Manual of Field Geology.

Rating:
Summary: The classic manual of the techniques of field geology
Review: For decades this little book was the primary text for many a university's summer field camp (the geologist's equivalent of boot camp.) It does contain in condensed form most of the practical skills that a field geologist needs for collecting and documenting samples, preparing standardised sections and maps, and writing a formal report.

The manual is organised as follows: 1) Observing and Collecting Data and Samples, 2) Using the Compass, Clinometer, and Hand Level, 3) The Compass Traverse, 4) Plotting Geologic Features on a Base Map, 5) Mapping Geologic Features on Aerial Photographs, 6) The Alidade and Plane Table, 7) Control for Geologic Maps, 8) Geologic Mapping with the Alidade and Plane Table, 9) Making a Geologic Map from Aerial Photographs, 10) Detailed Mapping and Sampling, 11) Preparing Geologic Reports, 12) Field Work with Sedimentary Rocks, 13) Field Work with Volcanic Rocks, 14) Field Work with Igneous and Igneous-appearing Plutonic Rocks, and Field Work with Metamorphic Rocks. The appenixes include 1) check lists of equipment and supplies (you do not want to be in the middle of the mountains or desert and discover that you forgot something vital), 2) standard field note abbreviations (other people have to be able to decipher those field notes), 3) percentage estimation charts, 4) geologic map symbols, 5) lithologic symbols for cross sections, 6) an isogonic chart for compass correction, and 7) trig tables.

If you can master these skills then you are competent to do the initial geologic field work from the Gobi Desert to Antarctica to...Mars. If you haven't mastered most of these skills, then you aren't really a Geologist.

This book should be thoroughly read at least once BEFORE you get to field camp.