-2024 is 10%. This is the projected change in employment for that time period. This value is above average the job outlook for all occupations which is at 7%. I was searching online for places that geologists commonly work, but I was actually having a hard time finding a nice list. I am therefore going to list industries where most of my friends work. I will try to make some comments on the industries

Industries:
1. Higher Education - This can be at community colleges or four-year universities. These positions are very competitive. Salaries can range quite a bit depending on if you are an adjunct professor or on a tenure-track professor position.

2. Oil and Gas Industry - Lucrative salaries which are often in the six-figures. This industry is very volatile (we are in a downturn right now and this is why I lost my position).

3. Mining Industry

4. State of Federal Government - You can work for State or National Parks or organizations such as U.S. or State Geological Surveys. Can also be employed in government agencies such as Department of Interior, Energy, or U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to name a few.

5. Environmental Geology

According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook on the Burea of Labor Statistics website, the typical entry-level education is a Bachelor's Degree and the median pay in 2015 is $89,700 a year compared to the national average of $36,200.

Now I would like to talk about an intangible. According to a National Student Survey conducted in the UK, geology students are the happiest with their degree.  Here is the link to an article about the survey: http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2015/12/18/geology-students-happiest-college-campus-study/#7806114a717a

The author I think summarizes pretty well, and shares my thoughts, on why he thinks geology students are the happiest with their degrees.

Based on this quick summary, it appears as though a geoscientist can have the best of both worlds where we can enjoy our passion, as well as find a good paying steady job.  Just writing this post gets me excited for my next adventure as a geologist!

Structural Geology and Mapping

For this blog post, I want to discuss some structural geology, mapping skills, and briefly touch on the geology of the Appalachian Mountains. I will first begin by showing this Google Earth image (Fig. 1) of a segment of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania.

Figure 1: Image of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania. 

 In this image, there are obvious "wrinkles" of the Earth that are identified as the mountains. These mountain belts were created from multiple collision events between plate boundaries and with volcanic island arcs. The first of these collisional events is called the Taconic Orogeny and occurred in the Middle Ordovician (~480 million years ago). The modern day Appalachians were created during the Alleghanian Orogeny during the Permian (~285 million years ago) which was the result of the North American Plate and African/Eurasian plate colliding. This collision also helped create the supercontinent Pangea. The landscape you see today is from further uplift and lots of erosion of the sediments.

In this image (Fig. 2) what I want to show are the folds ("wrinkles") which are called anticlines and synclines. 

Figure 2: Same image from Figure 1. White arrows point to synclines and anticlines. Please note that the white arrows are pointing to the "points" of these folds.

To visualize the morphology of anticlines and synclines, take a magazine and imagine that each page is a layer of rock. The Law of Superposition tells us that originally these sediments were layered with the oldest at the bottom and the youngest at the top. If you fold the edges of the magazine down so you make an upside down U, this will create an anticline. If you would slice the top of the magazine off (or rock layers) the oldest layers would be in the middle with younger sediments on the sides. If you fold the edges of the magazine up and make a U, this will create a syncline. Here if you slice off the top you will see younger sediments in the middle with older layers on the sides (Fig. 3).

Figure 3: Example of anticlines and synclines. The image is from http://www.radford.edu/jtso/GeologyofVirginia/Photos/Structures/Foldblock.png.

In Figure 2 the folds have pointed ends, which I had pointed out with the white arrows. As you can see in Figure 3, if the beds were horizontal in the one direction, in map view you would observe continuous beds. The pointed ends of these beds indicate that the beds are dipping, or as a geologist would say, plunging (Fig. 4)

Figure 4: Example of plunging synclines and anticlines. Notice the points of the folds, similar to what I pointed out in figure 2. Image is from http://saturniancosmology.org/files/geology/Sect2_1a_files/plunging.jpg

Now we can see that the original image of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania is a series of plunging anticlines and synclines (Fig. 1). How do we know though which ones are synclines and anticlines, and how can we figure out the way the beds are dipping? These are good questions that geologists use to map geologic beds in the field. I will explain the way you can identify the types of folds and the dip of the beds. As I mentioned earlier, anticlines have the oldest beds in the middle with younger on the sides, while synclines have younger in the middle with older beds on the sides. A good resource to find the ages of beds are geologic maps. It is then as simple as looking at the ages and then determining if the fold is an anticline or syncline. To find the dip of the beds, you have to do some memorization. Anticlines will point in the direction of the dipping bed, while synclines will point in the opposite direction. You can see this principle illustrated in Figure 4. 

Going back to our original Figure 1, I am now going to overlay a geologic map of the area thanks to the wonderful people at San Diego State University (Figure 5). If you have not been reading my blog, I mentioned in an earlier post about overlays you can add to Google Earth. This overlay is a geologic map of the entire United Staes. 

Figure 5: Geologic map of the area shown in figure 1. The ages of the geologic beds are written in the corresponding color.

Figure 6 is the final map showing which structures are anticlines and synclines and in what direction the beds are plunging. 

Cool Geology Vidoes

I am adding a new feature to the left-hand side of my blog. I want to share cool videos about geology that I find on the internet. I am sure most of these videos will be from YouTube. Enjoy!

Access to Journals

Today I want to discuss the ability to access articles in peer-reviewed journals to stay up to date on current research in the geosciences. Regardless of your profession in the geosciences, it is a good idea to stay up to date with current research so that you are a well-informed scientist. A problem that I have recently found is that access to peer-reviewed journals can be difficult. If you work at a university or research institution, you likely have access to a wide array of journals because the institution bought subscriptions. Even at these institutions, it is unlikely they have access to every journal you may desire.

It is even harder for me to access articles in journals because of my situation. I am an unemployed geoscientist, or what I like to say, a freelance geologist. My passion is geology, and as I am looking for my next opportunity, I would like to stay updated on current research. Furthermore, I am in the process of writing two manuscripts based on my dissertation, and this requires me to read and cite many articles that are relevant to my research. Furthermore, it is even more important for me to stay up to date on current geoscience research because I am trying to follow my other passion by finding a teaching position at a college or university. I don't think I need to emphasize the need to teach students the most up to date material.

When I say I don't have access to articles in journals, I am not telling the truth 100%. I actually can get the articles, but they cost quite a bit of money for just one article. Looking through various journals that I often read (I won't name them) the price to read an article is $15. Even worse, that price means I only have access to that article for one day! As with most products, if you buy in "bulk", it is cheaper for the product. A yearly subscription for one of the journals is $500. That actually seems quite reasonable considering it is equivalent to $1.38 dollars/day. However, that is only for one journal and in order to do good research or stay up to date with research, you need access to multiple journals. As an unemployed geologist with a family (daughter born 2 and a half weeks ago!), I can't be spending that much money on articles.

All is not lost, in fact, there are open-access journals which are peer-reviewed journals that the public can access. I have been fortunate to find quite a few articles in these types of journals. Unfortunately, in the geosciences, most of the high-impact factor journals (ones that are cited a lot in other research) are not open access. A problem that can occur with the open-access journals is the cost of publication is normally put on the authors. Most of the time this is not a problem, however, for students who are trying to publish, this cost may keep students from publishing in that particular journal. Students who are looking to apply at mainly research institutions often want to publish their research in these high impact journals because it can be considered more prestigious. I would worry that discrimination would occur for students who can't afford to publish but whose research is still of great quality.

I am going to attach three (free!) articles on websites that I read regarding the issue of open access journals. In particular, I like the last website because it has pros and cons to questions regarding open access journals.

Open access: The true cost of science publishing

Open Access Should scientific articles be available online and free to the public?

Should all scientific research be made open access?

Even though I am having trouble reading articles that I find interesting, I refuse to give up in my pursuit of continuing my education in the field I love. I hope in the future that more journals in the geosciences move to an open-access environment. This is especially important for people like me who are unemployed or scientists that work at institutions that can't afford subscriptions to all the high impact journals but want to continue learning.