Right, so I've really milked all the content possible out of my mapping project but in the spirit of trying to make an accessible resource for confused second years looking for mapping advice I thought I would include one final post.
Each year, the Teddy Hall Earth Sciences undergrads get together for an evening of pizza and wine, where the 4th years do presentations on their masters projects and the 3rd years on their mapping projects. These are designed to be pretty informal and give the 1st and 2nd years a general idea what they have in store as well as give advice so they don't make the same mistakes we did. This event happened back in February but I only just got round to typing up this quick summary of the presentation Catherine and I gave about our mapping project in Ireland.
The project:
I won't resubject you all to a detailed summary of our project, if you have somehow missed out on that one I blogged the whole thing so there is many many posts on here to get you up to speed. But briefly, we spent 6 weeks in Finny, a little town about an hour and a half from Galway, Ireland in order to map the geology. The rocks consisted of Dalradian metamorphic and Ordovician sedimentary rocks that have undergone complex folding and faulting during a mountain building event known as the Grampian Orogeny. The structure in the 13 sqkm area we mapped was incredibly complex which made it harder than we anticipated. However, we have both long since handed in our projects so it worked out in the end!
Choosing the area:
Initially we wanted to go to Sweden but due to logistical complications and a lack of good enough geology that one got rejected by the approval board. We then went to one of our lecturers asking for advice and he pointed us to County Galway which is where he is from, so was very familiar with the geology. After we picked a vague area we pretty much just looked for the cheapest accommodation possible and chose to map around the house we stayed in. It was asked by a 2nd year what to do to avoid getting your proposal rejected. If I'm being honest, just do a bit more research than we did. Sweden was a great idea for a holiday but not for a mapping project, the geology was all one of two rock types and the exposure was very poor due to extensive forest cover. To avoid this, just have a quick look at exposure levels on google maps and do a quick google search of a vague geological map to make sure there is enough different rock types around to be worth going.
Things to consider:
Transport (we drove to Ireland which meant we had a car which was a great help, also you can't take that many rocks back if you have limited luggage allowance on a plane)
Land Access (we were lucky that, apart from a close call with one farmer, we didn't come across anyone who wouldn't give us access to their land. But in some countries land access is much more restricted)
Geological Complexity (needs to be complex enough to be able to write a decent project on it but maybe have a look at a map before you go and make sure there isn't ridiculous levels of complex structure going on)
Weather (Ireland was very rainy but we didn't want to be in the heat all the time, groups that mapped in Spain had lovely sun but had to get up early to avoid mid day heat)
Wildlife (Many, many ticks were encountered in Ireland, not the case in other countries)
Knowledge of the area (As we study mostly UK geology, Ireland was a geological context we were very familiar with which was helpful)
Language Barriers (Not only when you're there, but reading the literature. Obviously all the litertaure written about Irish geology was done so in English but groups mapping in Spain and Switzerland had to get real good at google translating papers)
Mapping Partner (go with someone you can put up with everyday for 6 weeks, I'm very lucky having Catherine because it's not easy to find someone who you get on with well enough to not have any arguments for 6 weeks of being constantly wet, tired, and cold but we managed it)
Accommodation (Obvs you want the cheapest accom you can find but keep in mind cooking facilities, proximity to both mapping are and supermarket as well as number of rooms. It's very nice to have your own room after a day in the field so I recommended sharing rooms as little as possible)
A slide from our presentation displaying some of the highlights and not-so-highlights of our time in Ireland.
Our Advice:
Don't stress - everyone felt overwhelmed at some point, I did for most of the project. But just follow the motions, go with the process and I promise you will have a map at the end of the 6 weeks.
Don't compare yourself to others - I got very competitive and stressed out if other groups were doing more days to longer hours in the field. But at the end of the day its your project and you can't compare what you are doing to someone else in an entirely different country. As long as you feel you are on track to finish then you are doing ok.
Do some reading before you go - Don't do too much, you need to be able to make unbiased interpretations, but do go in with an idea of if you'll be seeing sedimentary or igneous rocks, if you are expecting loads of folding or faulting and things like that. Going in completely blind would be a very brave move indeed.
Buy a weather writer - If you are trying to do field work in any country that rains, a weather writer is a necessity. You can't use your notebooks in the rain and that is a fundamental part of field geology. They are also great to just keep all your things in one place.
Plan some things to look forward to - We all sat down together at 9pm each evening and watched Love Island or played a board game. This is not particularly exciting but it ave us something to look forward to each day which really helped. Also a mid way through trip to Galway to watch the Barbie movie was a wonderful treat.
So that's all I've got. I will finally shut up about my mapping project and move on to bigger things, watch out for masters project content to come as the next milestone in my degree!
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