Category: geology puns

Only a Rock Scientist

Doing some rock science in Oman, January 2009.

I defend my PhD thesis in just under a month. I’m super nervous, particularly about the questions I’ll receive after my defense. However, I’ve come up with the ideal way to respond to difficult questions.

Scary Committee Member: Can you please draw all three uranium-series decay chains, with all of the decay constants, on the board and then comment on how they relate to life, the universe, and everything?

Me: What do I look like, a rocket scientist? I’m only a rock scientist.

I think this plan is foolproof*.

Okay, back to the thesis preparations now.

 

 

*Don’t worry, I won’t actually answer questions this way. I just wanted to share my new geology joke. Next time someone asks you a difficult science question, feel free to inform them that you are “not a rocket scientist, only a rock scientist.”

Geology Pun Contest: The Winner

The prize: Gillian Turner’s book “North Pole South Pole.”

As I mentioned yesterday, this blog is now returning to its usual geological theme. I also mentioned yesterday that in the near future I will blog about the Oklo Natural Nuclear Reactor, which is a topic that I hope will appeal to both those interested in geology and those interested in nuclear power. I want a few days to read some papers and write up a proper post on the topic, and in the meantime I will return some of my usual geology posts, such as the Geology Word of the Week. I managed to take the Geology Word of the Week most of the way through the alphabet from A is for Alluvium to S is for Speleothem before halting all geology posts so that my dad and I could do our Fukushima interviews. This week I will be writing about a geology word starting with the letter T, so stay tuned!

Today I want to wrap-up a bit of unfinished blog business. Just before the Japan earthquake and tsunami, I announced a geology pun contest with the prize being a copy of Gillian Turner’s book “North Pole South Pole: The Epic Quest to Solve the Mystery of Earth’s Magnetism.” I unfortunately haven’t had time to read this book, but it has already been reviewed favorably by other geobloggers, such as Callan Bentley over at Mountain Beltway and Wayne Ranney over at Earthly Musings. I hope to read the book myself on an upcoming trip to South Africa.

Because I did not want to break up the Fukushima interviews, I never announced the winner of the geology pun contest, but I am now:

Best Geology Pun (made me laugh the most):

“I never got into geology. Seemed too crowded as so many geologists are out standing in the field.”
-sisyphusrocks

Congratulations to sisyphusrocks! You have won the book. Please email your address to georneysblog (at) gmail (dot) com, and I’ll send the book on its way.

For amusement, I’ve compiled the rest of the geology puns after the jump. Thanks to everyone who entered, and feel free to post more geology puns in the comments. There can never be too many geology puns :-).

More Geology Pun Entries: 

“You want geology puns? Give me a minute. I’ll dig some up.”
–sisyphusrocks

“I met a stoner who said he once lost his apatite. I think that’s a lode of schist.”
-William

“IANAG so I really don’t know a lode of geology puns.”
-Mike”When I was in college, our geo lab had a large chunk of schist sitting around. I put a sign under it (only visible if you took it and moved it) that said, ‘Hey, it’s not gneiss to take a schist in the lab!’ ”
-mikerattlesnake

“I know some things about rocks but I vishnu more schist for sure.”
-James Fox

“Geology ROCKS!”
-vbalbert

“Or the inevitable… geologists make my bed rock.”
-James Fox

“It was his fault the conversation eroded. He assumed I was saying I had too much on my plate, but that wasn’t what I sediment.”
-Melanie

“If you want to have impact, donate for the crater good.”
-Melanie

“We voted on which cheese to serve at the party. Debris won by a landslide.”
-Melanie

“Orogeny recapitulates plate tectonics.
(Actually, I think this is backwards, but meh! I’ve already won Tim Minchin tix this month…)”
-Buzz Parsec”The Earth’s crust was bland until she got a basalt shaker.”
-Melanie

“I’ve started calling myself an A-geologist, because I don’t believe in the divinity of Geode.”
-DiscordianStooge

“hehehe…. these puns are all clastics!”

-oldearthaccretionist
“I hope limericks count because I put pen to paper and think Mary had a little lamb…
Mary found rhombohedral crystals of calcite,
Whose color was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went the exposed calcite was sure to erode.”
-greenstone123″An educational and I hope, witty limerick…

Twinkle twinkle little Larimar,
How I wonder what you are?
From the mineral class pectolite,
Luster silky, what a sight!
Twinkle twinkle little Larimar,
What a pretty gem you are!”
-greenstone123

“Hmmm… a pun on demand? Let me think on that. In the meantime, here’s one from two years ago:
http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2009/03/non-geology-people-will-not-get-this.html”
-Lockwood

“Geologist couples are always gneiss people, but almost never have children because they have plutonic relationships.”
-Garry Hayes

“Geologists know that subduction leads to orogeny and thrusting, making the bedrock.”
-Garry Hayes

“You know how pinstripe laminated sandstones are popular for building stones? And they put them in big wire cages for shipping? That’s an example of ‘Stoss Cratification of Cross-Stratification’ ”
-MK

“Let’s go behind that rock, I am a little boulder there.”
-Jazinator

“Subduction leads to orogeny”
-Jazinator

“Every time I try to be gneiss I get the schist beat out of me…”
-brainthing

“Not quite a pun, but the way to remember which way the _cline bends: A syn makes you grin!”
-Reynardo

“Geology – The only profession where it is acceptable to measure a dyke’s cleavage.”
-oldearthaccretionist

“So I said to the geologist, ‘Wow, taking core samples. That sounds pretty interesting,’ and he says ‘actually, it’s really just boring.’ ”
-drbuzz0

“A stone mason with a powerful phobia of indoor lighting was accused of misrepresenting the ‘black granite’ he used in a counter top. He was charged with basalt, but when his condition came to light, the charges were dismissed due to lamprophyre.”
-Lockwood

“Many years ago a geology student friend and I planned to write a geological murder mystery titled ‘Murder by default.’ We still have the notes, so who knows, some day….”
-kathy

“Cave formations are like ants in the pants: the mites to up and the tights come down.”
-MTM