17 July 2011
Left behind: Accretionary Wedge #36
Posted by Jessica Ball
In July’s Accretionary Wedge at geosciblog, we’re asked what we’ve regretted leaving behind in the field. There have always been outcrops where I’ve wished I had picked up one more sample, taken one more photo, made one more measurement – that’s probably true of any geologist. But the thing that I regret leaving behind the most is small, easily replaceable, and has only sentimental value: My first hand lens.
I have a hard time remembering exactly where I lost it, but given that I was in college at the time, it was probably in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Many of our field trips were to the Blue Ridge, to look at Cambrian and preCambrian stratigraphy, petrology and structures. I think the trip where I probably lost the lens was one to Sugar Hollow, where I and my fellow structural geology students were working on a mapping project for our lab. The scenery was lovely – Virginia in the spring is a great place for field work – but sometimes the foliage was a bit of a hassle. Often getting to a useful outcrop required some serious bushwhacking, a lot of scrambling, and fording the occasional creek, and I’m betting that the hand lens came off my lanyard somewhere in the brambles above Sugar Hollow Reservoir.
It wasn’t that the hand lens was particularly expensive, or really powerful, or came in 18-carat gold with engraving and diamonds. It was a little bigger than most, and had a tendancy to flop open with too much jostling; the lens was a little loose and I invariably forgot to clean it after a trip. But there is a bit of a sentimental attachment that develops when you get your first set of field gear – I still regret not having kept my first pair of hiking boots, the ones with soles that I melted on Kilauea’s lava flow field. I’ve since replaced the hand lens several times, but like Ron, I found that there’s always some regret associated with losing one of your first tools.
Thanks for your contribution. It has been added to the post. As with Ron Schott, I lost a sentimentally-important Estwing Rock Hammer, given to me by my Dad when I left for grad school. It was one of the ones with the blue rubber handle.
I lost one of the “leather” handled rock hammers years later, but I have no clue where. So it goes.
Of all the things I have lost on the outcrop…..the one thing I miss the most is my mind.
As for “on-the-rocks” Estwing Hammer…..I am sorry for your loss. As for losing it in the Eagle Mts of West Texas while surveying it for a potential thesis area. I did my masters thesis in the Eagle Mts, while at UTEP, describing the various ash flow units as well as the intrusives in the ring dike area. I did it in 1982…..and it is too bad that you didn’t find the hammer I lost there to replace the one you lost. Mine had some sentimental value as well as it was a special-built long handled hammer that I acquired while working for Noranda Exploration out of Reno. It was always said that you could tell the Noranda geologists from a distance by the length of their hammers (ya’ll keep it clean now…..).
[…] Jessica Ball (aka Tuff Cookie) has a similar story of losing a “first piece of field equipment”, a little smaller, but still important. Somewhere in the area of Sugar Hollow in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, her first hand lens slipped off its lanyard. From a separate adventure, she regrets not having kept her first pair of hiking boots, with partially-melted soles from an encounter with some of Kilauea’s fresh lava flows. I am sure that those boots would have been good for some stories. […]