In the Beginning...

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters..." Genesis 1:1 -1:2

Now, if you've just read that and thought you're in the wrong place - think again. 

       To begin this blog with a biblical quote seems at once both profound and at the same time, hypocritical, however, for centuries of human history, this is how we devotedly believed out planet had formed. 

       This summer I experienced more geologic joy than I had ever felt. In my usual summer trip to work in Co. Kerry, Ireland, I made a pit-stop in Edinburgh to meet with my PhD supervisor at the Open University in Scotland. With only three days to tour Edinburgh horribly jet-lagged, and mourning the 3 month separation from my man in Canada, there was only one location I wanted to see:

Hutton's Section.

       Hiking up the Salisbury Crags in a rare Scottish heatwave on day two in Scotland, I walked right past, within meters, of the famous outcrop! So, on my final day in Edinburgh, in the very, early morning hours before my flight to Ireland, I made the pilgrimage up to the crags to see where James Hutton had so famously attempted to convince a pious crowd that indeed, the Earth was made molten.

Posing next to the outcrop that started it all...(For more information on the formation and why it was so important, please click here: http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/undergraduate/field/holyrood/huttonsloc.html to access the summary from the Univeristy of Edinburgh's School of Geologic Sciences).

       I'll admit I was emotional, sitting there at the birthplace of modern geologic thinking. My time at university had mostly been spent (other than in the classroom/lab/doing homework) travelling the province of BC to present Vancouver Island University's "Awareness of Climate change through Education and Research" (ACER)'s presentation on "The Science of Climate Change" to high school science students (for more on this program at VIU, please take a look at my previous blog: http://acer2011.blogspot.ca/). High school students are at a developmental stage that, understandably, makes them more concerned with the present than the future, and it is very challenging to inspire in them concern for global issues that don't affect them directly. 

Ginny running a demo for ACER in during the group's 2011 province-wide road trip!

       This attitude I can easily understand: I was not the best high school student. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with it, and couldn't have cared any less about being in a science classroom. I barely graduated, and went years without going back to school. It wasn't until I sat in Sandra Johnstone's VIU classroom, taking geology as an elective, that I fell in love with geology. Madly in love. With years of teaching/coaching experience, I then grew passionate about teaching in geology, and got the opportunity to work with ACER for three wonderful years. I started to see how, if given facts that they could understand, and even observe, how you could get a student thinking critically and begin answering questions on their own.
       However the God-fearing adults that Hutton faced, set in their beliefs for hundreds of years, must have been substantially more difficult to convince that the Earth was created not by God, but by what we consider now to be fundamental planetary processes - particularly when all the evidence for how the Earth was formed and re-shapes itself was not available yet - no one had unearthed the clues yet (pun intended). In addition to this, Hutton was God-fearing himself, and was concerned that he would suffer for his apparent sin of questioning God's role in creating the planet. (He was also a terribly nervous public speaker, so that didn't help his case.)

       Sitting at the famed outcrop, I felt a kinship with Hutton. We both knew that ideas had to change - that the approach to science needed to be something fathomable, that you could SEE and OBSERVE in order to change someones mind, and that it was important to start thinking in a new way. 

View at 6:14AM on June 18th, 2014 of the Salisbury Crags from Arthur's Seat (volcano) overlooking Edinburgh. 

       Thus begins the exciting journey that I am on. Igneous Is Bliss is just a powerful thought at the moment, but the organization will be used to do one thing most of all: to inspire scientific thinking in the next generation, particularly in the geosciences. The title of this blog itself is a small play on words, in that we will aim to replace "ignorance" with a love for geology/science/critical thinking.
       As a future volcanologist, I aim to engage students about the geologic history of my beautiful home province of British Columbia in all it's volcanic glory. By following my own passion in volcanology and love for teaching, it is my hope that students in BC will become intrigued by the stunning geology around them, begin asking questions that they can answer on their own (with a little push towards how to "science"), and contribute to science in Canada, and the world, to solve the issues their generation will face. This can be done through a combination of field trips to awesome volcanic sites (ie: The Barrier in Garibaldi Provincial Park), guest lectures in high schools and universities and by contributing to science myself through graduate work. 

       In June 2014, when I stood where Hutton had stood so many years ago - when he KNEW then that he had the answer to the big questions about Earth's geologic upbringing - and tried his best to provide all the clues to people so they could see it, I, in turn, wanted so desperately to continue what he started, and what so many before me have done since.

Let the journey begin.