data jungle adventures

Geology, the science that studies the Earth’s surface, might be one of the toughest sciences to absorb, yet it all comes down to how we explain and clarify the elements of this science: physical structure, composition, and processes.

Who studies what exactly?

To understand these elements, geologists:

• Examine different features: rocks, minerals, fossils, and landforms.
• Investigate how these features formed and changed with time.
• Use different tools and techniques: remote sensing, laboratory experiments, field observations, etc. to answer their questions.

Geologists eventually contribute to the explanation of natural hazards like:

• the latest earthquake that hit Turkey and the Levantine (February 6, 2023),
• the recurrent landslides in south Asia along the Himalayan belt,
• the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano (January 15, 2022),
• the Muruntau mine in Uzbekistan and why it is the largest gold mine,
• why are KSA and Venezuela the richest in oil resources,

and many others!

Geology’s role exceeds explaining natural hazards and reaches out to address contemporary environmental issues through understanding the historical events of the Earth.

Geologic go-tos

Many destinations around the world represent a geologic wonder and are worth of some roaming around them either for a walk, a bungee jump, a climb, or some other activity.

Giant’s causeway’s walk – Northern Ireland, UK

Around 40,000 basalt hexagonal columns make up the Giant’s causeway along 6 km of the Northern coast in Northern Ireland. Definitely on my list!

The pipeline bunjy – New Zealand

The mountain range in Queenstown is one of the picturesque settings for bungee enthusiasts. Located over the Shotover River gorge, it hosted the first commercial bungee jump in 1988.

Hartland point, Devon

Here, the Carboniferous (related to the fifth period of the Paleozoic era – that started 358.9 million years ago and spanned over 60 million years, only!) rocky cliffs are known to be the “Wreckers Coast” where many shipwrecks took place in the past.

Closure and opening

In our blog posts, we zoom in and zoom out occasionally. Our starting point was this general overview of geology, what it serves, and what geological destinations are worth a walk, a climb, or maybe a bungee jump!!

Later on, we will have a geological episode either telling you about the geological side of an excursion we did, linking geology to remote sensing, to an environmental issue or to the ecosystem (like biodiversity in KSA), explaining a group of similar natural hazards, or telling the story of how certain plates are meeting or separating.

Our next exploration will be a dive in the connection between geology on one side and data and remote sensing on another.