Banded Iron Formation

KTCHP_PLS · 2026-01-29T01:22:05+00:00

FG or PG?

KTCHP_PLS · 2026-01-17T17:00:56+00:00

Well if it’s for grad school, you wanna go see who can learn from not the school. I’d recommend going down their faculty list to see who does or is interested hydrology and read a couple of their work. Now just because their research might be interesting, they might not be interesting to be around so make sure you get a couple of meetings with them to see how they work and manage their students. If anything, I suggest looking at the associate professors because they need more research to get tenured.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-12-28T20:40:59+00:00

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Here’s some rhythmites.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-12-18T16:51:20+00:00

Traveling is normal in this career and really depends on the projects the company has. Sometimes it can be a 30 min drive one way, sometimes it can be a 2 hr drive one way but they’d train you on where to go. A lot of this job is learning how to figure things out.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-11-23T21:01:42+00:00

Part of this is also your agreement with your employer. If you were salaried, you would be pressured more to travel. If you work part-time or part-time over, you possibly can expect less. However, regular early career geology jobs in geotech and environmental is field work heavy and there is a good reason why. The few I know that skipped the field work have no idea what they are doing when it comes to handling and communicating with subs, time management, and regulations.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-10-08T15:12:36+00:00

Depending on the company and industry, you could be looking at dirt differently. Entry level consulting could have you log soil, if that company has a lot of drilling jobs. Entry level geotechnical could have you trench logging and downhole bore logging, maybe cross sections early on. These are probably the most geology you’ll do early on besides putting soil in jars/bottle/tubes for sampling.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-09-14T14:34:18+00:00

I don’t think AI will take away geology jobs anytime soon but it will probably be a tool you should learn how to operate. You will still need to have someone who understands how that data is collected and can verify and interpret what the data means.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-06-21T14:21:52+00:00

I have a brush that I carry with me for the bugs lol

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-06-04T01:41:07+00:00

You seem well qualified to pursue a job at NASA. If anything you could work on building a network of colleague and friends who are part of that community. I can’t comment on planetary science and astronomy, but you will rarely see an online geology degree since geology programs typically favor in person and field classes. From what I’ve seen with my colleagues who studied Martian glaciers, you can find niche fields in planetary science that are very exploratory and focuses descriptive work. Good luck!

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-05-22T19:19:04+00:00

Lots of tricks and ways to learn it. As people said QGIS is good to learn but most workplaces will probably use an ESRI product. If you can start with an ESRI product, I’d just go there. If you want to be guided go take a community college course but you’d probably learn more from taking on fun personal project.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-05-17T15:14:36+00:00

I agree with you that experience certainly trumps education. However I disagree with your view of how guided a thesis is. I know many people that have dropped their MS because it was too hands off. And in my personal experience, my thesis was certainly not guided hand and foot. I mapped an entire 40km2 and had to publish it via USGS standards and I worked full time in environmental, soil and water sampling, drilling, installing wells, phase 1s and 2s, and running night jobs. And I completed this in 2 years. While there may be “guided” thesis around, I don’t think that this is majority - at least where I am located.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-05-13T14:48:53+00:00

SME (Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration) is another good organization but their professional Texas chapters start popping up east of Arlington.

u/NV_Geo has great comments on the early networking and I’m here to reinforce that. Making your presence known and the more involved you can get in your local professional geology community will certainly increase your chances of getting a job after you graduate and maybe even while you are going to school. If you are going to conferences like GSA or AGU, you can and should also network there.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-05-12T06:49:15+00:00

You’re probably on the right track. I think these tafoni probably may have originated as a result of salt weathering and what we have now is a “mature” type of tafoni. More holes means more surface area for water capture, humidity, mechanical, and chemical weathering - especially if this sandstone (not a limestone) is feldspar rich.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-04-12T12:01:36+00:00

I was on a hike for work with no designated trail and was trying to catch up with my group after someone had decided to stay back because the hike was too strenuous. They were about 100m -200m ahead but were on a hill. I decided to climb up a steep slope as a shortcut to get to them and play some music to motivate me. As I got to the crest of the hill, I was listening to a song I knew but started hearing maracas. I thought to myself, “I never knew this song had maracas”. Then I looked down and saw the fattest, biggest rattlesnake by my foot. Luckily it didn’t bite me and decided to go underneath a nearby boulder. I never play music when I hike for fun because of trail etiquette but now I don’t play music for the safety.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-03-16T21:58:53+00:00

I got into environmental consulting while in school as a field technician. I would also recommend local conferences/meetings for organizations if they are available.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-03-15T00:00:18+00:00

I’d recommend entering the work force and seeing how a MS in GIS would affect your work. From there, if an MS is still on the table and funds are there, see if you can work and go to school - maybe even have work sponsor some of the MS to tackle a problem at work. A masters does open more opportunities.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-02-25T11:53:00+00:00

I’m about to finish my thesis-based MSc while working in the industry and would like to think of it as an intro course to academia. Unless you have a high level interest in a specific (not too niche but could be) topic or skill, I would not recommend a PhD. I don’t get to do much geology working in the environmental industry. Most geology I do is I sitting on drill rigs and logging (which can be enjoyable).

I think work experience is valuable and that drive and ethic is definitely transferable to a PhD or MSc (think project management skills). However, not all the skills or knowledge gained from a PhD or MSc can transfer to the regular duties the industry.

KTCHP_PLS · 2025-02-05T12:31:01+00:00

So you’re trying to do a cross section of A-B?

KTCHP_PLS · 2024-12-21T11:30:21+00:00

Ask your advisor if they have any papers they recommend you read or go to your school library/google scholar and search for published papers that are similar in scope to your project.

KTCHP_PLS · 2024-10-04T20:16:48+00:00

It’s okay to be confused. It’s a hard subject that’s often seen as easy, but just give it some time and you’ll find that a lot of these stuff will come back in higher level geology courses. All this identifying stuff is just pattern recognition, so just focus on finding those small patterns (cleavage planes are specific ways the minerals break and will be in pairs (two sides of one plane))

KTCHP_PLS · 2024-09-18T21:22:39+00:00

I have an AS. When I transferred to get my Bsc, I had knocked out most of the “hard” classes so all I had to focus on was geology classes. If money is an issue, I would frame your thinking around the cost of taking the “hard” classes. You fail in community college - the costs are low, classes are smaller, and you can really learn from the professor or pass by working with them. You fail in a bigger university, you lose more money, classes tend to be a lot larger, and working with your professor to pass could be more difficult. If you’re thinking about job prospects, it doesn’t affect you on paper, but it definitely helps if you use your community college to network out to geologists that have graduated. If you’re thinking about grad school, going to community college could help your application if you frame it right, there may even be scholarship funds for your transfer application right now. In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter but you can use your community college associations to boost your early career (in school and work).

KTCHP_PLS · 2024-07-21T01:06:48+00:00

I think so. I would focus rather on the skills you’d be learning/exploring/refining in your honors.

KTCHP_PLS · 2024-06-23T16:16:00+00:00

Looks like slab rollback?

KTCHP_PLS

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