On returning from an exhausting field venture in the northeast, I now have about 15 minutes to reflect on AATOC: Easily the hardest good questions I've ever heard, had an awesome time that greatly dulled the physical and mental anguish of geochemical fieldwork in the week to come. On that note, however, I would say the ACF canon in general needs more decent hard earth science questions. Some ideas -- stop asking about the same old rocks over and over -- too much variety for just basalt, granite and schist, (there are dunites, syenites, monzonites, greywackes to name a small fraction), and if there MUST be a question about a kind of rock, maybe put some info in about how the rock forms instead of what it looks like (color is ALWAYS deceptive, add a little Fe3+ and a black basalt turns green, and different rocks can have the same textures -- any volcanic rock can have a porphyritic texture), where its name comes from (although these can certainly be clues if used correctly). Focus on processes of tectonics (structural geology + geophysics), geochemistry beyond Bowen's Reaction Series and petrologic processes or textures, geologists' ideas about how they form, mineralogy that is actually important to mineralogy (bauxite, hematite, smithsonite are more important to economics than mineralogy). Try perovskite, epidote, pigeonite, albite, sphene, augite, zircon to name a few (these actually are important, I promise). Some variety within one thirtieth of an ACF packet wouldn't hurt, I don't think (no sarcasm intended). --Wesley Mathews IUGS program in Geochemistry (who did enjoy the single geology bonus at Artaud).
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