Friday, November 7, 2003

While I am thinking about my UCSB days, I should provide a note about my favorite professor. Rick Sibson provided the greatest intellectual challenges in the field and in the class room. He taught me to not only understand what you are seeing in outcrop, but also collect the data to prove it. I know that I disappointed Rick, by pursuing sedimentology instead of structural geology. But I wouldn't be the sedimentologist that I am without his guidance. 4:40:52 PM     Comment []

One of my professors from UC Santa Barabara is retiring at the end of this quarter and it is aging me. When I started at Santa Barbara in 1979, Art Sylvester seemed like one of the young turks on the faculty. He was driven. He wanted to make us the best geologists in the world. I learned this in the first quarter of my second year at Santa Barbara in a class called Geology 104A "Introduction to Field Methods". For this class, we had to be perfect. We had to show up on time, glean all we could from the outcrop, then record it in ink on drawings, maps, and text. It had to be spotless. We had to generate professional grade reports for this class. Geology 104A was just short of the best course that I took at Santa Barbara. It was beat out by the other two field courses as my favorite class, Geology 104B and Summer Field, both provided an more in depth field experience. But 104A provided the groundwork that allowed me to appreciate and excel in these courses. So now Art Sylvester is retiring. Yes, this makes me feel old, but more importantly, it make me concerned. Who is going to fill Art's shoes? Who is going step up and make sure that UCSB continues to produce the world's finest geologists. 4:16:31 PM     Comment []