February 2010

As a taxpayer in the UK, it has always struck me as ironic that, for freely
available information, images, publications - and, I should add, very personal
help with enquiries - I have for years relied on the US Geological Survey: their
web resources are extraordinary. My guilt, such as it was, has always been
assuaged by the fact that I was a US taxpayer for close to twenty years - I
could rationalise that I was simply enjoying a return on my investment. My own
national geological survey, the BGS (you can infer what the “B” stands for) has
historically been, to put it bluntly, completely useless as a resource for the
country’s citizens (well, actually, “subjects,” beholden and daily filled with
gratitude to our sovereign as we are). But now, as part of the celebration of
its 175th anniversary, the BGS has opened up, given us grateful subjects a free
glimpse under its skirts, as it were.

“BGS OpenScience”
is a great start to providing access to the resources of the survey and the
geology of the UK. I have only begun to explore what’s available, but, like, I
suspect, all writers - particularly of blogs like this one - I am always on the
lookout for images that I cannot supply from my own collection. And,
furthermore, there’s that great satisfaction in viewing images of geological
phenomena - landscapes and structures that lead the viewer to say “wow - got to
add that to my list of places to go.” But then there’s also the fascination of
scale, views of our planet that cross many orders of magnitude. So, in
my preliminary investigations of the BGS site, I went straight to “pictures,”
followed this through to the “GeoScenic” image collection, selected “Best of BGS
images” and then randomly decided on “Rocks and Minerals under the microscope.”
Hence the images at the head of this post which really caught my eye (among
the more dramatically coloured images of igneous and metamorphic rocks under
cross-polarised light).

They are of glacial sediments, sands, silts and clays, from locations around
the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland. Some of them are probably lake deposits,
according to the description. But what’s remarkable is the exquisite detail of
deformation - microscopic folds and faults formed not by tectonic processes, not
by the crashing of continents and the building of mountains, but simply by the
weight and movement of ice. Regardless of what forces deform materials, the
results, the reaction of those materials, is governed by the laws of physics and
scale is irrelevant. These images could equally well be cross-sections of the
Alps or the Appalachians. Andthey are wondrous examples of nature’s
art.

One gripe that I have is that the descriptions of the images are woefully
inadequate - there is minimal accompanying explanation. I suspect, since these
are soft sediments, that these may be microscope images, but of peelsof the sediment. And I can’t tell you the exact scale of the image, which
is irritating, to say the least. But at least it’s a start - I doubt that, for
sheer scope of information, the BGS site will ever rival the USGS, where every
Professional Paper, every circular, in fact essentially everything they have
ever produced, is available to download. But the OpenScience site is a great,
and long-overdue, resource, well-worth exploration.

[Images credit the British Geological Survey; image references  P576938,
 P576937, P576935] SIGNATURE

Originally published at: https://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2010/02/index.html