Fifty Years of Studying Geology

Amidst the media cacophony of last Fall (2021), I realized that my formal Geology education had begun 50 years ago when my high school Senior-year Geology course began.

Prior to that event, early on, I had been one of those kids with interests not only in dinosaurs but in volcanoes as well (examples of both of these were far from my home on the Georgia Piedmont).  One of my "early treasures" which I have kept up with is this basalt sample from the 1944 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.  

One of my Dad's friends lived next door to my grandma Lillie and when I got bored during extended Sunday visits, I wandered up the hill to his home.  He would tell me stories about his being an American RAF volunteer in England before the U.S. was involved in WWII.  After the U.S. entry into the war, he either returned home to enlist in the Army or he enlisted while still in England. 

During the "Italy Campaign", his Army unit was in Naples when Mt. Vesuvius began its 1944 eruption.  Following the initial Ash Fall eruptions, basalt flows entered the margins of Naples (as he told me) and he picked the souvenir shown below.  I probably knew something about Mount Vesuvius at age 9 and one day - probably in early 1963 - he handed me this hand-sized sample and told me the story.

Sadly, a few weeks later, he passed away from a sudden heart attack.  I think he was the first non-family member - that I was close to - to pass away.  

On a cheerier note, another "threshold event" that happened about that time (3rd grade) was related to a classroom event when our teacher mentioned that her husband's road crew had found some Mastodon teeth in Florida and he had brought back three of the teeth.  

Our teacher lived only a block from the school and she got permission for us to walk with her to visit their garage during recess.  (Our class was not the first ones to do this, as I found out later.)  After seeing and touching the teeth, when I returned to the classroom, I could think of little else.  

I reasoned that "if extinct elephants were running around in Florida, they were probably in Georgia, too".  At that time, I had no way of knowing that years later, sporadic discoveries of dinosaur bones would be made on the Inner Coastal Plain, south of Columbus, GA.  So, even though - at the time - dinosaurs were unknown in Georgia, Mastodons would have to serve the purpose as large vertebrates that roamed the local prehistoric terrain. 

Both of my parents enjoyed being outdoors, doing such things as taking nature hikes, looking for arrowheads, visiting historical sites, panning for gold in the Dahlonega, GA area, and screening for rubies and sapphires in the Cowee Valley near Franklin, NC.  

In the latter part of my high school Junior year, I was presented with the choice of taking Physics or Geology during my Senior year.  Remembering the fun I had outdoors when I was young was a major reason for my choice of Geology.  Besides, as I struggled with Math, I knew Geology had to be easier than Physics (though no one told me of the Trigonometry and 2 Calculus courses I had to pass in college).  I had also heard that the Physics teacher was "creepy" while the Geology teacher was just "eccentric".

There are a few other outdoor learning opportunities I experienced while playing in "our" creek.  Those can be mentioned another time.