I recently attended a National Geographic presentation by Lee Berger. Dr. Berger told us the story of how his team discovered the latest hominin fossils, Homo naledi. The fossils were found at the very end of a huge, torturous cave system with small apertures too small for Dr. Berger to crawl through. He had to find and rely on scientists, equipment and techniques that he hadn’t used before, and watched the events on a computer screen. At the end of his description of what it took to navigate the cave system and extract the fossils, he said that they used radar to delineate the extents of the cave system (see * for the article describing the delineation of the cave system).
In my mind, all I heard was, “geophysics”.
Perhaps my perspective is a little too focussed.
William Wordsworth’s poem “Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room” presents the idea that limiting your focus to a single task is liberating. The book “How to write a sentence: and how to read one” describes the meaning further, “If the moves you can perform are prescribed and limited…each move can carry a precise significance” (Fish, 2011).
I like the idea that we can learn and accomplish more by focusing on a specific area of study because of the structure the area of study provides. So maybe my geophysics-filled point of view is okay.
This edition is composed of many mentions and examples of structure and exceling within that framework, everything from the terminology we use in the CSEG, our Professional Associations, our travels, to the technical articles and the Technical Luncheon extended abstract.
This is the last edition before our summer break. The next edition is September with the Focus: Value Integrated Geophysics. Continue checking the CSEG website for information on the CSEG and events taking place in July, August, and September.
Have a great summer!
Fish, S., 2011, How to write a sentence and how to read one, New York, HarperCollins Publishers, p.32.
*Kruger, Ashley et al., 2016, Multimodal spatial mapping and visualisation of Dinaledi Chamber and Rising Star Cave, South African Journal of Science. DOI: 10.17159/sajs.2016/20160032
Share This Column