FAULT LINE - An Introduction

 


Fault Line

                                                                      A Geology Journal 

    My name is Dustin Jackson. I'm from a little town in Texas called Houston, also known as The Bayou City because for reasons I can't understand they decided to build it on a swamp! Still, that's home, though right now I live in Rexburg, Idaho. I suppose I'm taking this class because I have always been fascinated by our world. I went through the "fascinated by dinosaurs" phase that most kids experience, but my fascination never went away. Thankfully Houston has a world-class museum district, and I could go often to the Houston Museum of Natural Science growing up and wander for hours in the paleontological hall, the gems and minerals hall, the Hall of energy extraction and petroleum science, and the Hall of Malacology. I never realized these halls were all tied together by a common theme (rocks and minerals), all I knew was that I loved learning about the history of our planet and seeing the fruit of processes featuring unimaginable heat and pressure happening right below my feet! It didn't strike me that I wanted to work in the field of geology (even though I literally volunteered at that museum and taught in these halls for two years!) until I was going through the course catalogue at BYU Idaho and came across Earth Science Education, and from there decided to just go whole hog into geology. I'm so excited to learn! 

I remember a trip I took to the Grand Canyon several years back. As I stood on the edge of the canyon, I was literally speechless. It suddenly struck me that I was staring at the result of millions and millions of years of erosion. That the strata I was seeing contained the history of the earth on which I was standing. That if I could just learn to read those rocks, I could know everything I ever wanted to about my planet! Since that trip, I've tried to think geologically. Whenever I pass an area with a long geological history, I ask myself "what processes created this?" or "what would it look like if I could see these mountains rise, but sped up?" I live in Idaho now. I literally live next to an ancient volcano! I can walk through a lava field whenever I want! The soil under my feet contains ground basalt and volcanic ash!                                             
Living in a part of the world that is literally formed along a fault line, and which is covered in mountains formed by tectonic movement, I don't understand how anyone could possible look around and not be blown away by the natural world in our own backyards! I can't wait to learn more about geology and come to know better this beautiful planet which has for millions of years provided the only lush, fertile world we know of, the only one which we know for sure has life. I want to know how rocks become what they are, and how they turn into what they eventually become. I want to understand how my home was created. And I am excited to start on this jounrney into the center of the Earth!

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