Concert

Apparently, my religion prof. is a big wig in Salamanca, and he got invitation only tickets to the Castilla y León orchestra concert celebrating Salamanca's 20th anniversary as a patron city of humanity. Any way he gave us tickets to the concert, which was incredible. The theme was the extremes of Europe, and the concert was songs by Spanish and Russian composers.
The concert was:
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"
which was connected to Spain because of the witchcraft traditions in Spain that inspired the piece
Pablo Sarasate's (a Spanish composer for the violin) "Nouvelle fantasie sur Faust de Gound" and "Russian Songs"
which was played by an amazing young violinist
and, finally Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony, which is not at all related to Spain.
Anyway the concert was amazing, especially the Sarasate. The soloist even played an encore. It was definitely a great way to end the semester.

Thanksgiving

IES had a really nice Thanksgiving (in Spanish: Día de Acción de Gracias) dinner for us and our IES professors at a restaurant in Salamanca. The food was an interesting mix of Spanish cooking and American traditional food. My friends and I ended up sitting at the table with all of the professors, but we got to speak a lot of Spanish and learned about holidays in Spain and were the only table that didn't run out of wine...
Professors and crema. Crema is a Spanish style soup that's vegetables put through the blender and heated. The first course was three cremas: pumpkin, chestnut, and potato.


More profs. This was when we realized that our religion prof. didn't only speak incredibly slowly and clearly because we were Americans; that was his normal speaking voice.



Friends and a sneaky plot to steal our vino. People from another table sent someone to our table because their table had run out of wine, but they had to be sneaky about it because they didn't want to look bad in front of the profs, but we still have photographic evidence of their deviousness.

oops...

So I haven't actually published a blog post since November, and I have a whole bunch, including, one about my geo field trip, Thanksgiving, an incredible concert, Nochevieja Universitaria, and finally finding Hutton's Unconformity. So they all will be coming soon.

¡¡Field Trip!!

Last Tuesday, the 25th of November, we had a field trip for my mineralogy class and we went to a pegmatite mine and a greisen. It was amazing, mostly because it was a field trip, but we did get to see some fun rocks.

The first mine that we went to was nearly in Portugal. We could see Portugal from the mine, and I could have jumped over the river that separates Spain and Portugal. I had brought my passport because the field guide said in bold letters that the mine was not in Salamanca (meaning the province), and since I'm not an EU citizen, I could have problems getting into different countries. As it turned out the mine was not officially in Salamanca because it was in an international park on the boarder, but I guess it's better safe than sorry. Also, the mine was not really a pegmatite mine, because they hadn't actually gotten to the pegmatite yet, and they were just mining the aplite in veins above the pegmatite. The mine was started as a cassiterite mine, since the cassiterite formed at the margins of the intrusion, but now they also mine REE's and uranium. According to my professor, this area of Spain has some of the richest uranium deposits in Europe.


A typical zoning pattern in this mine. The top of the rock is slate, followed by an area that contains cassiterite and muscovite, which is followed by a quartz and spodumene zone, and then there's the aplite, which is rich in quartz, lepidolite, and alkali-feldspars.


Andalucite and cordierite porphyroblasts

The mine wall with lots of interesting veins.

Portugal!!!

The second mine that we went to had some historical significance. It was a scheelite, arsenic, and kaolinite mine, and during WWII, the Spanish (who were officially neutral) mined scheelite and sold it to the Germans. However, since Portugal was an ally-leaning neutral country and this mine is visible from Portugal, the Spanish mined the scheelite by night and carried it across the country by donkey. Luckily for the Spanish, scheelite has interesting fluorescent properties, which made it easier to mine by night. Right now, there's also a British company looking into re-openning the mine, but they have to figure out what to do with all of the arsenic-rich water that's in it right now.

Slickenfibers! on faults associated with the formation of the greisen. I think that they were indicating movement of the footwall in the direction of the pencil.

Arsenic-rich pond and more Portugal, although Portugal is a little further away in this picture. It's just visible as hills in the distance.

A'dam

Last weekend, I went a visited a friend who is studying in Amsterdam. Amsterdam was a really neat city. Every one bikes every where and there are canals and house boats and a whole host of exciting, interesting things. My first day in Amsterdam, my friend and her roommate took us on a tour of the city. We went to the main square and the red light district, and ate lunch in a really cool public library. On Saturday, we went to the market and had Turkish pizza, which was very good. We also went to the Nemo, which was a really great interactive science museum, which you definitely need a whole day to appreciate, and we went to see the Anne Frank House.

This picture is from the top of a secret tree-house-like reading cubby in the children's section. Also, they use the Dewey Decimal system at the public library in Amsterdam.

The Bronze Bust statue in the Red Light District.

Boats and a canal.

Windmill! This windmill is actually used as a brewery now.

Ducks... with Susie!

This picture is of the paving tiles outside of my friend's apartment complex, and shapes of the paving tiles reminded me a bit of some of the fracture and stability textures. My friend was right when she said that there weren't really any rocks in Amsterdam. There were some paving stones that looked like they were made out of the really well-known black marble from Austurias, which makes sense since the Netherlands used to be a part of the Spanish Empire. There were also some interesting paving stones in the red light distict that were a pink granite, although some had ductile shear zones in them.

.I had to take a picture of the Pyrenees, since I crossed them more successfully than Hannibal, and he's well-known in Salamanca, since he said that the women of Salamanca were the fiercest in the world after they attacked his army and held them at bay for a couple days.

Student strike and San Alberto

So last week, there was a massive student strike planned, and the students were going to blockade the buildings and everything, but it ended up not being a big deal. Most of the students didn't go to class, but the University hired security to prevent them from blockading buildings. There was a pretty big protest in the Plaza Mayor (a couple thousand students were there), but the protests during classes were much more disruptive. Apparently, things were a bit more interesting the Facultad de Historia y Geografía, because there were some students trying to convince other students not to go to class, but most of the foreign students went anyway, because the Bologna Treaty benefits them.

I went to my geo lab, and the prof blamed the low attendance (I was the only student) on the fiesta for San Alberto, who is the patron saint of the Facultad de Ciencias. For the fiesta, there were a lot of good costumes. There was the lab coat (a very useful accessory, because it can be worn for the fiestas for science, medicine, biology and chemistry (chemistry and biology have their own facultads, so they have their own patron saints)), cowboys (the geo department dressed like cowboys), and a very impressive group of people dressed like planets and moons (they even orbited each other).

Halloween

I know this is a little late, but I was waiting for pictures from some friends (I didn't bring my camera out into the rain), and I was otherwise occupied with writing papers and reading Terry Pratchett (I don't mean to say that reading for pleasure is more important than keeping people informed about what I've been up to, although, if you haven't read any Terry Pratchett, I highly recommend him).
So Halloween...
The day before Halloween, IES organized a spooky tour of Salamanca for us, and we learned a lot of obscure, interesting facts about the city. We went to the Cueva de Salamanca, which is associated with a legend where the devil taught classes in witch-craft to 7 university students in exchange for the soul of one of them, but he was eventually tricked by a clever student. We also visited the cathedral and learned more about the "victor" which is the symbol that PhD recipients get to paint on the walls in their facultades. In the good old days, when the university was housed in the cathedral because there wasn't any university building yet, students who passed their exams and got their degrees were expected to throw a huge party afterwards, complete with bull fights (they used the blood of the bulls to paint the victor). However, this was fairly expensive, so poor students would say that a family member had died to avoid all of the hubbub and cost. This eventually lead to a rumor that getting your PhD at USal would lead to the death of your family members. We also visited the Casa de los Muertos (House of the Dead), which was the house of an old Salamantino family that had on-going feuds with another local family in a manner that strongly reminded me of Romeo and Juliet.
On Halloween, there is a tradition where a man climbs outside the Cathedral to the highest bell tower and plays a flute and drum and sings and releases a dove. This tradition started in 1757 after the earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, during which the tower of the cathedral cracked, but the family that lived there to ring the bells always rang the highest bell in the tower for All Saints Day, but they couldn't get up there because the crack in the tower broke the staircase. To fulfill their obligation, one member of the family climbed the outside of the tower to ring the bell. Later, the tradition moved to October 31, so it wouldn't conflict with All Saints Day celebrations.
Here are some pics (that I mostly got from other people), and a video of the guy on top of the cathedral.
Our pumpkin, which won the pumpkin carving contest is the rana.

I dressed up like a mouse, with a tail and whiskers.

The cathedral climber on a balcony.


On top of the cathedral, sitting on the weather vane.

Here's the link to the Mariquelo playing and singing from the top of the cathedral:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOIZF1oHa_A

Toledo

A few weekends ago, IES took us to Toledo, which is a city just South of Madrid which is famous for its cultural history (it is known as the 'city of 3 cultures'), its swords and its marzipan.
Toledo used to be the capital of Spain, and, because of that, it is both a surrounded by walls, both natural and man-made and the River Tajo.

Walls and bridges

City of 3 cultures:
Like every Spanish city, Toledo has a cathedral, but unlike many other Spanish cities, the cathedral in Toledo is actually an important part of people's every-day lives. Toledo is considered the most religious city in Spain, and daily mass at the cathedral is usually well-attended.
In the past, though, think pre-1500, Toledo was known for having the largest Jewish population in Spain, and one of the largest in Europe. Toledo was also ruled by the Moors for 500 years, and during this time, about the last century or so of Moorish rule, Toledo managed to support a population of Christians, Muslims, and Jews, although they all lived in separate parts of the city, which were walled and isolated from each other at night.
A great example of the mix of 3 cultures in Toledo is in the synagogue of Santa María la Blanca, which was designed by Muslim architects, used as a synagogue, and then converted into a church/ convent.
This façade is from another synagogue in Toledo, and will show up in a slightly different form later.
Since Toledo was the biggest city in Spain during the late 1400's, it was also an important place for the Reyes Catolicos (Fernando and Isabel). They had actually planned on being buried in Toledo, but changed their minds after conquering Granada. They constructed Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes for their tombs, but ended up donating it to an order on monks.
Tanto monta, monta tanto, is an idiomatic expression that roughly translates into 'one is equal to the other', and it was used during the reign of Isabel and Fernando to signify that they were equals. It can be found in a lot of the buildings that they built (like the Alczár place in Segovia).

Swords:
While we were in Toledo we went to the factory that made the swords that were used in the Lord of the Rings movies, and we got to see swords being made and iron being deorated with gold.
Forge that is dormant, but you can see a pile of swords to be finished in the lower left-hand corner, and some iron to be turned into swords on the right-hand side of the picture.

Here a metal-worker is decorating iron pendants with gold wire. The pendants are made in molds and have little grooves in the top. He puts the gold wire (which he draws himself) into the grooves, and then the whole thing gets re-heated, and the iron turns black and the gold stays nice and shiny.

Marzipan:
Toledo had very tasty (although very expensive) marzipan.
Here is a model of nuns making marzipan that was in a window of one of the marzipan stores in Toledo.
Here is the façade of the Synagogue del Tránsito, but this time it's made of marzipan.

Toledo is also famous for being the home of el Greco, the famous painter. While in Toledo, we went to see the 'Entierro de Conde Orgaz', which is one of his most famous paintings.
Toledo also had really great rocks. The city is located on a reverse fault from the Hercynian Orogen and is built on a migmatite complex (if you click on the picture, you can see better detail of some migmatite structures).
My 900-page long 'Geología de España' textbook definitely comes in useful at times like this (I actually consider it one of my best purchases so far. My only complaint is that it doesn't have a very good index).

Besides having amazing outcrops of really interesting rocks around the city, there are also some great building stones in Toledo (like there are in all proper Spanish cities...).

Also, a picture of some ducks for my friend Cori...
and windmills in the sunset.

US Elections

I watched the US elections tonight from the BBC coverage, and found it very amusing. British journalists are a lot more confrontational than US journalists, and they argue with the experts on the news station, which is very amusing. Also, they used a lot of geology terms, notably: seismic, tectonic plates, and mountain building were mentioned.

Oh, plus, a republican ambassador to the UN told the BBC that they should fire one of their reporters...

Bombing in Spain

Today, there was a car bombing in Pamplona at the University of Navarra, which is in the north of Spain, in the province of Navarra. 17 people were injured. ETA, the Basque separatist terrorist group is believed to be behind it. I'm ok, and everyone I know is ok. The official people who have contacted me, like the Embassy in Madrid, are not too concerned about any other ETA attacks outside of the northeastern corner of Spain in the near future, and ETA has historically not targeted tourists or foreigners, and they tend to attack government or official targets. Even so, terrorist attacks are never a good thing, especially at a university.
Happy Halloween.

More protests and snow!

My grammar class today was, once again, interrupted by protests, with protesters entering our building and setting off the fire alarm and throwing open classroom doors (which is completely normal. It really isn't a big deal here to set off a fire alarm just to create a disturbance; it actually happens about once every two weeks in the residence hall, and every one just ignores it. If there were a real fire, we could all just crawl out our windows, and, since the buildings are made of brick or stone, it's much less dangerous). My grammar teacher told us that the students were protesting the implementation of a standardized EU education system because they think they will have to work harder. It turns out, also, that the new system will apply to every one graduating next year and in the future, so students who are juniors now will have to scramble to meet all of the requirements in time to graduate, and some will have to stay an unanticipated extra year.
There are rumors that there is going to be a student strike starting November 3.
Grammar class was also eventful, because it started snowing after the protesters left. I don't think we really learned much about grammar in class today.

Cold, Blustery Day

Today, when I left for mineralogy, it was:
a. Still dark (the sun doesn't rise until 8:30)
b. 36 degrees (F)
c. rainy
d. really windy (gusts up to 40mph)
I'd check the weather, so I knew about a-c, but I hadn't been expecting the wind. Altogether, it made for an unpleasant 1.5km walk to class. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who found the weather conditions unpleasant, because I was the only student who came to class for the first 30 minutes. The professor commented to me that Spanish students are afraid of the rain, but she then proceeded to lecture like normal (usually, there are 4-5 students who come to the lecture portion of class). It was a little strange to be on the receiving end of a private lecture, and I was very relieved when another student showed-up. In class, however, our professor told us about how she found scheelite in Salamanca by walking around at night with a UV light and looking for the phosphorescence, and she then told us that she came back the next day and "sampled" it. I'm pretty sure that's about as legal in Spain as it is in the US, but it sounds like something a geologist would do...
Now, though, I have an hour before class, and I am nice and cozy in my room drinking cola-cao, the Spanish version of instant hot chocolate, which is made with milk (which makes it clearly superior to instant hot chocolate made with water).

Awesome Weekends (Scotland)

Last weekend, I met-up with a geology friend, who's also in Europe this year, in Edinburgh to take a pilgrimage to Siccar Point, which is the location where Scottish geologist James Hutton discovered the concept of deep time in 1787.
Here's a brief summary of our Scottish adventures:
We started out in Edinburgh, which was a pretty amazing city, although it was a little disorienting that people drove on the other side of the street.

We stayed in a really nice bed and breakfast, and we planned to head to Siccar Point early Saturday morning.

Here's the b&b.

We planned on taking a bus to Cockburnspath, which is a small town near Siccar Point. On Saturday morning, though, we ended up taking a city bus to the opposite side of town than the bus station, and decided to walk and enjoy downtown Edinburgh.

However, downtown Edinburgh is a very distracting place for a geologist, since there are a lot of interesting rocks, like this deformed basalt that the Edinburgh castle is built on.
We also found this really fascinating rock that is basalt clasts in an organic limestone.
This is a picture of some snails crawling on the fossilized remain of their ancestors.
Anyway, we decided to look for more of the really cool conglomerate-limestone, so we went up the hill by the castle.


We didn't find any more of that really fascinating rock, but there was a great view of the city.
Our little side trip made us miss the early buses to Cockburnspath, though, so we ended up leaving Edinburgh at 3 and getting to Cockburnspath at 4.
When we got to Cockburnspath, we oriented ourselves, and set out to find Siccar Point and Hutton's Unconformity.

Scottish countryside:

We can tell we're getting close because there's gently-dipping Old Red Sandstone:
And... Siccar Point!
Siccar Point is the second piece of land jutting out into the North Sea.

Yep, we made it to Siccar Point.

More Siccar Point.

However, it was a little more challenging to get to Hutton's Unconformity.

We went down a hill-side covered with ferns. Walking through ferns was a very strange sensation and felt a little surreal.

Then we walked around the beach on the Old Red Sandstone and the conglomerate layer, which directly overlays the Silurian greywacke at the unconformity.
However, it eventually became clear that we were on the wrong side of the point to see Hutton's Unconformity, and the sun was setting and the tide was coming in.
So we decided to climb back up to the top of the point. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was dark, and we couldn't go looking for Hutton's Unconformity any more that day. We walked back to Cockburnspath and took a taxi to Dunbar, with plans to return to Siccar Point the next day.
After a night in a very expensive b&b in Dunbar, we tried to call a taxi to get back to Siccar Point with no luck: taxis don't run on Sunday morning. So we spent the morning in Dunbar and took a bus back to Edinburgh so my friend could catch her flight.

Trying to call the taxi.

The oldest Methodist church in Scotland.

The birthplace of John Muir.

Cool braided stream patterns on the beach.

After my friend left, I had some time to kill in Edinburgh, and I went to a really cool museum (the Dynamic Earth Museum). I found it really well put together, and they had really good exhibits, including real glacial ice and the rocks of Scotland. In the whole museum, which took a good hour and a half to walk through, there was only 1 thing I disagreed with (they said that the subducting slab melts, which causes arc volcanism).
They also had the most original geologic cross-section I've ever seen. It's called "A Slice through Scotland" and shows the major faults as different sections of rock and has real rock for the different Scottish rocks.

I also found this on my way to the museum:
On Sunday night, I found a small Methodist church, and the people were really friendly and had coffee fellowship, so it felt a lot like home.

I left Monday morning (Monday was a national holiday in Spain, so I had the day off), and took some nice pictures of the Salisbury Craigs in the sunrise.
So, even though we failed to find Hutton's Unconformity, we still found some great rocks and had a wonderful time in Scotland, and the trip was definitely worthwhile. There may be plans for a return trip sometime this winter too.