any geoscientists?

any geologists ilx?
i'm a curious geology undergrad student in british columbia; i've only ever used ilx to check the running nfl commentary.

but i'm rambling. so to paraphrase one more time(!): any geologists around?

not a geologist, but i do have a B.A. in geography/environmental policy (from a geography department, specifically) and i'm finishing the thesis for my M.A. in geography (from a general geosciences department where i learned a little bit about karst hydrology and quaternary geomorphology, but mostly GIS and remote sensing).

what are the hot new trends in soil horizon samples these days?

quaternary geomorpholgy, (and specifically glaciology,) is super duper fascinating. i def. love getting away from the mineral/rock labs and seeing the big picture geography stuff. i'm not really comfortable with GIS - yet. i like field work. what is the topic of your thesis?

recent trends? beats me. i like hearing about the mantle plume debate.

a friendly dude on my ma course is a mad keen geoscientist - i will hook you up to him or his studies if you like

i am an archaeologist but a wannabe geologist. you guys with some background are more than welcome to post sweet geology news here for our pleasure ;)

This year, I learned more than I perhaps want to know about past episodes of global warming (like the paleocene eocene thermal maximum) visible in sea mud cores and oil source rock shales and perhaps most past mass extinction events. If you want to find a very very topical thesis subject, google "oceanic anoxia" or "photic zone euxinia" or "methane hydrates" or "killer in our midst". That is the real worst case scenario, and 99.999% of the public doesn't know about it, nor do 90% of climate scientists.

Otherwise, geology will probably be the most profitable major in the next few decades. There are any number of elements for which the global supply in geological reserves is measured in 10-20 years of demand (silver, antimony, iridium, gallium, some rare earths etc). Good exploration geologists will have tons of opportunities as "Peak Everything" continues.

Geologists of the future are going to experts in recovering those things from yesterday's landfill.

well archaeology/anthropology sure does have a place in mineral exploration. maybe a historic (and canadian) example would be the tracing of the dene native peoples of the north-west territories to the historic source of their copper north of the treeline. (yellowknife was named yellow-knife for a reason!) ok maybe that's not the best example, but i think these kind of things do get overlooked by geologists.

also, oceanic anoxia is a pretty intersting phenomenom i was not aware of. i like where this discussion is going!~~

the purpose of my thesis is to analyze the cause and effect relationship between late-spring freezes and their impact on deciduous broadleaf forests of north america. late-spring freezes (killing freezes sustained over a prolonged period following spring budburst, when leaves have flushed and forests are most suspectible to freeze damage) are predicted to increase in frequency as a result of global climate change, not because the freezes are occuring later in the year, but because warmer winters are messing with the forests phenological cycles and causing budburst to occur earlier and earlier. there was a particularly prominent freeze in april 2007 that i'm using a remotely-sensed NDVI timeseries that i'm using GIS to spatially compare with weather maps of the most anomalously low temperatures from the freeze event.