Taking Credit

Geology is easy. Being a geologist is tricky. The rocks have been the way they are now for millions of years - only our knowledge of what's beneath our feet changes. And that's where the tricky part comes in.

I've mentioned before the sometimes difficult relationship between the geologist and the engineers on a coal mine (Gaggle of Dykes). And more often than not difficult geological conditions are entirely your fault. Even though the rocks have always been like that, somehow the geologist is to blame. It is your fault if you didn't warn the production teams of the conditions ahead of time. But, the actual rocks? Definitely not.

I've had many issues underground around thick in-seam inorganics. These are sandstone lenses in the coal seam which are harder to cut and worsens the overall quality of the seam. Some stone layers can become thick quickly in a localized area and causes major problems with the crushing and transporting of the material underground. As the geologist, I can only predict what the stone will do. I cannot remove it. This is sometimes lost on the engineers.

Recently, I was underground with the foreman of the section. He took me all over, complaining about the unmanageable cutting conditions and how the huge stone layers were blocking his feeder breakers and chutes. He was ranting and then implored me: "How the hell I am suppose to cut this nonsense?" (I have censored his word choice slightly.) I very calmly replied: "With difficulty." His anger deflated immediately and he came back down to Earth. "That's probably the right answer to that kind of question," was his reply. He knew I could do nothing about the stone. His expression was quite hilarious though! I do think most of the guys get so much pressure from above that they just need to vent to an understanding person. I sometimes just fall into that role.

This kind of blaming happens quite often, so when you can take the credit for something, you should! We were busy with a large stoneworks project through a dyke and devolatilized coal (the intrusion had burnt the coal). Burnt coal is very soft and dangerous to mine through since it's so unstable. The plan was to drill boreholes to test for when we get into the normal coal again. We did a couple of samples and finally reached clean coal. When I shared the results, I was congratulated and patted on the back by everyone! It was so funny. I didn't magic the coal not being burnt - it's been like that forever. I only gave the laboratory results back. But, as I said, you get blamed so often for the state of the rocks that it was a welcome change to be congratulated.

At least mining is never boring :-).