“Opacity” is a term that seems to be an easy one to define. If light can not penetrate material then it is opaque. Piece of wood is opaque and most rocks are opaque. Glass, on the other hand, is not. Light shines through it, so it is transparent. Materials that are somewhere between these two extremes are said to be translucent — light penetrates them but you can not really see clearly what is behind them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/107509377372007544953/Rocks#5787194299559325458
Sample of microgabbro (diabase). The width of the sample is 4 cm.

This is very common explanation but it seems to be too simplistic. Let’s take a closer look. Are rocks really opaque? What about the sample of igneous rock gabbro shown below?

We definitely can not see through this sample but what if we take a small slice of it, glue it on a glass slide and polish it until it is only 30 microns thick. This is what geologists do to examine rocks microscopically. This is how gabbro looks under the microscope:

So, is opacity dependent on the thickness of material? I am afraid the answer is no. Opacity is an intrinsic property of material, it can not depend on its thickness. After all, even glass will not let light shine through it if it is a kilometer in thickness.

Truly opaque materials do not let the light shine through them no matter what is the thickness. Rocks actually do contain such minerals that are opaque even if they are only 30 micrometers thick. Gold and silver are opaque minerals. Magnetite, pyrite, galenite, etc. are practically opaque as well. You won’t see through them even if they are 30 microns in thickness. So if we want to find out what is the cause of opacity, we have to focus on properties that are shared by these minerals. They actually do look similar in a certain way, they all have a metallic look. Gold and silver are pure metals and the rest of them are metallic compounds (sulfides and oxides).

http://picasaweb.google.com/107509377372007544953/Rocks#5789959959323099346
Gold flakes are opaque no matter how thin they are.

So it seems that the property that is behind opacity is somehow closely associated with metals and to a somewhat lesser degree with certain metallic compounds. Metals can be defined in several ways but one of the easiest definitions is based on the type of chemical bonds: metal is a material that is held together by metallic bonds. Metallic bond is a type of covalent bond (atoms share electrons) but in metallic bond the outermost electrons are free to wonder around the material. This is what makes metals malleable, what makes them excellent conductors of electricity and heat, but it also gives them characteristic sheen known as metallic luster and it also makes them opaque.

Diamond and graphite are minerals that have a very simple composition — they are composed of pure carbon. However, despite being identical in composition, they have very different properties. Diamond is the hardest mineral. All the chemical bonds in the lattice of diamond are covalent and no electrons are allowed to wonder around. Every carbon atom is bonded to four neighboring atoms of carbon. Graphite, on the other hand, is one of the softest mineral, it contains very strong carbon sheets that are held together by weak bonds (hence the softness). Within the sheets every carbon atom is bonded (with strong covalent bonds) to three neighboring carbon atoms (sheets are two-dimensional, there is no room for four bonds). This means that every carbon atom has one additional electron with which it has nothing to do. These electrons are free to move around within the sheet of graphite. This is why graphite sheets conduct electricity and why graphite also has a somewhat metallic look. This is also the reason why graphite too is opaque.

http://picasaweb.google.com/107509377372007544953/Rocks#5789969772471739378
Flakes of graphite have a metallic look and are opaque although they contain no metals.

I can not claim to understand fully how these wondering electrons make materials opaque (this is complicated physics, not my speciality) but it seems that light as an electromagnetic radiation interacts with free electrons (that are capable of carrying electric current). This interaction makes it impossible for the light to penetrate the material. It either bounces back to create a characteristic metallic luster or gets absorbed within the material.

I was looking at the data collected by the Google Analytics about my website’s visitors and thought that it might be interesting to some of my readers as well. I started blogging in October 2011, hence my data starts with a first full month (November 2011). You can see here top 15 countries where the visitors of Sandatlas are living (or from which countries they visited this site). Numbers represent percentage of visitors from that particular country in a given month. Last column is average for the whole year.

I want to stress that this data is very generalized and anonymous. Google Analytics shows me from which countries people are coming from and how many visits they made together but I can not find out any specifics about one particular person nor do I want to do it. I am much more interested in large statistically significant datasets to see general trends. It would be also very difficult to spy after any one of you because I have hundreds of visits every day. Just to give you a context, Sandatlas has currently approximately 12,000 visits a month (August 2012).

2011

Country	Nov	Dec	Average
USA	47.47	50.13	49.30
Canada	7.77	8.78	8.46
UK	8.57	6.91	7.42
Australia	3.95	3.16	3.40
Estonia	3.95	2.77	3.14
India	2.16	2.43	2.35
Germany	2.28	1.96	2.06
Netherlands	1.79	1.23	1.40
Spain	1.91	1.15	1.38
Russia	0.92	1.51	1.33
Brazil	0.80	1.45	1.25
France	1.23	1.09	1.13
Greece	0.37	1.45	1.12
Indonesia	1.11	1.03	1.06
Italy	0.92	0.98	0.96
Others	14.80	13.98	14.23

2012

Country	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Average
USA	48.57	49.47	48.35	44.20	38.86	38.01	36.45	36.55	45.79	49.07			44.09
UK	9.24	7.45	7.39	7.12	8.83	8.36	7.66	7.53	7.48	6.56			7.60
Canada	8.67	7.69	8.76	7.53	5.29	6.31	6.89	6.33	5.56	7.00			6.91
Australia	3.74	2.82	3.91	3.91	5.72	6.35	4.85	6.54	4.32	3.30			4.45
India	1.83	2.58	1.90	3.35	3.97	5.14	6.39	7.28	5.72	4.54			4.43
Germany	2.18	2.45	2.53	2.10	2.01	2.03	1.91	1.65	1.20	1.16			1.80
Philippines	1.17	1.61	1.08	0.73	0.79	1.43	2.50	2.36	1.99	1.45			1.54
South Africa	0.53	1.04	1.40	0.88	1.54	0.94	1.28	2.02	1.43	1.13			1.24
Brazil	0.70	0.74	1.04	1.35	1.66	1.99	1.43	1.80	0.81	0.72			1.17
Spain	0.77	1.09	1.20	1.32	1.13	1.45	1.04	1.22	0.95	1.09			1.12
Norway	1.01	1.35	1.55	1.03	0.96	1.31	0.89	0.95	0.79	0.65			1.00
Indonesia	1.17	1.56	1.34	1.40	1.19	0.63	0.78	0.45	0.77	0.80			0.96
Malaysia	0.59	0.39	0.92	1.27	1.02	0.86	1.11	0.88	1.04	1.08			0.95
The Netherlands	0.75	1.00	0.92	0.59	0.73	1.22	1.20	1.11	0.91	0.70			0.90
France	1.03	0.65	0.68	0.86	0.96	1.07	1.31	1.00	0.70	0.79			0.88
Others	18.06	18.11	17.04	22.35	25.34	22.89	24.32	22.33	20.53	19.96			20.97

Here are some of my thoughts and questions that emerged when I tried to make some sense of these numbers. The following text was written in August 2012. Since that time I have updated the table above with new data but have not changed the interpretation below.

1. I had only a small number of visitors in 2011. Hence, these numbers are not statistically significant. Take a look at Greece numbers: 0.37% of visitors were from Greece in november and suddenly 1.45% in december. Possibly some sort of link sharing in Facebook or something similar was behind it. Greece is absent in 2012 table (24th position at the moment). Estonia also made it to the 2011 table (5th place overall) but not to the 2012 table (20th place). Obviously the reason behind this is the fact that I am from Estonia and some people I personally know were looking at my blog but now they make up much smaller percent of all the visitors. Estonia as a small country should not be able to make it to the top 15. Otherwise, it would tell something about the quality of my content if only my friends wish to look at it. I am happy it is not so.

2. It should be no surprise that most visitors are from the USA. In december 2011 more than half (50.13%) of all the visitors were from US. However, it seems that so high percent is not achievable anymore. The share of US visitors is steadily declining. What is the reason behind that? I believe that largely it has to be somehow connected to the Geoblogosphere. I gained new readers very rapidly in december 2011 because my posts were automatically tweeted to the followers of @Geoblogfeed. Those who follow this feed are probably mostly Americans.

3. Italy and The Netherlands are in 2011 table but both are missing in 2012. Why? I believe it has to do something with the natural evolution of my blog. Sandatlas existed already before the end of 2011 but it was more like a static website with little information only about sand and sand collecting. Most visitors at that time were probably other sand collectors. It has been my observation that sand collecting as a hobby is somewhat popular in only five countries (Germany, France, The Netherlands, Italy, and USA). Especially Netherlands stands out. Despite its relatively small population, there are surprisingly many people interested in sand. Now I am writing more about general geology and have gained many new readers who may be not so much interested in sand.

4. However, this may explain why Netherlands is missing (it is actually still doing well, 17th position in 2012) but where is Italy? It is a big country, bigger than Spain which is in 10th place at the moment. Why isn’t Italy doing better than Spain? I don’t know that for sure but there may be one possible explanation. I visited Spain last year, took some geological photos and have shared them with you. I have noticed that it helps to attract visitors from the country if you go there and write about it. For some reason lots of people are very interested to read what foreigners say about their home country or places they are familiar with. I guess I should go to Italy next to gain some new followers there.

5. It was really surprising to me that The Philippines are in such a high position (7th place). It is perhaps showing my ignorance but I did not expect that. But if I think a little. With a population of nearly 100 million who are fluent in English… It is not so surprising anymore but I really had no idea before. However, I am still not satisfied. I feel it needs a better explanation. Perhaps Sandatlas has some fans there 🙂 I would like to know if this is true.

6. India. Another Asian country in a high position (5th) but this time it is no surprise. India is clearly on the rise and I believe that eventually it will occupy the second place after USA. It will take some time to overtake Canada, Australia, and UK but it will happen.

7. Where the hell is Japan? Japan is a wealthy country and very interesting geologically. Many people should have more than enough reason to seek geological info from the Internet. Yet I have few visits from this country. Japan is currently holding incredible 34th position. What can I say. It is well known that Japan was completely closed society for centuries. Not anymore officially but perhaps thay have still retained large part of this isolationism. Perhaps Japanese people are seeking information in their own language and maybe what they find really satisfies their needs. Again, I don’t know but would love to hear more about it. It is really the greatest surprise I had when analysing this data.

8. China. Numbers from China are similar to Japan, 35th position. This time it is more complicated. Yes, China should definitely have a higher place but I suspect that people of this country are not yet used to seek information from outside of their huge home country. It is difficult to understand for me. I am from Estonia, country with a population of one million. I am forced to seek information in English but it may be different if your country’s population is thousand times larger and most people there, as much as I know, don’t speak English. Another aspect worth considering is that China is blocking its peoples access to some parts of the internet. Hence, many people are probably hiding their country of origin with VPN or similar solutions. I don’t know how extensive this is but I also get a fair share of visits from unidentified countries.

9. Norway is holding incredibly high position (9th). I have no idea what is behind that but perhaps Norwegians are interested in geology and I have also written quite a bit about Norway and have used lots of images of rocks from Norway. Maybe that explains something but I do not believe that Norway will be in top 15 in the long run.

10. Overall it seems that visitor numbers from the so-called developing countries are growing (especially Brazil and India) and developed world is declining in relative terms. Maybe it should be that way because the same is happening economically. It would be really cool if conclusions like that can be drawn based on the visitors data of just one blog.

September update

Russia and Turkey are out. The Netherlands and Malaysia took their places in the table. Developing countries continue to rise. The most surprising thing is that USA made a very powerful comeback.

I am really sorry to dissapoint all the hardcore geology fans but there is nothing about geology in this post. I will try not to repeat this mistake any time soon.

There is a long-fought battle between those who favor spending to exit economic downturn and those who think that austerity is eventually the right choice. I do not want to choose a side yet, I think it depends on context, but I am clearly different from Paul Krugman, one of the most influential spending advocates, who thinks that government spending is always the solution and if it does not work, then the sum of money was too small. Well, you can not argue with arguments like that, can you? I’ve read his statements for several years and have always wondered how wrong one man can be. One of his latest predictions about two or three months ago was that Greece will be kicked out of Eurozone in a month. Well, that has not happened so far. What amazes me now are his recent attacks on my home country, Estonia.

Estonia entered severe economic depression 2008/09 after real estate boom and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the USA. Government responded to that by cutting spending to lower the budget deficit. According to Krugman, this is very wrong thing to do. However, Estonia is recovering reasonably well. Its economic growth rate is again fastest in EU which obviously irritates Krugman. He is even asking “this is the best people can do to demonstrate the wonders of austerity?”. By saying that he points to the fact that we are still below the level (in terms of the size of the economy) we achieved at the peak of the boom.

I think that this discussion is severely flawed in many ways. First, you can not compare tiny country like Estonia and the USA. Our internal consumption is rather weak. We rely on our exporting partners to whom we sell our stuff. It makes not much sense to just stimulate domestic consumption. Our currency was pegged to euro which means that we can not print money (meanwhile we have adopted euro). Hence, we have to borrow the money to stimulate and we know that our children must pay this money back to our creditors (with interests, of course). USA has a freedom to print money endlessly. USA has a freedom to generate worldwide inflation and that way rob money even from those who have to live with $2 a day. We all are facing ever-increasing food and fuel prices because Krugman, Obama, Bernanke, etc. have found an ingenious way to make the whole world pay back US debt. I don’t know how long this lasts but it can not last forever. There are no free lunches.

But I actually did not want to write about that. I wanted to say why Krugman is so utterly wrong. Many people know that he is badly mistaken in most things he is saying but it amazes me that they do not point to the main weakness of his hypotheses. This is his failure to understand that successful country must be almost always run in the way that maximizes its long term gain, not short term gain. What do I mean by saying that? There is a tradeoff between long- and short-term gain. Let me give you an example: your child demands very loudly in a shop that you have to buy him this colorful toy. Now you have two choices. First, you buy it because then he will be satisfied for a moment. Second, you refuse to buy because you never intended to do it, especially after such behaviour. In a first occasion you are maximizing your short term gain which will bring along long term pain because next time you will go to a shop the same happens. If you choose not to buy it, you have to suffer short term pain because he will behave very badly right after that but in the long run he will understand that such a behaviour will not bring him anything good. I have found many similar tradeoffs in everyday life, science, and economy. In the long run, of course, the strategy that brings along long-term success should be preferred.

Similar tradeoffs are well known in ecology. Different organisms have adopted different reproduction strategies. Those who live a short life do not need to invest into their health. In an evolutionary sense it pays to invest it into reproduction. Those that live longer, however, need to invest (or waste) lots of their resources into themselves. They must maintain a long-term vision. Which organisms are countries resembling? To me, it seems clear that countries should almost always seek solutions that increase its success in the long-term because countries are designed to last as long as possible. What is government spending in the case of an economic downturn? Is it pleasant in the short term? Yes, it definitely is. It is so sweet thing to do for politicians. Hence, it has to be wrong in the long run because there is an unavoidable tradeoff.

Why did I say that countries should seek long-term gain not always but almost always? Because there are exceptions. If the very existence of a country is threatened (in case of war), it should spend heavily and right now to protect itself as efficiently as possible. If needed, money should be borrowed in large amounts. But this is extreme situation. There is no excuse to do anything like that in an economic downturn because we simply did not want to slightly cut back our spending. However, I am not against some stimulating if it comes from the resources collected in good times. Most countries, unfortunately, prefer to run deficit even in good times.

In the long run, those who preferred long-term gain (which means moderate short term austerity) will gain because they do not have a constant burden of debt with interests. I remember one British MP saying that every year UK has to pay to its creditors the sum of money as an interests that equals their yearly expenditures on the whole educational system. I think it is absolutely awful if this is true. It is well known that long-term economic growth comes from investments to education and science (not from governmental stimulus packages). Great Britain could theoretically invest twice as much money into science and education than it is doing now.

Now it should be obvious why it irritates me when Krugman points to Estonia and asks “this is the best people can do to demonstrate the wonders of austerity?”. It simply is not fair because Estonia clearly chose long-term gain (by having almost no foreign debt and balanced budget). This gain is not obvious yet. I readily admit that stimulating supports economy in the short run and countries that did so could be better off few years later but I can not see how that can be true in the long run. It is simply against common sense and the fundamental laws of nature.

Jennifer at Fuzzy Science hosts this month’s Accretionary Wedge. The topic is field notes.

My notes are usually rather short and not very artistic. I prefer to take lots of photos and in most cases my notes consist of text only. There are actually only two things that I always record. These are date and geographical coordinates. These are fundamentals which help me to later determine when and where this particular note was taken. Date is especially valuable later to link photos with a notebook entry and coordinates help to locate the outcrop or other point of interest on a map and seek additional information from literature and geological maps. I am using iPhone with a special application to obtain the coordinates, its assisted GPS is much faster than ordinary handheld GPS receivers.

What else do I record? I will clearly write so if I am taking rock or sand samples. If I am using some sort of literature in the field, I will add notes about it: book title and page number, for example. This is one of the things I learned recently. It helps tremendously later when you start writing a blog post or something like that.

If I know the names of the settlements nearby I may add them but I do not consider it absolutely necessary because I already have coordinates. I may add notes about weather but it seems that usually I do not. Last but not least comes the bulk of my notes which is simply description of what I saw or think I saw. Interpretations and descriptions tend to be mixed up. This is one of the thing that I feel needs to be longer. I tend to be too laconic. I take my notes usually when I am finished in one place. One of the things I have found useful is adding notes about something memorable that happened: saw a man on a horse, for example. It is also useful to briefly describe the surroundings. That too helps to bring back memories about the place later. I am still learning and the way I am filling my field notebooks is surely going to change in the future.

Every time I go to a foreign country to see some geology I am in trouble. I try to prepare but it is hard task, sometimes next to impossible. Geological excursion guides (if in existence) are usually available in printed form only, often written in obscure language, and it is very hard to find info about their existence. I am not even talking about purchasing, this is usually hopeless.

Therefore, I have been thinking about creating some sort of public database or website which should gather info about interesting geo-sites worldwide. This information is somewhere there but unfortunately very fragmented and often not yet available in digital format. Of course, creating and managing such a database is lots of work. That is why this plan is still just a mere idea.

Recently, Callan Bentley wrote a post named 101 American Geo-Sites You’ve Gotta See, by Albert B. Dickas, inspired by yet another book about American geo-sites “you’ve gotta see”. This developed into a meme. One of the responders, Evelyn Mervine over at Georneys, suggested that we should come up with similar lists for other countries as well. I think it is a wonderful idea which should be one small or maybe not so small step closer to what should be done.

Therefore, here is my list of interesting geo-sites in Estonia, my home country. Estonia is a small country, especially when compared to the US. Coming up with 101 is definitely possible but in my opinion not very wise thing to do. I limited myself to just 10 for now.

Pakri pank

It is a section of the Baltic Klint. For several reasons I think it is the best among many exposures of this magnificent cliff which is more than 1,000 kilometers long.

Jägala juga

Highest natural waterfall in Estonia. It is beautiful in all seasons and there are several layers of different sedimentary rocks exposed.

Kaali kraater

This is the oldest confirmed impact crater in Europe. I mean the date of confirmation is the oldest, crater itself is from the Holocene. Kaali is the best known Estonian impact crater but definitely not the oldest or biggest. Unfortunately, our two big complex craters are buried and are therefore not included in this list.

Kaugatuma pank

This is seacliff which is not impressive at all as a landform but it consists of limestone which is full of large crinoid fossils. Some pieces of crinoids are hollow like rings. It is just one example of highly fossiliferous limestones in Estonia which are really abundant here. It could be replaced with many other nice places with lots of fossils. Sedimentary rocks in Estonia are very rich in Paleozoic fauna (brachiopods, nautiloids, crinoids, trilobites, bryozoans, graptolites, etc.) Let’s say it is one place that represents them all but for those interested in fossils, this is just a start.

Kunda quarry

In this quarry one can see bluish clay which is half a billion years old. It is quite a remarkable age for unlithified sediment.

Ilumetsa kraater

Another meteorite crater from the Holocene. Here is an article about this crater: Meteorite crater near my home.

Taevaskoja

Southern Estonia is covered with sandstone from the Devonian (Old Red). This is perhaps one of the best known and most beautiful outcrops among many.

Soomaa

Soomaa is a national park which is best visited by a canoe in early spring when it is usually flooded. There are no rocks to be seen.

Vooremaa

It is a hilly region in Eastern Estonia. Elongated hills so characteristic of this area are large drumlins. It should be one of the best examples of large drumlin fields in the world.

Kohtla kaevandusmuuseum

This is mining museum in an old underground oil shale mine. Oil shale is the most important mineral resource here. Estonia is famous or parhaps infamous because we burn this stuff to generate electricity. This museum could be replaced with some oil shale quarry if you can organize a visit there. Anyway, for geologists, this brown fossiliferous variety of oil shale known as kukersite is definitely worth taking a look at when visiting Estonia.

This is my selection. Some of these sites could easily be replaced with something else, or better yet, new ones should be added to these ten. The idea of this is not to choose the top 10 but to just describe places that are worth visiting. I will try to describe all of them in the future as separate posts. I can not do it right away. I have visited all of them, some of them many times, but for most I have no or only few photos. I also need to get correct geographical coordinates. I am convinced that no location or “how to get there” information is complete without these.

I would be very glad to see similar lists published for other countries, states, regions, etc. It does not matter how many locations are listed. One is better than nothing and maybe in the long run we can come up with some sort of solution that gathers this information into one place or links to different pieces of knowledge published here and there.

I am leaving Ireland today. It was an interesting and versatile trip. I saw a wide variety of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. Ireland is a good geotrip destination but one should prepare for bad weather and surprisingly long distances. Especially if you mostly stay in one place like I did. I spent only two nights out of Dublin but visited places in all directions from the capital of Ireland. Hence, I covered about 3,500 kilometers in 10 days. That’s probably not wise. It takes lots of fuel and wastes precious time. However, the locations I visited mostly formed a clusters that are far away from each other in all corners of the island (Antrim, Waterford, Connemara, Wicklow, etc.). Visiting them all means lots of driving anyway.

My days were long and it was very hard to find some time for blogging. However, I took more than 600 photos, most of them geological. So I will take you along to a virtual geotrip to Ireland when I am back home again.

Here is an appetizer from Ireland:

http://picasaweb.google.com/107509377372007544953/Ireland#5757160879084770114
These folds in Loughshinny (north of Dublin) with angular and overturned hinges are sedimentary rocks (turbidite) from the Carboniferous. They are folded by the Variscan orogeny. If you plan to visit the place, make sure that it is a low tide, otherwise the waves will be pounding the cliff face and it will not be possible to take a photo like this.

Next week I will go to Ireland because Ireland will host the Teams Bridge European Championships this year. I will not participate but my wife is representing Estonia there in women’s team bridge. What am I going to do there? Well, I plan to see lots of geologically interesting places. I plan to drive around Ireland, mostly near Dublin because we will stay there, but I believe I will make few longer trips as well.

I have to confess that I do not know Ireland’s geology very well. I know there is Giant’s Causeway (in Northern Ireland) which I would like to visit, although it is quite a distance away from Dublin. I know few more places but really not enough to keep me busy for about 10 days. So, I am turning to you because maybe I have some readers from Ireland (or those who have visited Ireland) who know what are the most interesting geolocations (mostly in Leinster) that definitely should be visited. I am an omnivore — interested in all types of rocks and structures.

Today I successfully defended my master’s thesis (MSc). I could write long about the topic but I believe it would not be very wise move. My ideas are hopefully intriguing enough to be published in a scientific journal.

To make it very short: I wrote about enigmatic conglomerate pebbles found on the NW coast of Estonia. They are part of a glacial drift, their place of origin is unknown. These conglomerates are lithologically versatile and I proposed a hypothesis that the material these conglomerates are made of could be deposited by a tsunami in the Early Ordovician. Proving or rejecting the hypopthesis will not be easy but the idea is crazy enough to intrigue me to give it a try.

One month ago I came back from Cyprus and decided to seriously start working on my master’s thesis. The deadline was approaching fast. I thought that it can not be that hard because I write pretty fast and I thought I had already conducted the analyses that needed to be done. All I had to do was write it up. I remember a blog post by Brian Romans where he described the same thing — students often tend to think that writing it up is the last thing that needs to be done.

I even hoped that I can still find some time for my blog. However, the reality was different. Trying to write a scientific text is much harder because almost everything has to be cited. Therefore, I had to start reading before I could write anything. While reading, new ideas emerged. I started to understand things differently and need for additional analyses and lab work was evident. So, one month ago I thought that I just had to write it up but now if I look back I can understand clearly that I did not know these things one month ago I finally ended up writing about.

I hope I learned my lesson. If I am ever going to do science again, I will do it differently. I will start writing early. I will start a document with chapters like Discussion, Material & Methods, etc. early on and write it up as I move forward. I know, it may sound like a new year promise but I mean it because I saw how quickly new ideas developed and my understanding improved while writing and working simultaneously. Writing about something means that I have to put my mind into it, I have to start thinking. Throughout the year I did very little progress because I didn’t think. Doing science without thinking is probably impossible. I just conducted some analyses without having a clear understanding whether it is really needed or not. Some of these things turned out to be essential while others I did not use at all.

Brian Romans recommended to write early and often because writing is doing science. I can not agree more and I remember that I actually even agreed with it when I read it but still it always happens that everyone, almost everyone, has to really learn these things the hard way.

I submitted my thesis yesterday. I am now free man again. Well, almost, I have to defend it and many other obligations are waiting which I just had to push aside while working on my thesis. But one thing is clear. I want to work on my blog more often than I did during the past few weeks.

The accretionary Wedge #45 is about geological pilgrimage – the sacred geological place that you must visit at least once in your lifetime.

I know I am a bit late and I am going to violate the rules of the game because I do not wish to pick a single location. Instead I am thinking about a huge and geologically extremely versatile landmass – the western part of the USA.

Many among my readers would now say: wait a minute, shouldn’t it be a remote and relatively inaccessible place? But for me it is both remote and inaccessible. It is remote because I live far away and it is inaccessible because I should go for a very long trip to see a tiny fraction of the places I’d like to visit there. I have never set my foot on US soil. Not because I can’t do it for some reason but I just see no point in going to New York for example for some days. I am not interested in it. If I am going to make a trip to US, then it should last some time to justify the money spent on airplane tickets, etc. It is very hard to do because of other commitments in life. It is much easier for me to take a week and visit some geologically interesting place in the Mediteranean area, for example. The Med, by the way, is very interesting as well.

There is one aspect of US geology what makes me jealous. No, I don’t mean Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, or other places with spectacular geology. Its the fact that USA is a country where people share a common language and taxpayers money adds up to initiate something big. There are projects like “Roadside Geology” series of books for every state and digital geological maps available free of charge. There is nothing like that for Europe. Europe is composed of small nations, everyone speaking their own language and dealing with their own small and globally absolutely unimportant projects. GPS was not accidentally created in the USA, it is easy to understand why it didn’t happen in Europe.

Yes, I know, Europe may be culturally richer because of versatility but I do not see much value in it. It really disturbs me that for every country geological guides that are in existence are written in strange languages understandable to few millions only and they are mostly printed, very little is available in the web. Every geological survey has their own mapping rules. Even if you can access some of their maps, the coordinate system used is often local and usable with great difficulties, if at all.

My geological pilgrimage would ideally take a year at least, possibly even more and involve many stops in California, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, etc. I doubt I will ever make it because it means I have to take a year free of other commitments but who knows. It costs nothing to dream and things you would like to do very much sometimes happen.