Day 14 – Pilanesberg Today was an opportunity for the tourists to see somewhere new, including some animals, with a visit to the Pilanesberg Game Reserve. Since I have done a fair amount of game-viewing, I decided to give it a miss. Instead I met some old friends, and had a generally lovely day (including […]
Part two of the field component of the field school. Again, this is a collection of pre-written posts. AfricaArray Field School – Day 10 We had a bit of a rest day today, in order to collect samples to determine their physical properties. For some reason, each group needed ten samples of each lithology, of […]
So connectivity for me was particularly poor out in the Dome, but I did write what happened, so here is the day-by-day, as I typed it up in the field. This is a long entry, so I will probably break it up into two. I will not put any photos in, because most of the […]
This morning we started off with a discussion about the work happening here are Wits (and across the continent) regarding broadband seismology. This is really the “Array” part of the AfricaArray Field School. There are 50-odd permanent seismic stations across sub-Saharan Africa, which are used to investigate the structure of the earth. These things are […]
I got a bit caught up in other things last night, so this is a day late. In any case, on with it! The day started with “Safety” Sue’s lecture about, well, safety. Most of the stuff is common sense, and a lot of it is relevant to how industry tends to do things. Things […]
Today started with a short lecture about the petrology and geochemistry of the Bushveld Complex. I was a bit out of my depth, since the last time I used a petrographic microscope in anger was in about 2010. Luckily the bit of prac tutoring that I did last year helped me at least remember what […]
This morning we got visitors’ cards, which led to a large amount of laughter, especially regarding the photos that people were having taken. Unfortunately, this took longer than planned, so we were running a bit behind for the rest of the day. After getting cards, we had a basic introduction, before some sneaky geochemists who […]
I am currently attending the AfricaArray field school, hosted by [http://wits.ac.za](Wits University). The first day was a relaxed one to allow for the international students to recover from jetlag. Accordingly, we wandered off to visit the Vredefort Dome. This is one of the largest, and the oldest impact structures in the world, so we are […]
Today my partner went out mushroom hunting. Apparently this is something that some microbiologists do. However, to my surprise, this does not entail serious expeditionary setup. Imagine, they (my partner and her supervisor) just went out to look for mushrooms. Annually, mushrooms seem to kill a handful of people a year in the USA, with […]
As part of AEON‘s baseline study in the Karoo, a group of my colleagues are undertaking a large scale hydrocensus in the area near the Western Cape/Eastern Cape boundary. At the moment, this entails visiting a large number of boreholes, recording some general information about them, and, where possible, recording the electro-conductivity of the borehole. […]