10 February, 2007

Contestants, raise your hammers...

From the Berkeley Geological Association blog (with some snipping):

Geolympics is the ultimate in field geologist competition. This yearly event should put to the test all the field practices geologist's are trained to perform with accuracy and time contraints as parameters of success.

1) The Brunton: Imagine 5 or so rocks with varying strikes, dips, slickenlines, etc. that need measuring whilst being timed.

2) Rock Demolition: Imagine a line of geologists armed with a basketball size chunk of granite and their favorite rock hammer. They are timed to see who can smash their rocks into chunks no bigger than a baseball.

3) Twisted Map Folding: Imagine a new crisp map completly unfolded and a geologist blind folded who must then, by feel alone, fold the map into its original orientation while being timed.

4) Gear Up Gear Down: Imagine a geologist pulling up his/her truck when the clock starts and they must exit the vehicle and gear up with boots, hand lens, brunton, hammer with loop, acid bottle, map, rain gear, the works then when complete screaming ROCK IT! and then undressing again into street clothes, packing away the gear and firing up the truck again.

A few more potential events occur to me:
  • Contact free running: A test of mapping skill and athleticism. Contestants have to precisely follow a contact between two formations, across hill, dale, ravine, cliff face, river, bracken, and bog. Points for speed, accuracy and style.
  • Drilling time trial: One for the paleomagicians amongst us. Contestants are given an hour to drill, orient and extract as many core samples as they can. Scoring is based on the length of the cores as well as the number (i.e. an 8cm core which yields 3 standard paleomagnetic samples scores the same as three cores which yield only one each). Solo and pair events.
  • Geo-orienteering: Like orienteering, except you have a geological map and specified rock samples must be gathered from each control point.

I'm sure you guys can come up with some more events...

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