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.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
¡¡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.
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.
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