Out and about in Southern Nebraska, collecting joint data

Nebraska is set in the Great Plains region of the United State,s where the topography is almost ‘flat’ and bedding dips are ‘pseudo’ horizontal in most places. It was my first time of collecting field joint data from sedimentary rocks. I had (before now) only done this on basement rocks… and the brittleness of hard rocks makes joint observation on them pretty interesting. Also, my experience in joint analysis on sedimentary rocks had been limited to seismic data and satellite remote sensing data; so, I had a great experience driving around southern Nebraska and northern Kansas, collecting and interpreting joint data on different lithologies.

Some of the outcrops I visited were deeply weathered, while some had paleosols- both of which inhibited detailed observation of joint on the rocks. However, a lot of the outcrops had interesting structural information. See photos below:

- Open joint on a siltstone outcrop.

- Open joint on cross-bedded sandstone. The joint appears refract as it propagates into the bottom layer of relatively different mechanical property (layer with lots of cross bedding).

- Joints in interbedded shale and limestone. Because of the low competence of shale, it deforms less ‘brittly’ and more ‘ductly’, thereby making it difficult to find open joints on them. On the other hand, limestone is a more competent material than shale, therefore and it is more likely to have a higher density of joints,

- Clay-filled joint plane in shale (with thin bentonite interbedding). The vertical joint also appears to have been offset along the lower bentonite bed plane.

- Road-cut covered with paleosol. The paleosol has mud cracks which exhibit popcorn texture. It is so difficult to observe any structural discontinuity on the underlying lithology.

- Observing naturally-emplaced joints on limestone with interbedded chert. The road cut was made with explosives, which introduced many un-natural joints in the rock (which can also have their own systematic orientations). So, picking and measuring a joint on this type of exposure demands some care and thinking.

My original iDea

 

 

I watched ‘A beautiful Mind’- a movie based on the story of John Nash Jnr. and it inspired me beyond measure. This is because John’s deepest passion for mathematics happen to coincide with my own deepest  passion for geology. John Nash was in search of an original mathematical idea; he believed that there exists a principle that governs the behavior of things. He had already started winning scientific awards and had already been well known among his peers even before he entered the university. While at the university, he refused to go to classes or read textbooks simply because he believed that classes kills the potential for innovation in students. Whenever he was faced with any mathematical problem, he never consulted his lecturers or read text books, he sought for answers to questions based on his own reasoning. He was an amazing man. He talked less, listened more and thought more. In fact, he was always thinking. He was not a people-person. Although most of his classmates adored him, they ridiculed his weird attitude.

 

 

I like him for his deep passion and his pursuit of an original idea. At the end of the day, he had breakthroughs in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations which provided insight into the forces that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life. He achieved his goal. His theories are used in market economics, computing, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, politics and military theory. He later won Nobel Memorial Prize in 1994.

It would be a greater challenge to follow John’s path in our present world, as most academic institutions are very strict with referencing in presented or published research papers. A writer of today is expected to quote at least one author who had published an article on whatever assertion/proposition he makes in his paper. I could remember my first degree final year project defense. The area I worked on had not been extensively explored or written on by earlier geologists. So, I had few references. The external project supervisor asked why my reference list wasn’t long, I explained the reason to him. He said he doesn’t believe that there’s any new thing in this world. That the truth is someone, somewhere would have discussed or written about whatever model I am proposing in my thesis.

 

Both ancient and contemporary psychologists have reiterated the fact that there is still a huge load of theories, principles, scientific processes etc. yet to be discovered by man. An inspirational quote I read some years ago states that "Only in the minds of a selected group of thinkers does the earth begin to reveal its secrets." I loved it so much that I turned it into my email signature. It suggests that the earth has secrets to reveal about itself. Man could definitely have not exhausted these secrets so soon.

Nevertheless, I choose to be one of those selected group of thinkers. I am committed to the cause of pushing geoscientific knowledge to the next level. I believe there are still a lot to be understood and known about Nigeria’s geology, as well as the structure of the earth at large. There are still a lot of dark spots in our understanding of plate tectonics, there’s still a huge demand for renewable energy which is yet to be met. These and many more constitute the secrets of our planet earth that we are yet to discover.

This is my passion… the pursuit of an original geoscientific idea… a pattern of thinking that will transform the way in which man sees this amazing planet- The Earth.