GEOLOGY 101

Note to reader:  The information put forthwith in this post are solely based on my limited understanding of what Professor Marx told me in class today ONLY if I managed to write down fast enough the slew of information he shared and got it right.  You may, should you choose to comment on my blog, tell me I am 100% wrong.  Then you, my dear reader, will be my teacher too.

At the near end of my first Geology class, my teacher Joe Marx explained Geology’s relatively new acceptance as a serious science by today’s standards.  The study of rocks being more than the evidence for creation-based observations began around the start of the 18^th century, give or take a few years depending on what country of origin you are from.  The reason being is when people stopped seeing rocks in an absolute way and  allowed for singular events like meteors hitting the earth to shake things up a bit, scientists began to take an interest in the many stories that those little and big pieces of metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary rocks have to tell us.

And at the very end of class today, my teacher digressed a bit and talked about the end of the planet as we know it.  Now mind you, I spent the entire time wide-eyed and mystified by what he said because my knowledge of rocks is based on throwing them in the water and counting the rings they make.   When he said, “the planet will end when the sun blows out and engulfs the earth,” he lifted his hands up, cupped his fingers as if holding a ball, and moved them outward in the air to show the sun grow the VERY SAME WAY my son Tommy did at dinner Tuesday night when he explained how the sun’s crust will turn red, expand and gobble up the earth.

It’s a sign I’m meant to take Geology and start looking at the environment in a whole new way.  And  I can’t wait to begin.