september 2008 IssuE
Geo Beat
The Ghost of Field Trips Present
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BY TOM SNEDDON, P.GEOL. |
BY TOM SNEDDON, P.GEOL.
Manager, Geoscience Affairs
In the last PEGG, your humble scribe described a composite field trip ex-perience as enjoyed many times over the past 40 years — you could call it the Ghost of Field Trips Past.
Have things changed much recently, with corporate responsibility and liability issues as strong and up front as they are? Do field trips reflect our professional responsibilities to the public, our colleagues and ourselves as well as they should?
To find out, I jumped at the chance to tag along with the structural division of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists on a field trip to Mount Yamnuska on June 21.
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-Photo by Tom Sneddon, P.Geol. |
MOUNT WITH A VIEW |
My six-year Enform gig has made me super-sensitive to worker health and safety, and as expected, the pre-field trip e-mail exchange included all the documentation one would expect when embarking on a deep-ocean drilling venture. To be doubly sure, I re-read Field Safety in Uncontrolled Environments, by Stephen R. Oliveri and Kevin Bohacs and published by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and ExxonMobil, to refresh my memory on what to do and not to do to ensure the doctor doesn’t come. This tome is much recommended to anyone contemplating any kind of trip into the wilds.
For those of you who don’t go into the field, we must ensure everyone comes equipped with Personal Protective Equipment (better known to the cognoscenti simply as PPE); conduct a safety briefing (alias “tailgate meeting”) before we turn a wheel; and ensure the correct waivers have been signed. The organizing committee is also obliged to ensure all known hazards are documented and reported to the throng before getting underway, then reviewed before going home so we can fill in our “lessons learned” report.
This may seem like overkill, but it doesn’t take long and it is a good reminder of what can turn a great outing into an adventure that would horrify Indiana Jones. Don’t forget your bear horn!
Oh yes, and of course there are the permits. These days, what already hasn’t been logged off, explored 10 times for mineral wealth or paved is likely parkland. No breaking rocks, no samples, no parking without the correct paperwork from the government (feds, provincial, county, First Nation) and/or the company (logging, oil and gas, mining) or land owner (private or corporate person).
This can take quite a bit of research to figure out. One piece of real estate may even have all of the aforementioned, with each requiring a separate ream of paperwork. Parks are good — no samples or rock breaking, but they only require one permit from one landlord.
Having attended to all this, we can now leave the parking lot.
The downside is the traffic. Getting to and returning from the field trip is still the most dangerous part. Travelling in convoy or by bus remains the safest and most fun, with only the drivers subject to all the stress.
Arriving at the site, the traditional introductory briefing with the point of interest in the background is getting to be a bit of a bind, given the density of power lines, landfill sites, secondary highways and campgrounds obscuring the view. I don’t remember having all that stuff in the way when I visited Yamnuska as an undergraduate.
Anyway, what the heck is a duplex thrust? That’s a new one on me. I know what duplex means, having lived in one briefly, and I know what a thrust fault is. The briefer confides (since most of us are in the same quandary) that a duplex thrust is a package of older rock bounded by a roof fault and a basement fault that is complexly folded and faulted internally.
The textbook definition doesn’t seem to apply to this situation and the best explanation was a step fault first described by R.G. McConnell of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1897. There’s a flurry of questions, as well as extended answers and “don’t know” responses.
Then we are off down the trail. Or make that up the trail. One thing that hasn’t changed: that initial up-bit is still a real lung burner.
Once the field party is underway, the atmosphere is pretty much the same as always: excited chatter over the latest or oldest (now greatest) interpretation of the rocks we came to see (just don’t break any and don’t dig any holes).
Questions and answers, comments and interpretations in twos, threes and the whole group get everyone excited and the burning lungs are forgotten.
Arms wave. Fingers point. Cameras make electronic noises. Young lions, fresh from graduate school and brimming with new ideas and information, are goaded into impromptu lectures on various bits of esoterica and everyone is a stand-up comic at least once on the trip.
The weather is great and the hours fly by. A fast heel-plunge trip down the scree slope at the end is both exhilarating and exhausting. Pebbles in boots and limestone dust on everything just add to the experience. Everyone says, “Gee, I didn’t notice that before!” at least once and everyone agrees R.G. McConnell was a genius (he was).
Refreshed by a crystal clear and cold waterfall and rejuvenated by one last rest, the party charges off downhill toward the parking lot. One last nose count (“Where’s Kevin? Did he go with you guys? Oh, there he is, chatting up the park warden”).
The endgame tailgate meeting concludes, and another great day in the mountains trading knowledge with colleagues goes into the field book.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Your Honour
The geoscience community will once more strut its stuff for the general public (yes, engineers are welcome) on Oct. 28 at the Calgary Jube. This year the star attraction will be water and how to use it for fun when it goes vertical.
The Science of Big Waves, the CSPG Honorary Address (co-sponsored by CSEG and APEGGA), will be presented by a team consisting of surfing guru Jeff Clark and sedimentology/mountain biking guru Dr. Stephen Hubbard. Jeff will tell us how to have fun with big waves and Dr. Hubbard will talk about the significance of big waves to the sedimentary record.
There will be two presentations: a daytime edition for junior high school students and an evening version for the general public. Lobby exhibits for the evening presentation will include one from APEGGA.
More information is available at the CSPG website, www.cspg.org/events/events-honorary.cfm.