Darkness

Working underground ruins any plans of getting that summer tan quickly or keeping it through winter. Your wardrobe also doesn't help. For safety, you have to wear a full set of PPE - personal protective equipment. This consists of a one-piece overall (which you climb into), thick long socks, steel-tipped gumboots, gloves, hard hat, hearing protection, safety glasses, a cap lamp and rescue pack. The rescue pack provides a limited amount of air if there's an explosion or other emergency underground.

The main travel roads underground have lights and the entrance to the production sections are also lit up. There are substations and transformers underground which supply all the necessary power. But, in the old areas there are no road lights and it's quiet. You're far away from the mining machines and conveyor belts. Doing inspections can be quite surreal. The only light is provided by your cap lamp. Once you switch it off, it looks as follows:

It makes you feel quite insignificant when you realize you're hundreds of metres under solid earth and surrounded by rock and darkness.

I'm involved with a new shaft which is currently being constructed (i.e. shaft sinking). During the first 60 m of sinking, you climb down a rung ladder to inspect the rock layers which have been exposed. One late afternoon, I had to map the rock strata and check for any joints or faulting which can cause rock falls in the shaft. There were issues with the power and the stage in the shaft on which you walk around had no lights. Very creepy to know there's 20 m of open space below you to the shaft bottom and you only have a small circle of light to see with. The stage was filled with people waiting for the lights to come back on - they were sitting in total darkness with no cap lamps. My little light kept finding them and I had to keep myself from getting a fright each time I saw eyes looking back at me. Very creepy.

The darkness underground makes you appreciate a sunny day. But, when a power failure at home suddenly makes it pitch black, I get a twitch and an underground flashback :-).

Cthulhu and Hobbes

When I was younger, I used to devour the Calvin & Hobbes anthologies that my parents had. Calvin is a small boy who hangs out with his stuffed tiger Hobbes. In Calvin's world, Hobbes is taller and his best friend. Calvin has a unique way of thinking and looking at life. The comic strip is hilarious! If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favour and check it out.

HP Lovecraft is one of the masters of horror fiction. And not the gruesome SAW 1 through 100 (I think the movies are up to 7 now) kind of horror. His writing pulls you in and makes you look over your shoulder while reading. Most of his stories are about how the universe is much bigger and filled with so much more that's completely beyond the understanding our puny minds. His short stories have made a lasting impression on me and fiction in general. He started a mythology in his writing about Cthulhu which has been adapted and continued by other writers long after his death. Cthulhu is an ancient and powerful being that is lying dormant until the day of its resurrection at which point it will brutally take over Earth and the rest of the universe. The mythos is not mentioned in all his work, but found in the background of some of his stories. You know that feeling when you think you see someone familiar down the street, but you're not sure since they go around the corner and out of sight too quickly? Lovecraft's writing style makes you feel as if there's so much more happening in the background and if you only knew, you might wish you didn't.

When I saw a t-shirt combining the above two stories, I burst out laughing. Who would think of something like that?
 

TopatoCo t-shirts (Cthulhu and Hobbes is the right-most green one)

The t-shirts come from an online store TopatoCo (http://www.topatoco.com/) which hosts stuff from a variety of webcomic artists. I recently started reading Scenes from a Multiverse (http://www.amultiverse.com/) and got to the store from there. Scenes from a Multiverse is exceptionally funny. It's educational (mentions Schrodinger's Cat among other things) and has hilarious social commentaries on things like the Creationism vs Evolution debate. I highly recommend it. It was nice supporting the webcomic through the store since the artist is putting a lot into the comic and posting it for free.

I would advise against reading any Lovecraft before bed, but if you do, be ready for some interesting dreams. Cue evil laugh :-D

Buffalo and Lizards

The above title is not an euphemism for some of my work colleagues, although I sympathize for those of you to whom this might apply.

In 2009, I was in the Limpopo Province (South Africa) learning what it means to be an exploration geologist. Exploration geology's main purpose is to determine where and how big the mineral deposit is in an entirely new area. In my case, I was looking for coal. The area is well-known for it's coal reserves and when I joined the project, further and more detailed drilling was being done. The project area was more than an hour's drive from the closest town and on farmland. The farms were mostly game farms and it was always tricky to arrange drilling without interfering with the owner's hunting activities. But, none of the geologists wanted to get shot, so any drilling was planned down to the last detail.

My day consisted of driving between 1 and 2 hours to the field in a 4-by-4 bakkie (truck) filled with equipment, lunch and water. Limpopo is hot. You get SPF 30 sunblock, SPF 50 sunblock and then SPF what-the-hell-are-you-doing-in-Limpopo sunblock. I had to manage the drilling teams and make sure they kept to the rules we had agreed on with the farmer (i.e. no fires, rehabilitate the area and so on.) The drilling rigs were drilling thick diameter vertical core boreholes which were also logged geophysically. My main job was to log the boreholes - describe all the rock types and characteristics and at what depths they were found. Logging on game farms has its perks. I saw giraffes, many different kinds of buck, buffalo, rhino and on one occasion a group of big cats which might have been leopards. The downside is that some of the game can be dangerous. Very dangerous if you believe all the stories that the farmers tell you. Buffalo has been known to circle around hunters and charge them from behind.

I was alone on the farm one Friday since the drilling team had taken off for their long weekend. There was no cell phone reception, except under a specific tree on the project team's farmhouse a few kilometres away. I had a radio which kept me in contact with our main office in town, but it was quiet on the farm's dirt roads. To prevent rain and animals from disturbing the core, black plastic sheeting is put over the 10 m rows of rock core. The first surprise came when I was taking the plastic off - a huge lizard about 60 cm long with an equally long tail was napping between the core. Before I could scream like a little girl, it waddled off surprisingly quickly into the bush. After that, I always struck the plastic or shook it a bit before I lifted it. I logged the borehole as usual and took a break around lunch to sit on the back of the bakkie under a tree's shade and eat a sandwich. That's when I noticed something coming down the sandy road toward toward me. It was quite far, but after a few minutes I realized it was a buffalo. Cool, was my first thought and then, damn. I started remembering all the war stories about hunting buffalo that some of the farmers had told me. I had visions of an enraged animal charging and overthrowing the bakkie with me inside. I finished my sandwich and calmly tried to get back to the logging. But, every few minutes I would glance down the road and check the buffalo's progress. It kept moving closer. I then climbed on the bakkie and planned an exit strategy. Running into the bush would be counter-productive since I would probably stumble over a snake who acted first and asked questions later. I had just thought of a revolutionary plan of simply driving away when I looked up and noticed that my buffalo had disappeared. Grinning like an idiot I had carried on logging.

One of the few rainy days in the field

I enjoyed working in the field for that year. It was great being outdoors and in the bush and experiencing all the wildlife. I had one or two close encounters with poisonous snakes, but I survived my stint as an exploration geologist. I realized that as much as I enjoyed it, I would rather be at the mine where I work with more people and do short- and long-term planning jobs.

Further wildlife warnings will be shared soon! Stay tuned for the dangers of listening days on end to bleating sheep and how to avoid getting hypnotized by unblinking cows. :-)

A Beginning

As this is my first post, I wanted to explain what I do. Wikipedia has quite an information page on geology, but Google the word and you're bound to get a gazillion pages as well.
Simply put, I work with rocks. I need to understand what kind of rocks I'm working with and what dangers are involved. Right now, I'm working at an underground coal mine. The mine is about 170 m deep (whereas gold mines can be just less than 3 km deep). My job is to ensure that the mining team know exactly where the coal is found underground, what geological obstacles the team will need to mine through to get to the coal and how safe the area will be underground once the coal is removed. Longer term planning involves modeling the extent of the entire coal deposit and determining what the coal quality is and for how long the mine will be able to produce.

I got into geology because I love science and didn't want to sit in an office the whole day. I studied for 4 years and then moved from the Western Cape to Mpumalanga (South Africa) to start working at a large mining company. I've been working for 3 years now and I thoroughly enjoy it.

The picture below roughly illustrates coal geology in Mpumalanga. From the surface, you'll find different layers of various sedimentary rocks (Karoo Supergroup) with the coal seams (black) in between. The sedimentary rocks are underlain by Dwyka Group rocks and igneous rocks from the Pre-Karoo strata. Typically, you'll have a vertical shaft that has been sunk down until the desired coal seam. From there, mining takes places in the coal seam leaving behind some of the coal to support the overlying rock. The biggest danger is roof falls which can crush you and unfortunately, people have been killed.


Mining in Coal


Why am I writing this blog? I was looking for something on the internet written by fellow female
geologists who might be gay. I wanted to see how they handle the tough mining industry and what they have experienced. I couldn't find any such blogs so I decided to start my own.
I'll be sharing the strange and funny day-to-day happenings at work as well as any cool and amazing things I'm enjoying.

Geology rocks! (Final and only geology pun :-)