Sing us a song, you’re the geo man…
As geologists, the nature of our work relies on seeing the rocks. Hence, our field day usually ends when the sun sets. After which, we are often huddled about the camp fire (most-likely, with beer in hand) recanting stories of past field seasons. Once in a while, someone will bring a guitar or radio out to the field, which (again, beer might be a contributing factor in this) presents an opportunity for musical high jinks. After much trial and error (and even more beer), the right words will coincide with the right tune, thus giving birth to the musical genre known as geology songs.
Dr. Richard Alley is a professor at Penn State, who happens to have a knack for weaving geology into popular songs – an example of his fine art can be seen above. I find his videos to be great mnemonic aides when teaching introductory geosciences. Check out his other videos on YouTube, like Ring of Fire.
Note: For implying that geologists always drink in the field, I would like to apologize to the 1% of geologists who do not consume alcohol.
A MUST go VIRAL!