<3

"The firm and everlasting hills we must learn to regard as neither firm nor everlasting. Whole mountain chains of the geological yesterday have disappeared from view, and as with the ancient cities of the East, we read their histories only in their ruins. Yet, in all this seemingly destructive process of breaking down, decomposition, and erosion, there is traceable the one underlying principle of transformation from the unstable toward that which is today more stable."
-G. P. Merrill, 1897

 

I found this quote in a scientific paper from 1967 just now, and while I scoffed at first that the author would add something like this above the abstract, it sure did warm my heart and ring true when I read it.  THIS is why I love geology.  Not just for the pretty minerals and pretty rocks; not for the field work and the reports and the maps and the discussions.  I love it because it's the ultimate history, and we geologists are the archeologists of the earth.  While civilizations come and go, the earth has outlived it all and is only constant in that it's constantly changing.  And I can't imagine any greater field of study than deciphering the history of our beautiful planet and learning about the processes that drive the changes that create that history.

I <3 rocks!
I <3 earth!
I <3 GEOLOGY!