A Geologist Torn: Fieldwork Was Transformative for Me, but Is It for Everyone?
It’s time to re-examine the mythology of fieldwork and reimagine our definition of what it means to be a geoscientist.
“Apart from its healthful mental training as a branch of ordinary education, geology as an open-air pursuit affords an admirable training in habits of observation, furnishes a delightful relief from the cares and routine of everyday life, takes us into the open fields and the free fresh face of nature, leads us into all manner of sequestered nooks, whither hardly any other occupation or interest would be likely to send us, sets before us problems of the highest interest regarding the history of the ground beneath our feet, and thus gives a new charm to scenery which may be already replete with attractions.” -Sir Archibald Geikie, British Geologist, 1835–1924
There is no doubt that traditionally, geology has been inextricably linked with the importance of field investigations. For many of us who chose this area of study, the idea of getting out into the field and clamoring around on the rocks was a big part of the attraction. And why not? Read those words of Sir Archibald Geikie again — they are pure poetry, evoking the sensation of feeling free, out in the fresh air, among beautiful scenery and free from everyday worries. Who wouldn’t want that in their job description?
When I was nineteen, I switched my major from English to Geology. At the time, I was grieving the loss of my father, and my entire world felt upside down. I had taken a geology class to fulfill a science requirement and against all of my instincts (which basically were that math and science were not for me); I fell in love. I had never felt so curious, so lit up by a class, and I made the decision to embark on the journey to becoming a woman in STEM. What sparked that curiosity was in large part the images I saw on the screen at the front of the lecture hall — The Himalayas; Mount Saint Helens; The San Andreas Fault; The Grand Canyon. Oh, the Grand Canyon, with its rusty reds and sandy yellows so different from the black and gray shales of my upstate NY home. Something about it made me want to become an outdoor explorer, trade in my notebooks and novels for a backpack and hammer, don some sturdy boots, and head for the American west. The thought of communing with mountains where they stood stark naked against a clear-blue sky, just waiting to be seen, touched, and investigated, was so very intriguing.
Within five years I was headed to California to start a Ph.D. program, and my research project provided an opportunity to go to Tibet. The interior of Tibet, where tourists were not allowed and all the roads (if you can find them) are dirt. For months on end I would live in the wilderness at very high elevation (15,000 feet on average), with none of the safety and comfort of home; no running water, no way to talk to my family, no roof over my head save the fabric of a four-season tent, no heater, and no other women in the group. Just me and five men, trekking hundreds of miles across Earth’s highest plateau.
Was this what I had signed up for?
I saw a meme recently entitled “Geologist Starter Pack.” This is what it looks like:
Indeed, it seems this is what you sign up for when you decide to pursue the life of a geologist. Even today, in 2020, the above is what we (students, professors, society) think of when we think of geologists. Teva sandals with socks. Topographic maps. A Brunton Pocket Transit Compass. And of course, trail mix. All of these emphasize the importance of marriage between geology and fieldwork. So what if you don’t like to camp? Or hike? Or spend time in the great outdoors? Does that mean geology isn’t for you? Or what if — like me, when I was twenty-four years old with no outdoor experience and facing an expedition that would take me 7,000 miles from home and dump me in the center of a place that (at the time) no other white women had even been, with a group of men and no way to contact home — fieldwork seems intimidating, unsafe, or just plain scary? Does fear of fieldwork exclude those who want to study the Earth and all of her dynamic mysteries from doing so? Should it?
This is a problem. A problem that can create barriers that reduce our chances of increasing diversity and gender representation in geology. Geosciences is one of the least diverse of the STEM fields, and while many things are at play concerning the why of this, the traditional image of the geologist as the tough (usually white male) person spending months in the field is certainly a contributing factor. (See the March 2020 article in the AAAS online Science Publication entitled, “Scientists push against barriers to diversity in the field sciences,” by John Pickrell.) I want to be clear here — not all women or minority students are afraid of or averse to fieldwork, and in fact, many who choose geology likely do so because they were exposed to the outdoors as kids and crave being in nature. I was not an avid outdoors person, which made me an anomaly in the geology department. But do we simply accept that only the outdoorsy have a home in the geosciences, or do we decide to do better in tearing down barriers, whatever they may be, to success in our field? I am a big proponent of tearing down barriers, and yet, I find that I am torn. Why?
Because I believe in the transformative power of fieldwork.
In 1998, I was a new Ph.D. candidate at UCLA facing the decision of a lifetime — accept the opportunity to do three months of fieldwork in the deep interior of Tibet, or decline and choose a project that would keep me closer to home and mostly in the lab. The memories of those images in my freshman geology class made the romantic part of me want to go. This is what had drawn me to geology in the first place, wasn’t it? But the practical part of me thought that going would be insane. I was not an experienced outdoor adventurer, and I was terrified of what the altitude would do to my body. My instincts were telling me I would slow everyone down. Despite all of that doubt, I decided to go, and it was the best decision of my life.
I would not be who I am today without my experiences in the field.
Was it scary? Absolutely. Back then, we didn’t have cell phones or FaceTime, we didn’t even have a satellite phone, and I was completely cut off from everyone I knew except the two other graduate students (both male) who came with me on the trip, a colleague from a Chinese University, and our two Tibetan drivers. I was lucky — they were all wonderful, and my fellow graduate students were respectful and kind and protective, yet encouraging of my independence. They treated me like an equal, but this is not always the case, as many (particularly) women have attested to. Some face harassment, exclusion, and ridicule. My colleagues did none of those things. They were seasoned outdoorsmen who taught me so much about geology, survival, and friendship. One eventually became my husband, and the foundation of our relationship has always been those 100+ days we spent together as graduate students, living in the uninhabited wilds of Tibet. I became an expert at reading topographic maps, taking geological measurements, and feeling as one with the wilderness I had been so afraid of. I learned how to make observations in a way I never could have in the lab. We talked about what we saw — the layers of various thicknesses; the textures and colors of the rocks; the theories about what had happened millions of years before to create the features we were seeing the present day. We made predictions about where to find key geologic localities and chased them all over the plateau, wild donkeys, and gazelles racing next to our Land Cruisers. It changed the very essence of who I am. It made me a better geologist and a better scientist. It made me a stronger person. It is the thing I am most proud of in my entire twenty-seven-year geological career.
A colleague asked me recently: how can you learn geology without getting into the field? It is like becoming a physicist without doing math, or a doctor without learning anatomy. Based on my experience, I agree with my colleague — fieldwork made me better at what I do — and yet I am dismayed by the lack of under-represented minorities and women in the geosciences workforce, which may in some part relate to our rigid fieldwork requirements. So how do we do both? Break down barriers while also giving our students what they most certainly will need to be successful geologists? The majority of geoscience jobs available today seem to require some level of field experience. Are we doing a disservice to our students if we discard or even downplay our field requirements? Or are we paving the way for a more diverse field (geosciences) by separating from the traditional importance of the field?
I can only say that for me, there was something life-changing about immersing myself in the surrounding geology, viewing it at a macro scale, asking myself what created the features I was seeing, and challenging myself to try to explain it. But I have to concede that what works for one person may not for another. In the words of paleontologist Stephen J. Gould:
“No Geologist worth anything is permanently bound to a desk or laboratory, but the charming notion that true science can only be based on unbiased observation of nature in the raw is mythology. Creative work, in geology and anywhere else, is interaction and synthesis: half-baked ideas from a bar room, rocks in the field, chains of thought from lonely walks, numbers squeezed from rocks in a laboratory, numbers from a calculator riveted to a desk, fancy equipment usually malfunctioning on expensive ships, cheap equipment in the human cranium, arguments before a road cut.”
Maybe it is time to re-examine the mythology of fieldwork, and reimagine our definition of what it means to be a geoscientist.
