Accretionary Wedge #55: Blood on the Rocks, and Bad Karma on the Plateau

This month's Accretionary Wedge is hosted by Maitri at her Vatulblog, and it concerns our injuries incurred in the field: "Show me your injuries! ... You don’t have to be a geologist to play; simply having been injured by a rock or while doing something geological is sufficient. I will put the entries together and post them here as well as at the AW site at the beginning of March. The winner (one with the most spectacular wound or story) gets their choice of two bandage tins from this website mailed to them."

Actually, in twenty-five years of leading field trips, I have been remarkably (some would say eerily) free of serious injuries. Of course, by simply saying this I am bringing on the threat of geo-karma, and I will no doubt get bit or fall down a steep slope on my next trip. On the other hand, I have taken somewhere around 1,500 students on multi-day field trips, and some of them have managed to inflict a bit of self damage. Luckily, only a few required a trip to the emergency room, including a split-open chin, and a hairline fracture of a wrist caused when someone caught their fingers in a van door and wrenched an arm trying to pull them out.

The chin involved stitches after a fall on some rhyolite boulders in the Mojave Desert. From my point of view, it was my discovery of the accident site that was intriguing. I was trailing behind the rest of the crew in a deep cleft in the rocks, and I noticed the blood on the rocks (see the picture above). I stopped, looked around, looked up. In my ignorance, I assumed an owl had made short work of some rodent that night and was a sloppy eater. I continued on down the trail until some of the students came back and let me know we needed to make a stop in the emergency room in Needles, California.

The most famous injury during my time at the college was not quite so serious, a turned ankle, but it set in motion events later that day that have since become legend in our department. It involved rattlesnakes, and a suicidal deer (I originally blogged this story in 2008).

The rattlesnakes were simply an omen for the day. I and my students had set out on a cross-country trek to look for Ancestral Pueblo cliff-dwellings in eastern Utah. I stopped a moment and heard under my feet that buzzing sound that field workers don't usually like to hear: a rattlesnake. Only it seemed like it was in stereo. I looked down and saw not one, and not two, but three rattlers between my legs. I should have known right then to cancel the day and just go home, as I jumped through the air in some random and probably poorly chosen direction. No bites, but a very high heart rate for awhile....

Meanwhile, a deer had decided to cross the highway near Blanding and Monticello. That was still four hours in the future, though.

One of my students (who shall remain nameless for the moment) walked into the wilds, lacking water, companions, and common sense. He wandered off the mesa, climbing down a 4oo foot cliff, and climbing onto the adjacent mesa. He hadn't heard anyone for several hours and finally realized he was lost, and was long overdue at the vans. He tripped and fell, wrenching his ankle badly. Back in the parking area, concern was growing and search parties were organized. Finally, two hours later, as we prepared to contact the local Search and Rescue, our lost student stumbled out of the pinyon forest, having heard the honking of horns. We were now two hours behind schedule. We set out on the highway, headed to Blanding and Mesa Verde. And a few minutes after that, a deer, hidden completely by a concrete embankment, chose that moment to cross the busy highway.

We should have passed the embankment along the highway two hours previously, but our student  had been lost. And so we were selected, involuntarily, to introduce the deer to the hereafter. And the front of our van would never again be the same. We were, in fact, alive only because of the expert emergency driving skills of our professional volunteer, who managed not to turn us headlong into the big truck in the opposite lane as the collision occurred.

That's geo-karma...

A final note:

This wedge entry and others like it are a light-hearted look at what turned out to be fairly minor injuries. Such injuries have a potential to become major injuries in the isolation of the field, and major injuries have the possibility of becoming life-ending situations. There is no getting around the necessity of being as safe as possible when conducting field work. I can think of no situation worse than having a student die while under my supervision.  Someone passed away during a recent conference (from a long-term medical condition) we sponsored in an isolated mountain location. The staff at the conference center and our volunteers acted professionally and quickly, but nothing could be done. It was tragic beyond words.

If you are responsible for the students or fellow researchers, hold them to the highest standards of safety, and always have first aid kits available, and the training to use them. Don't allow a moment of fun taking a bit of a chance turn into tragedy.

Accretionary Wedge 50: Bad Karma or the Giant Spaghetti Monster? Microburst at Grand Tetons

Evelyn Mervine at Georneys is the host of this month's Accretionary Wedge, and the topic is a delightful one: Share a fun moment from geology field camp or a geology field trip. You can share a story, a picture, a song, a slogan, a page from your field notebook– anything you like! Thanks loads, Evelyn...how to choose from 30 years of geological journeys??? If you have followed my blog at all, you know it is mostly stories from the road. So how to choose? I finally settled on the story that convinced me that the Giant Spaghetti Monster must really exist, or at least some level of karma...

It was a while back, in the 1990s. We were on our way to Montana to assist at a dino-dig at the original discovery site of the Velociraptor cousin Deinonychus. Excitement was high, as this took place right after Jurassic Park premiered, and we were working at one of the excavations directed by Jack Horner. It was a long drive, and we stopped for a night at Grand Tetons National Park.

What happened that particular evening became one of our department legends. One our students had a knack for fomenting trouble with the powers-that-be in the Universe. On various previous trips he had speculated about what it would be like to get stung by a scorpion, and within a day, he had been (unwillingly) stung by a scorpion. At a stop, he asked if we would see any rattlesnakes. He stepped on one moments later. There was a karma that hung about Craig like a hangman's noose.

There was a discussion that evening at Grand Tetons in the twilight about whether we would experience any bad weather on our journey. The skies were clear that night with just a few puffy clouds about. For some reason, Craig looked towards the heavens, raised a rock hammer towards the sky, and said "I dare the gods to make it rain!". I'm not kidding about what followed. Within ten minutes of his brash statement, our campground was enveloped in a violent storm, our vision obscured by thick blowing dust, and high winds were knocking down old cottonwood trees all around us. Fifteen minutes later the winds died, the dust cleared, and the camp was a shambles. Tents were ripped apart, and branches were down all over our camp. Our vans were undamaged, but a tree had crushed a van in the other part of the campground (people were in it, but were unhurt). We thought we had been hit by a tornado, but more likely it was a microburst from a storm that approached us unseen from the east.

Needless to say, Craig spent much of the rest of the trip muzzled....but this is not the only Craig story. The other involved rattlesnakes, deer, and a lost student. If you are interested, it can be found here....

Geokarma or Coincidence? A Few Stories for the Day

I stepped out onto the mesa, embarking on a search for ancient Anasazi cliff dwellings in the Grand Gulch wilderness. It was a beautiful Utah summer morning, folks were excited, it was a great trip, and life was good. I took another step and paused...I had heard something right under my feet...

45 miles away, the deer nibbled at the Mountain Mahogany, considering his possibilities. They seemed dim. This buck was depressed. Did he fail to win a doe? Had his antlers not developed right? Whatever, this deer had decided to end his life. But how?

Craig (see this story about Craig, which takes place approximately two weeks in the future) set forth along with the rest of the students on the same mesa I was exploring. The class had been instructed on safety in the desert: take lots of water, stay in a group, stay in a defined area (the mesa top)...

Meanwhile in the present day, my good friend SciGuy315 was taking a final examination for his Mississippi-based distance-learning class, working towards a master's degree. Twenty questions to go, and he pushed mouse pad to bring up the next problem. Something seemed familiar about that picture...

What is geokarma? Who knows, I just made the word up. But Craig was unique in the annals of our department history. As I said before, karma hung around his neck like a noose. Some karma is good, and some is not so good.

The sound I heard under my feet was that buzzing sound that field workers don't usually like to hear: a rattlesnake. Only it seemed like it was in stereo. I looked down and saw not one, and not two, but three rattlers between my legs. I should have known to cancel the day and just go home, as I jumped through the air in some random and probably poorly chosen direction. No bites, but a very high heart rate for awhile....

The deer decided that 12:43 PM was to be the selected time, some four hours away. The highway between Blanding and Monticello was to be the place....

Craig walked into the wilds, lacking water, companions, and common sense. He wandered off the mesa, climbing down a 4oo foot cliff, and climbing onto the adjacent mesa. He hadn't heard anyone for several hours and finally realized he was lost, and long overdue at the vans. He tripped and fell, wrenching his ankle badly. Back in the parking area, concern was growing and search parties were organized. Finally, two hours later, as we prepared to contact the local Search and Rescue, Craig stumbled out of the pinyon forest, having heard the honking of horns. We were now two hours behind schedule. We set out on the highway, headed to Blanding and Mesa Verde. In forty-five minutes it would be 12:43.

We should have passed the embankment along the highway two hours previously, but Craig...Craig had been lost. And so we were selected to introduce the deer to the hereafter. And the front of our van would never again be the same. That's bad karma.

Meanwhile, yesterday SciGuy315 looked a bit harder at that test question photo. This is good karma, and involved me. You can read his delightful story about the photo right here.

Geokarma or coincidence? You decide...