It's all well and good me writing about my experiences studying the Earth Sciences but as they say, a picture says a thousand words. So instead of recounting my first year of studies, I thought I would show you, enjoy!
Pictured: Me and my friend - very cold, very wet, battling with the wind over an umbrella in the field in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
This photo made it onto our professors twitter account based on his amusement on our shear lack of ability to use an umbrella :(
Pictured: A sample of an iron meteorite I got to hold during a first year tutorial at the Oxford Museum of Natural History
This was a very cool tutorial in which we got to see many samples of meteorites, most of which then got a cheeky feature on my private insta story post tute.
Pictured: Me in my first year kitchen the day we got given our field equipment and I came home to show my friends.
Taken on a friend's disposable camera because it was 2021 as thats what everyone was doing.
Pictured: A screenshot of a BeReal taken in the computing lab about 2 hours into a coding practical.
Featuring my college puffer because it was apparently cold enough to warrant wearing that fully zipped up indoors.
Pictured: Sketch of an igneous thin section done during a second year practical class.
Despite the minimal labelling and actual identification of the minerals (which lets assume I got round to later) it's actually one of my better sketches.
Pictured: A compass-clino being used for its intended purpose of a mirror in the field on the Isle of Arran.
Here we were supposedly doing an exercise practising measuring dip and strike of a rock and not confusing them with cleavage but clearly I got a little distracted.
Pictured: Me dressed as a dinosaur at 'Rocktails', Oxford University Geological Society's termly social event.
Rocktails are one of the best things about studying Earth Sciences at Oxford! I think the theme for this one was 1st years dress as the Cenozoic, 2nd years (me) as the Mesozoic and 3rd/4th years as the Palaeozoic so this was my clearly very high effort attempt to fit that.
Pictured: Jelly volcanoes set up for a practical in our Earthquakes and Faulting lecture course.
The practical did then go on to include us doing a bunch of maths but injecting water into jelly with a syringe (and then answering a bunch of questions about the physics) was a great start to my afternoon!
Pictured: Another BeReal screenshot of us post a long day in the field in Arran.
Not entirely sure what was actually going on here but evenings after a long day of fieldwork tend to just involve simply trying to stay awake until dinner.
Pictured: A photo I sent to my mum to prove I was alive before one of my Prelims (first year exams).
The pink carnation means it was one of middle exams, white ones are worn for the first exam and red for the final exam.
At Oxford we have to sit our exams wearing our subfusc (academic dress) which is the weird school uniform type thing I'm wearing.
Pictured: A fossilised lightning strike, photo taken in the field on the Isle of Arran.
Included this because how cool!!
Pictured: A stratigraphic log of a site at Osmington Mills, Dorset made during a field trip. This was the neat version I drew up after getting back from the field.
This is my first attempt at a log so there are many improvements to be made.
Pictured: A thermodynamics problem set being completed in the Teddy Hall Graveyard outside our college library (the old church in the background).
This is a rare occasion, its normally far too cold/rainy/dark to work outside but in the summer people like to hang out outside the library.
Pictured: Me and my friends doing something(?) geological in the field. Taken by our professor during a mapping exercise on the Isle of Arran.
Judging by the compass-clinos in our hands we were probably writing down strike and dip readings as well as making breif notes on the lithology.
This looks easy but when you add in wind and rain its get a lot harder to write on these things.
Pictured: A collection of Ammonoid specimens from a first year invertebrate paleobiology practical.
Ammonoids are a personal favourite of mine because look how pretty!
Pictured: Me and my friends on the ammonite pavement in Lyme Regis during our Dorset field course. Featuring the iconic departement hard hats that we regularly chose to wear in the field even if we are nowhere near a cliff face.
Pictured: A concordia curve I coded in MatLab during an isotope geology practical.
Took a pic of this because it took me so long to code it correctly I just had to send it to the family WhatsApp chat!
Pictured: My instagram story taken at stair hole in Dorset showing a gorgeous view of the Lulworth Crumple.
Whilst it may look super cool and be really interesting, the Lulworth crumple was incredibly difficult to sketch so would rate a 4/10.
Pictured: A thin section photo of a sample of troctolite in XPL. One of the best photos I have even taken down a microscope, pretty proud.
Troctolite is an igneous rock, at the time of taking this photo I was in my first term of my first year so had no idea what it was and the picture was taken simply because I thought it looked cool.
Pictured: My friends and I siting in a lecture showcasing our matching water bottles we got during a field trip.
One of the best water bottles I own, added bonus that its pink.
Pictured: A dinosaur footprint (according to my professor) that we came across on the Isle of Portland during a day in the field.
Obviously we all thought this was very cool but I think the point was to show it was a terrestrial environment at the time.
Pictured: A photo of my screen during an active tectonics practical looking at the East Anatolian fault in Turkey.
I took a photo because pretty colours but don't worry, there was actual geology involved in the practical.
Pictured: Me clearly very excited about Hutton's unconformity on the Isle of Arran.
It had taken a very very long day of walking up and down hills to get here so I think I was equally as hapoy about being able to go home as I was about seeing Hutton's unconformity.
Hutton's unconformity is very famous in the world of Geology, it is an outcrop where James Hutton was able to theorise and demonstrate the scale of geologic time. Shameless self promo, I wrote an essay on it which you can read here: https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/huttons-unconformity-winner-of-the-11-17-category-the-torch-humanities-and-science-competiti
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