Previously: Field Trip Music
Our recent trip to Girvan meant driving for at least a couple of hours. And y’all know what that means: new field trip mixtapes.
Geotrip Disc 3: Nerdcore Special
This Disc is comprised of my favourite Nerdcore tracks. Unfortunately everyone else was less of a fan. Went down well at game night though.
Name – Artist
Geekend Freakout – Nursehella
Roommate From Hell [Ice and Fire Mix] – MC Lars feat. MC Chris
Bank Holiday – The Grammar Club
Penny Arcade Theme – MC Frontalot
Nursehellamentary – Nursehella
1337ology – Beefy feat. MC Router
99 Balloon Flights [Badd Spellah Nena Remix] – The Grammar Club
Fett’s Vett – MC Chris
Goth Girls – MC Frontalot
Download This Song – MC Lars feat. Jaret Riddick
The Positronic Pimp – Futuristic Sex Robotz
Hipster Girl – MC Lars
You Can Call Me Beef – Beefy
Hey There Ophelia – MC Lars
Secrets from the Future – MC Frontalot
Arguing on the Internet – Shael Riley
Internet Relationships – MC Lars
Alternate Ending – The Grammar Club
GP – Beefy feat. MC Router
Geotrip Disc 4 :Nostalgia Pop
A disc full of silly summery pop. Great for a sunny afternoon drive.
Name – Artist
All Star – Smash Mouth
Lemonade – Wheatus
Leave Me Alone (I’m Lonely) – P!nk
Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus
Wild Wild West – Will Smith
Shining Light – Ash
Say it Ain’t So – Weezer
William McGovern – Wheatus
Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups
My Life Would Suck Without You – Kelly Clarkson
Get the Party Started – P!nk
Lizstomania – Phoenix
Steal My Sunshine – Len
Mmmbop – Hanson
Doctor Jones – Aqua
Brimful of Asha – Cornershop
We Used to be Friends – The Dandy Warhols
Burn Baby Burn – Ash
Next Time: The Metal Disc, The Goth Disc and the Classical Disc.
Tags: Music
Last weekend we (Emma, John and I) drove down the coast to get out and about and see some geology. The weather was fantastic (as my scorched red, peeling neck will testify), and we got to have some fun running around on beaches.
Tags: Ayrshire, Geology, Ordovician, Silurian
So it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here (seriously? A month already?) so I thought I’d write a quick post about what’s been going on recently. I’ve been both busy and lazy, so haven’t had a chance to do much worthy of putting up here.
- Lab Work: I’m still working in the Lab, having just finished my fifth week there. The project is going really well. We’re starting to get mountains of data back from our GC runs. There are two weeks left on the project, most of which will be spent hydrolysing my esters so that we can identify the acids and alcohols present. Then, time and circumstances permitting we’re going to head over to SUERC in East Kilbride to take a look at Stable Carbon isotopes.
- Girvan Trip: Me, Emma and Emma’s mate John went on a short day trip down the coast between Ballantrae and Girvan (will be more on this later).
- Reading: I’ve got a fair bit of reading done, mostly about Zooplankton. But I also got to re-read one of my favourite books: Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and I’m currently cracking my way through The Code Book by Simon Singh.
- Gaming: Somehow we’ve spontaneously formed a new gaming group, which has let me get back into playing RPGs. We’ve had two massive gaming sessions so far; a D&D Scenario run by Chris and a WFRP game run by yours truly. We’re probably going to spin both of these off into full campaigns.
- Various Internet Nonsense: I’ve moved all my RSS feeds from Thunderbird to Google Reader, with broadly positive results. It saves a lot of time reading stuff on my iPhone while on the subway rather than sitting down to catch up on the days events in a oner. I’ve also started using Mendeley today. I haven’t really used the networking aspect of it at all (I think I prefer LinkedIn still at this point), but the desktop application is fantastic for organising the alarmingly large number of papers I need to read. Highly recommend checking it out.
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. A full post on our Girvan excursion will follow in a couple of days, and a wrap up post about working in the lab will appear in a couple of weeks.
Tags: Gaming, Geek, Geology, Reading, Summer Project
I’ve spent the last week in the G-Mol Lab working on my summer project. The lab is great; brand new and with cutting edge analytical equipment.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Biomarkers, Geology, Summer Project
The Accretionary Wedge for July is up, and it asks the following:
“So July’s topic is about your inspiration to enter geoscience. Was it a fantastic mentor? Watching your geologist parents growing up? A great teacher, or an exciting intro field trip? How did it happen?”
This is a difficult question for me to answer; mostly because of the way my decision making process (on the larger decisions at least) seems to work. I go from having a decision to make (e.g. at around 16 or 17 trying to decide what to do at university) to having made the decision without being entirely conscious of the process I’ve gone through to make it.
A whole load of little factors combine to result in a decision being made – the major ones are listed below: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Accretionary Wedge, Geology
In just a day and a half in the Borders we managed to visit fascinating geology ranging from the Ordovician through to the Quaternary. However, as you can see from these write ups it is painfully clear that we lacked the time to do it in any detail. We could have spent an entire day at Burnmouth wandering down the coast; another climbing the Eildons (like I said, I want a bit of Riebeckite-Felsite); one down the coast at Scremerston just south of Berwick collecting crinoid stems and another at Dob’s Linn and Grey Mare’s Tail looking at Quaternary landscapes and the North Trench. There are many more places we could have visited – we could have travelled up the coast to the volcanic hills and islands of North Berwick; down to Jedburgh to complete the Hutton’s Unconformity trifecta or to see some of the volcanic vents along the coast (eg at Coldingham).
We have loads of beautiful geology in our backyards here in Scotland, and there’s so much of it I still want to see. We’ll hopefully make another, longer, trip down at some point in the future. Stay tuned.
Homeward Bound
On Wednesday afternoon we drove across to Troon, travelling via Moffat so that we could visit the Ordovician-Silurian GSSP at Dob’s Linn (55.4400°N 3.2700°W according to the SSI). The region is a truly lovely glaciated landscape, with U-shaped valleys, hanging valleys, waterfalls etc. The area to the west of Dob’s Linn is a National Trust for Scotland Nature Reserve – Gray Mare’s Tail. A 60m waterfall falls down the side of the main valley, and walks lead up to the top of the waterfall to Loch Skeen (a corrie loch). It’s a lovely walk, and is a delightful example of textbook glaciated landforms (including a kettle hole hidden off to the right of the path just before the loch). The area is also of great ornithological interest thanks to its peregrine falcons, ring ouzel(s) (not sure how to pluralise that) and black grouse. It’s a delightful walk up there – unfortunately we didn’t have time to do the whole thing on this particular occasion, so we simply parked at Dob’s Linn. I previously went up there as part of a joint Advanced Higher Geography/Biology field trip in high school.
Tags: Borders09, Geology, Ordovician, Quaternary, Silurian
Early (well…) on Wednesday we drove a couple of miles up the road to the Eildon Hills – a journey which in no way involved travelling along a road that was closed for maintenance. We parked by the reservoir to the West of the Eildons – probably the best spot to start a walk.
Our Transport - The Green Blur, and our mascot - Trevor the Trilobite
Tags: Borders, Borders09, Carboniferous, Devonian, Geology, Silurian
After stopping in Eyemouth for a fish supper, and being attacked by Scotland’s biggest seagull, we drove up the coast to Siccar Point. Parking just outside the quarry we walked round to come at Siccar Point from the East (having driven right past the “proper” path). Making our way up from the East however let us see the “alternative” unconformity, which is arguably a better example of a classic angular unconformity. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Borders, Borders09, Devonian, Geology, Hutton, Silurian
Earlier this week Hazel and Emma joined me down in the Scottish Borders for a look at some interesting geology. On the first day we drove down to the coast to engage in some fossil hunting. Parking in Burnmouth, we walked South along the beaches and cliffs. I’d liked to have gone down as far as Scremerston just South of Berwick, but we were a bit pushed for time.
Burnmouth Beach
Tags: Borders, Borders09, Carboniferous, Geology