Purple Rock Editing

About 6,000 people attended the 26th Annual Mineral Exploration Roundup of the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia (AMEBC) at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on January 26–29, with a theme of “The New Era of Exploration.”

Well-attended short courses were held before and after the main event, with such topics as “Aboriginal Engagement, Consultation and Sustainability in Mineral Exploration” and “Data Management Best Practices: Extracting Information and Value from Your Data.” Most attendees, however, spent their time at Roundup in the trade show, the poster session, and the technical sessions. Yukon, British Columbia, and Alaska sponsored well-attended social events in the evenings, allowing delegates to catch up with colleagues and make new connections.

The conference began on January 26 with major releases from the British Columbia Geological Survey, including its annual Geological Fieldwork volume, a summary of government fieldwork and current research, and releases outlining the discovery of two new mineralized areas in the Murphy Lake and Chilanko River regions of British Columbia. Claims were staked within a day after the latter releases.

Also on January 26, Geoscience BC released new geochemical and geophysical results from the QUEST and QUEST-West areas, which also resulted in staking. In an attempt to aid the economy in areas affected by the mountain pine beetle, Geoscience BC and the British Columbia Geological Survey have focused resources on enhancing the mining industry in affected areas, in the hope that forestry workers can use their skills to “cross over” to the mining industry.

The release on January 28 of Geoscience BC’s Summary of Activities volume also garnered significant attention.

In the poster session, members of the BC Geological Survey, Geoscience BC, and the Geological Survey of Canada, as well as students from local universities and others presented technical posters outlining their research and discoveries from the past year. The BC Geological Survey posters were also available for viewing throughout the rest of the week in the Seymour Room, where staff members demonstrated their databases, such as MINFILE, MapPlace, and ARIS. The staff of Mineral Titles was also available for demonstrations of the Mineral Titles Online application.

The core shack and map tent were venues where delegates could talk with prospectors and grassroots exploration companies about their most recent finds. Almost every Canadian province and territory was represented by a booth or room where delegates could speak with members of the provincial/territorial geological surveys, pick up pamphlets, and see the most recent maps, technical posters, and core samples.

The consensus throughout the conference was a cautious but optimistic outlook on the future of the industry. Many companies are reducing spending, targeting smaller projects, or focusing on more established projects, but many companies represented at Roundup are still moving forward with exploration and development. British Columbia’s mineral-exploration expenditure this year —$367 million for 388 projects — is still only slightly behind last year’s record. Coupled with the near-record attendance at the Mineral Exploration Roundup, the mineral industry in British Columbia is showing tenacity in hard economic times.

For more information on the BC Geological Survey’s releases at Roundup, visit http://www.empr.gov.bc.ca/Mining/Geoscience/WhatsNew/Pages/default.aspx, For Geoscience BC’s releases at Roundup, visit http://www.geosciencebc.com/s/NewsReleases.asp. For an overview of the entire event, visit the AMEBC’s official Roundup Blog at http://blog.amebc.ca/.

As the new vice president for the Association of Earth Science Editors, I’ve become a contributor to the new AESE blog at geoeditors.wordpress.com. We’ll be discussing general geological and editorial topics, as well as AESE news — updates about the upcoming annual meeting, as well as updates about Blueline and other association news. Check back often for new posts!

as originally published in the Association of Earth Science Editors’ newsletter “Blueline”.

Geologists never seem to be out of their element—there are always rocks to study nearby.

For two-and-a-half weeks this past May and June, I took a vacation from my fledgling company for the first time, and my husband and I journeyed across the ocean to visit England and Wales. This trip fulfilled a 15-year dream of mine—to dig into my ancestry and see Wales, where my grandfather had come from.

Because we were on vacation, I didn’t think much about editing, deadlines, clients, and such, but I couldn’t stop being a geologist. Irrespective of where we were, there was always an interesting rock, a unique geologic feature, a rolling glacier-carved landscape to make me feel at home.

We arrived in London, where we spent a week as tourists in this great metropolis city. Being from Victoria, British Columbia, I’ve grown accustomed to the laid-back “island mentality” of Vancouver Island. London is definitely a faster pace of life. And despite being a big city with not too many outcrops to explore, the stone architecture was amazing, and I did find some beautiful porphyritic urns to admire in the British Museum.

From London, we took a train to Bristol, where we met up with my relatives. Having heard that I was a geologist, one of my relatives dug out his geologic maps of the United Kingdom, published by none other than the British Geological Survey. British geology is substantially different than that of the west coast of North America because the British rolling green hills are dominated by sedimentary rocks. Still, poring over those maps showed me that Britain does indeed have a few ribbons of gneissic rock and some igneous intrusions of its own.

These buildings in Bath are constructed from the famous oolitic limestone known as Bath Stone.

We also spent a day in Bath, which is slightly eerie because all the buildings are the same color! The city of Bath uses mostly a Jurassic oolitic limestone called Bath Stone for construction. The city itself is built on a naturally occurring hot spring (hence the famous Roman baths) and is in a sort of “bath-shaped” valley.

This circle of standing stones at Avebury is one of a series of concentric circles that form this lesser-known “henge.”

The relatives took us to Avebury, a “henge” lesser known than Stonehenge but similar in its strange orientations of large rocks that each weighed several tons. Avebury as three concentric circles of standing stones set on chalky bedrock. Avebury is generally constructed of sarsens, which are a kind of Eocene silicified sandstone. Sarsens appear in the construction of Stonehenge too, although it also contains bluestones that were from Bristol, we spent time in Cardiff and the rolling hills of the Welsh countryside before exploring the relatively untouristed  backcountry areas of north Wales—cities with unpronounceable names, people who cherish their native Welsh  language, and the red dragon of the Welsh flag flying above every castle. Castles were a defining feature of our trip to Wales. At Caernarfon, the castle where Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales, we saw where the stone has once supported wooden structures when the castle was built in the late 13th century. The stone is still there—there is no trace of the wood.

Irrespective of the concepts of “straight” and “level,” the Shambles in York is an interesting street to explore.

Our last stop before returning to London was York, a walled city that recently celebrated its 1,900th anniversary. Given the fact that British Columbia is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, it’s hard to picture a city operating in the same place for 1,900 years!

York is definitely full of history, with its own castle, Viking museum and, of course, the Medieval wall. In addition, in shambles (originally a term for butcher shops) came from York’s street, the Shambles, where no building has even a self-consistent concept of “straight” and “level”—they’re almost falling into each other. That in itself is a little  unnerving, but the Shambles is a wonderful place to watch homemade fudge being made on a marble slab. The marble, being naturally colder than the air temperature, helps to cool the liquid fudge so it can be formed into a loaf.

Going back home and seeing the Rocky Mountains and then the Coast Mountains from the plane, it’s nice to return to a younger, more familiar landscape. But wherever we travel next, I’m sure it will include even more geologic adventures.
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My Publications page lists several of my papers under the name of “N.D. Robinson”. Robinson is my maiden name, and having been married for just over a year now, most things have been changed over to my married name of Barlow.

A question arose, though, that even though I’ve changed my name, should I also change it when it comes to publications? I know several authors who’ve maintained their maiden names as almost pen names, so they would have a consistent list of publications and not need the asterisk in the middle, as I have. My decision stemmed from having not a consistent list of publications, but a consistent naming convention for myself. If people know me as Nicole Barlow, and they find something written or edited by Nicole Robinson, they may not make the connection that these people are one and the same.

I guess there are pros and cons to both methods.

Purple Rock Editing is expanding!  A warm welcome to our new associate, Shea Sweeney.  Shea’s expertise lies in the field of physical geography and is working together with Karl to get the databases we’re working on indexed.

Shea has gone back to school to become an accountant and is using his precise and detailed skills to work part time for Purple Rock Editing.  Good luck Shea!

The rocks in Maui are amazing. The beaches have either black sand (from the Ocean Island Basalt that makes up most of the Island), or white sand, but then you can travel to Haleakala, the major volcano of Maui. This enormous caldera has many cinder cones in it, and the red colour is incredible!

As a result, the rocks in the area are very different to those you’d find in Ka’anapali, Lahaina, Kihei, or Wailea.

There is still definitely evidence of volcanism that is characteristically basalt. On the bottom-right corner of the following picture, there is what appears to be basalt columns.

On our trip to Maui last year, one of the things that we were searching for was the famous black sand beaches of Hawaii.  So, we drove the road to Hana and saw this beautiful beach on the side of the road.

From a distance, the sand definitely looks black.  But close up, the sand is multicoloured, with quartz, amphibole, olivine, and likely some garnet along with the ubiquitous basalt.

So we continued along the road to Hana.

Right before you enter the town of Hana, there’s another beach, complete with arches and columns out in the water created by the constant erosion of the waves.  This beach also looked like a black sand beach.

And this time,  we were correct.  As far as the eye could see, the only rock on this beach was basalt.