Coffee Table Talks

Nerd Alert: Geological coffee table talks!

‘A lot can happen over coffee’, so says the tag line of a popular Café chain. Over the years I have realized the depth behind that. Completing assignments being the prime happening thing. And arguments the other. I think it’s the caffeine kick which makes you work more or argue more! So one such coffee table conference was heated up recently. It all started from a statement I would paraphrase ‘Ohh Geologists just make stories, they just lie about things, who is going to go back millions years and check!’ Ahhh, my mind screamed back “Another ignorant fella”. Well, but over the years (a small association of little less than a decade with Geology), I have encountered many such ‘laymen’. True, who would care for the rocks around you being 65 million years old or for the molten material beneath the surface of the Earth-the magma or for the fact that the landmasses on the Earth were a part of Supercontinent Rodinia, Pannotia, Pangaea over the geologic history! 

Geological reasoning is a skill as much as a science. There is mammoth amount of random Earth data around. But it has to be converted into understandable and usable information. Geologists have to collect this data, place it in a logical sequence and interpret it. It is a wholesome process of reconstruction. And then, if you think it’s all simple, then nature has its own ways to conceal the facts. So it will hide away all your evidence beneath a thick pile of weathered material, soil, volcanic ash or bury it beneath the dunes, plains or mountains or to make it worse, transport it miles away! If that’s not enough it will jumble up, mismatch or destroy some strata. It will throw rocks into folds, fault the blocks or rupture them. 

Okay, okay, this wasn't going in the right way I figured from the ‘you speak Hebrew’ expression on my coffee companion’s face!  Then I recalled my geology project during early years of learning Geology. It basically showed the day-to-day life things which are directly related to Geology (basically everything indirectly, but I didn't want to boast). The whole construction material of a house comes from the mine. The local rocks are generally used as building blocks (basalts, granites, limestones, etc.). The iron comes from Iron ores (Haematite, Magnetite, etc). Aluminium comes from the Bauxite ore. The copper for electric wirings, switches, cables comes from the Copper ores. And so on endlessly. The clays (a group of minerals) are used in bricks, floor, wall tiles. The micas as insulators, Gypsum in cement manufacturing. Quartz (Silica) has myriad applications as glass, abrasives, computer chips, refractories, precision instruments and varieties even as semi-precious gemstones. Where do you think the lead in your batteries comes from? What do you think steel is composed of? The jewels that you adorn be it metals like gold, silver or gemstones like sapphires, rubies, diamonds are all geological products. Well, even the Talc that you may apply is a mineral (softest mineral, 1 on Mohs scale of hardness)!

I was making sense. 

I wanted to be absolutely clear that day. Petrol prices are rising day by day, I said. Got a reflex angry reaction to that cursing the economy, country, politics, etc. I said calmly, do you know where the petrol comes from? Petroleum, a hydrocarbon comes from crude oil, which is formed when organic matter is buried under a thick pile of material and subjected to extreme temperature pressure. It is a gradual process of decaying and decomposition (slowly ‘cooking’ the organic matter) taking millions of years to form.  The way we are demanding it right now, it is soon going to be depleted in few centuries. Leave all that aside, the life sustaining drink (H2O, water), is stored in tiny pores inside the rocks as groundwater. This forms one of the most vital sources of fresh water in the world and the most important natural resource. 

I was making much more sense.

These are just few applications of Geology that we see around almost daily. Or which can be commonly related to. But Geology as a Science should be taken seriously too, I urged. 

Time for another coffee, we leave science for another day!

A basket full of geology!