Ive just started a new blog. A Swedish blog on geoscience. A sister to this blog basically. So if you dont speak Swedish, you probably couldnt care less. I will probably update the Swedish blog more often also. But this blog (Antimonite) will remain and I will write posts on Swedish geoscience for the international readers also in the future.

http://terraincognita.blogsome.com/

The future, if the prices on oil keeps on rising in the world. (Click the thumb for full size)

Somebody asked me in my last post to describe the job situation for geologists. I can only speak for Sweden, and not very much on that either really. The main reason for not knowing exactly is the simple fact that Im new at geology. Ill know a lot more in 2 years time when Im "finished" with the studies.

But I can share my experiences thus far. According to many news paper reports, and some on the news on TV, theres a great shortage of geologists in Sweden. Something like only 50% of the demand is filled with new students. This has been the case since about 2005 when the boom started. Companies are forced to import educated workforce. Some 28 different nationalites are represented among the experts at the big mines of Kirunavaara and Luossavaara in the north of Sweden. They have big troubles with finding Swedish geologists (petrologists, mineralogists).

One of the teachers spoke also about how companies often contacted her and wanted to get in contact with soon-to-be-finished students of different academical levels - basically grabbing them when they still are at the the univ. Many teachers also speak how private companies try to employ the teachers all the time, and I dont think thats an exaggeration. All over the bill boards there hang offers of employment in the private sector.

The biggest sector demanding new geologists def. is the mining industry. As some probably know, Sweden has one of the most impressive mines of iron ore in the world in the north. The Kirunavaara mine has one of the finest and largest ore deposits in the world. And an increased demand for steel from countries like India and China has made this old mine very interesting for prospectors. And then theres copper, uranium and many more types of minerals on high demand also. All of them found in interesting numbers in Sweden. Even new gold and silver mines have started up in the last years.

At the same time theres an increased demand for geologists specializing in enviromental issues. Cant build anything these days without the right enviromental knowledge.

And Ive also heard that the Norwegian oil and gas-industry is looking for experts. The increased price in oil comes and the shrinking supply of it in the world with the good aspect that more jobs in the petroleumindustry are created when more and more sources of oil will be needed.

Basically - Geology in Sweden, at least if you are ready to move around to where the jobs are - means really good job opportunities as far as I know. And this seems to be the case for many years to come.

You can choose the dark side and work with oil or minerals, or the good side and work with the enviroment. Sith or Jedi. You choose.

I’m certainly no expert in English, and the following text probably breaks a dozen or more rules of the English language, but I do know something about my own Swedish language that many of my Swedish geology professors obviously don’t.

I’ve noticed something about people within the natural sciences that I didn’t know before. Something that makes them a little bit less intellectually impressive than what I perhaps gave them credit of before going for geology myself.

The professors and scientists are, in general, quite nonproficient with (or is that "on" or "of" ) the rules of Swedish grammar.

 I mean, it’s one thing not being a master of foreign languages, another not knowing the basic rules of one’s own language as an professor. One should think that all those years of studies and scholarly work in combination with the famous higher IQ of natural scientists (compared to scientists of the social and humanities who in general don’t make mistakes with simple grammar) should count for something. But sadly, it doesn’t

One reoccurring error, that I think not one of the professors have failed to breake, is the Swedish grammatical rule of “särskrivning” (the rule against the separation of words).

In Swedish we can combine words to make a new word. The most classical example of them all is the Swedish word for nurse: “sjuksköterska”. The word “sjuksköterska” is a combination of two words: “sjuk” (sick) and “sköterska” (nurse).  I.e. a “sjuksköterska” is “a nurse of the sick”.

The problem is it means something completely different when you separate the two words in Swedish. A “sjuk sköterska” means “a sick nurse” while a “sjuksköterska” means “a nurse of the sick”. There are several more fun examples like “rökfritt” (no smoking) ->”rök fritt” (smoke freely). I think you get the picture and that it could create lots of confusion if used wrong in some contexts. It of course doesn’t always lead to great misunderstandings like the ones I’ve just mentioned, but it always looks bad.

The reason that people have a problem of not knowing when two words should be written together or separated is the increased use of English in the Swedish society (since you in general do not write words together in the same extent). Especially in the natural sciences the use of English has started to dominate completely in the last 10 years. Many people think that all science should be written in English, and they probably got a point since that increases the size of the potential group of readers internationally. But must this come with a decreased knowledge of the own language as a result? (Don’t get me wrong, I really like the English language, but I don’t want to replace the Swedish language with it.)

The rule of “särskrivning” in the Swedish language is taught to kids from a young age, so they (the professors with all their scholarly record) really should know this without having to think twice even. It’s not a difficult rule for anyone brought up with it. Everyone can make a mistake, but when you see the error repeated over and over again in different contexts of the officially written material of the professors, which they should have given some time to write probably and adjust, you know that there is something wrong in general.

As I said, this is something I never saw with my professors of archaeology and history. In a competition of IQs, they would probably lose against my geology professors, but in a competition of writing texts without simple childish grammatical errors in Swedish (and in English) they would easily win.

And I’m sorry for being so stuck up with this, but I have some big issues with taking people seriously if they cannot even use their own language properly. It affects my view on their general competence. Can I really take someone seriously as an expert if they cannot handle their own language? No I personaly cannot. I guess that eight years of studies within the humanities, where teachers don’t make these errors makes me spoiled perhaps. It’s basically the combination of "professor and expert" and not knowing preschool grammar that I cannot accept.

Today’s excursion took us to see several types of glacial soil deposits like eskers, sandurs tills, talus, tufa and moraines. I must say that the study of glacial soil formations is much more complicated than I’ve imagined. There are just so many types of formations that I’ve never heard of before studying geology. Not to mention all the types of soils and sediments and the terminology about the different particle sizes and how they behave in terms of erosion and cohesion. I took some pictures of course, however "soil" make poor lousy photo material so I mostly took shots of the landscape today - so no cool macros of minerals today.

Pictures below shows an esker (swe. "rullstensås") covered in Beech forest streching for about half a mile and 40 meters high near the small village of Torna Hällestad. It really knocked the wind out of me when climbing up to the summit since it was such a steep climb. Yes, my physical condition could obviously be much better. Its not like its a mountain…

Picture below shows the stratigraphy of a sandur-deposit. Rounded material often transported with the ice and melting water for hundreds of miles across the landscapes. 

Picture below shows a talus (frost eroded rocks - very uncommon here in the south of Sweden)

The pictures below are from the nice natural reserve in Benestad where we looked at some small deposits of Tufa (Swe "Kalktuff").

May I suggest that those interested in my blog add it to a newsreader like for instance Google Reader since I cannot promise to write regularly in this blog. I might write a lot some periods and then nothing at all for long periods.

A reader:

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My feed:

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At the Swedish universities, the departments of geology complains about the trouble of recruiting students.  The need and the supply don’t match and you can read about it in the papers some times. And it was also one of the first things our geology teacher spoke about.

The reason is said to be that in general, most teachers at a pre-academical level don’t know enough about geology to boost sufficient interests in the kids. Most teachers in natural sciences have knowledge in math, chemistry and physics only. Meaning that the chapters on geology (if they even exist in the books – since many books are written by teachers) are only briefly explained for most students. My experiences of geology from school are very limited. Mostly I learned a lot of things that I now know were false because of poorly educated science teachers. They knew their physics and maths, but they knew very little about the processes of how the lime stone floor of the school hallways where formed (and yes, they called the lime stone floors "marble floors" or "granite floors" of course if they ever mentioned them at all).

I know that there are of course alternative explanations to this. For instance, the wages of geologists in Sweden are quite limited to those that engineers make. So people looking for an education in the natural sciences are drawn to other fields than geology for economical reasons also.

Is there a similar recruitment problem in your parts of the world connected with poor understanding of geology among teachers in highschool?

Today I was on an excursion around Skåne looking at different bogs and marshes. We drilled soil samples and learned to see the difference between different types of soil, clay, mud and peat. We learned to how to spot the level of humification, acidity and some about the more important fossils of the different stratas. We took samples dating all the way back to just after the last iceage. Around 8000 BC. Here’s a sample of pictures from today.

Picture below. 8000 year old sample of Birch tree. 

Picture below. And then we looked at a fascility that extracted/mined peat.

Perhaps I should share some general geological information about my part of the world.

Sweden and the Scandinavian peninsula was formed geologically from the continent of ”Baltica” which today is called the Baltic Shield or the Fennoscandian Shield. It consists of today’s Sweden, Finland, Norway, Northwestern Russia and parts of the Baltic Sea (not Denmark geologically). The Baltic Shield has a maximum age of about 3.1 Ga, but most parts of Sweden is formed on 2-1.5 Ga old granits and gneiss. In general its older to the north east than to the south west. Many parts of today’s mainland of the south east, like Skåne (Scania), the province where I live, is younger and formed of sedimentary deposits. But the Baltic shield is still below the sediments even here, some 2-3 kilometers and can be seen at some horst formations, especially along the Tornqvist zone. Scandinavia has a quite a variation of landscapes, both because of the differences in geology, but mostly due to the geographic distances. Some parts of the north have a arctic climate almost (Like Canada or Alaska). And here in the south there is a temperate climate. Probably the same as you might find around Boston or New York. The same temperate climate goes for Denmark, wich geologically consists only of sedimentary rocks and therefore technically isn’t a part of the Baltic Shield. Picture below of Baltic Shield.

The mountain range of Sweden and Norway is called the Scandinavian Mountains (“Skanderna” in swe.). It’s actually related to the Appalachian mountains since both belong to the Caledonian orogeny. Back in the days (450 Ma) they were connected before the Atlantic Ocean was formed. Picture below of Scandinavian mountains.

Picture below is Padjelanta national reserve in the north of Sweden. Typical view of the mountain landscape during summer.

Picture below is of Sarek National reserve in the north of Sweden. 

Pictures below shows parts of the Norwegian costal landscapes with their Fjords. Insanely beautiful if you ask me. Perhaps some of the most beautiful types of landscapes in the world. One could easily make an entire blog about the Norwegian fjords.

A question. When studying paleontology or just geology in general at universities and colleges in the US, how much room is given to consideration for the feeling of creationists and others who dont believe in evolution or the geological time scale? One easliy gets the impression from media and internet forums that more and more of the academical world in the US is under the influence of these creationists. How bad is it? Can you really get a diploma or degree in the US in geology and not learn about the real scientific facts?

You who live in the USA, tell me of your opinion and experience.

In Sweden (which probably is the most secular nation in the world, at least in many aspects) we have almost no problems with this at all. And no consideration of religious feelings regarding evolution and such are ever taken at the universities since we make it very clear (by law even) that it is science that should be taught at schools and university and not religious myths. Of course there are problems here too, but not about religious fundamentalism vs natural science at the universities.