Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Purpose

This blog should serve as some sort of diary of my field work. Even during study, I attended plenty of organised field trips or noticed numerous geological phenomena during holidays, respectively. Over the years, I forgot outcrop locations, neat sites for fossil hunting etc. So this is just to keep things together. You may ask why dumping the internet with another stupid geek blog that is presumably going unnoticed? Good question. However, if someone benefits from this page no matter in which way, I think it's worth to keep this shit updated. Additionally, I would like to maintain this page as a "portfolio" of my field experience as a Geologist/Palaeontologist.

Essentially, I'd like to keep it simple. This blog should not serve as an penis-enlarging exhibition of my expertise or claims to be scientific through and through. I will not go into detail with description or conclusion concerning fieldwork. I just would like to share pictures of geological phenomena and goodies that I think are worth mentioning.

"Nologic" is derived from one of my current field of intrest Ichnology, or the science of traces created by any living organisms in/on a substrate or preserved in geological record. I pretty much got into Ichnology in the course of my Diploma (Master) thesis which has been supervised by one of leading Ichnologists Dr. Gabriela Mángano (University of Saskatchewan/Canada) and specialist for the Cambrian, Dr. Olaf Elicki (Tu Bergakademie Freiberg/Germany).

The weird thing about (Palaeo-)ichnology is that you pay attention to what animals did with their environment Millions of years ago. Just imagine how big the chance is, that, lets say in 50 Million years, someone or something takes notice of what you created. Okay, we have plenty of oppurtunities to left a mark somewhere on this planet but ichnologists study traces, trails, burrows, bite marks and fecal matter of creatures that died a long time ago. It is not just for fun. This field of research is connected with palaeobiology, animal evolution, earth systems science, geography, sedimentology, oceanography, exploration and evaluation of oil deposits, and even climate research. Like entire Geology, this is a research where people frequently are wondering for who or what all this stuff might be usefull because the connection between basic research and the modern technical world is not readily apparent.

And this is what (I hope) this blog should contribute to. Geology and Palaeontolgy is not a complicated science. All what you need are eyes and a little amount of substance behind to think about what you see.