What is this mapping I keep going on about?

Mapping in San Jose, Spain

As my readers will probably know my blog is still very new. Before I started writing it, I undertook a huge personal challenge back in the Summer of 2014. I’ve mentioned this a fair bit on this blog but never really explained what exactly it was I was doing or why it was such a monumental task. I thought I would start by explaining what on Earth I was actually doing there in the first place as most people (myself included not that long ago) have no idea what I am on about when I say “I went mapping”.

As undergrad geology students we spend a lot of our uni breaks on field trips. I realise to the outside eye this sounds like we get to go on elaborate holidays to exotic places, but this isn’t really true. While we definitely do have fun on our field trips they are HARD WORK. Like really hard work and they are absolutely not a holiday. We spend our days outside in all weathers with long hours. There is a huge amount of walking involved over tough terrain. We don't get days off and we spend most of our evenings working. If you decide to go out drinking you will seriously suffer for it the next day. Chances are we are staying in some broom cupboard in a dodgy hostel sharing a room with 6 people. Its challenging both emotionally and physically in a way you cannot truly understand unless you have done it yourself.

Field work isn't really my thing and I would prefer to be sat in a warm dry classroom pretending to listen to the lecturer. So to be honest I haven’t really enjoyed the field trips much and I really hated doing the work at the time (in case you can't tell). Looking back I remember them fondly but I think this is more to do with the camaraderie with my fellow course mates and the sense of achievement gained from completing them.

'What the fuck is this rock?' Wales

I do love to be outdoors and my degree has given me the opportunity to travel to some exceptionally beautiful parts of the world. I always find though the actual work gets in the way of properly making the most of the opportunity. We are too busy doing what we are there for to take advantage of the chance to explore wherever we happen to be.

Geologists however (particularly lecturers) are mad and think nothing of a brisk 10km walk at nearly 3km altitude carrying a heavy rucksack or doing a death defying scramble down a near vertical cliff just to look at an ‘interesting outcrop’. I personally do not care enough to think the physical effort is worthwhile but maybe that’s just me.


Anyway, back to explaining the point of this post. Instead of a traditional dissertation geologists undertake an Independent Mapping Project and a Mapping report. This replaces doing extensive research and then writing a dissertation. The mapping project is where you do your own research and then you write about what you find in the report.

Geological mapping is not as simple as it sounds. The idea is to try and build up a complete geological history of the area you are studying by recording all the observed rock outcrops. This is done by wandering (seemingly aimlessly) around your area and writing detailed notes on everything you find. The location of every outcrop is recorded on a map. You then apply your extensive geological knowledge to try and make sense of what you observe. While this sounds straightforward it really isn’t as you will only be tasked with mapping somewhere where there has been extensive deformation to make everything nice and suitably complex.

Climbing a volcano in Spain

For your Independent Mapping Project you spend 30 days mapping a large area (16km square in my case!) so there is an extensive amount of walking involved. The more days off you have the longer you will have to stay there so most people opt for one day off a week making a total of 5 weeks spent mapping. That one day off becomes all that you are living for as you do not have to stand outside in the pouring rain that day. I had done a lot of field work before I went on my Independent mapping but not a huge amount of geological mapping (9 days in total).

A lot of our field trips resemble something you probably experienced during GCSE Geography where you get dragged to Lulworth Cove and are forced to make a sketch of Durdle Door (I am not joking about this, I have been on 2 field trips there) and listen to the teacher explain things. I had never done any field work without instruction and the longest trip I had ever been on was 12 days long. Nothing prepares you for the sheer horror of having to do this amount of work with no help.

Bloody Health and Safety, Ingleton, Yorkshire

While it is called an ‘Independent’ project most unis generally expect their students to map in pairs for safety reasons. Unfortunately, you have to actually do your own work and your partner really is there just to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre or CPR or whatever. In fact they are so serious about this safety thing that Southampton uni makes us do a compulsory first aid course. My experience of this was hilarious as my mapping partner and I were ridiculously hungover at ours and thought we were going to vom on the CPR dummy. Somehow we passed but it was a good thing neither of us injured ourselves! Talking of mapping partners deciding WHO you are going to map with is probably more important than WHERE you go mapping.

This person will be your only companionship day in day out. It is absolutely essential that you like them and that they like you. There is no backing out once you get out there and they start to piss you off. It is a huge commitment to make and a big test of your friendship. Spending 5 weeks with one other person is probably more intense than the average marriage so you had best make sure you choose wisely. If you survive the experience though, the two of you will share a completely unique bond that no other person will come close to understanding. You will have scary weird in jokes and little anecdotes that nobody else finds funny. You know how close you both were to going completely insane but because you are friends you keep it to yourselves.

Once the torture of the field work is over and you are finally home it’s time to start writing it all up. Except you won’t cos you just wasted nearly 6 weeks of your life worrying about rocks and you are going to enjoy the small amount of the summer you still have left. You'll leave it all til much later in the term. Even then you won't start it until you have began lying awake at night stressing that you haven't started it.

Somewhere in Wales, who knows.

The other sneaky thing the uni make you do is digitise the map you spent the whole summer making, colouring in and protecting from the elements as though it was your firstborn child. This is called the Interpretive Map and creating it is a long, labour intensive process as the software likes to crash frequently. It also costs over £500 to buy so you either

a) pirate it (but Corel Draw is a sneaky bitch and works out that you illegally stole it)

b) use the free 30 day trial (all very well and good but the clock is a ticking)

or

c) give in and only do your work in the library.

All in all making the Interpretive Map is just as painful as making the paper copy. Only there is a strong sense of déjà vu because, oh wait, YOU’VE DRAWN ALL OF THIS BEFORE.

The most frustrating part of this is you cannot even pretend you aren’t doing your interpretive map because you are just so busy writing the report (ie. burying your head in the sand). This is because you pretty much need to have the interpretive map complete in order to write your report. FFS.

The report itself is 8000 words of pain as you try to rewrite your rain smeared notes you made in the field into something coherent. Preferably something that also sounds intelligent and feasible. THIS IS YOUR DISSERTATION AFTER ALL.

#SIRENS 4EVA

Eventually after hours of stress crying and contemplating dropping out your novel is complete and ready to be handed in. Complete with the Interpretive Map, Field Map and Notebooks. They all get shoved into an envelope bound into the back of the report and you can hand it in and forget about it.

In conclusion, this is the bare bones of the task but the experience is different for everyone. Come back next time for what I thought about my experience of mapping in the Isle of Skye!