This is a little excerpt from a manuscript accumulating dust at a couple of publishing joints.  It’s also a little shout out to Liam Eddleston, geologist, cartoonist and creator of the universe of “Bad Ass” on Facebook.  Look him up.

   The particular geology of the East African Rift system is also what made Olorgesailie a point of interest to anyone over the last million years. The distending earth and subsequent collapse of land between fault lines made it a place to grow lakey and streamy in wetter times. It was a happy place for Homo erectus to gather and live high. There were gazelles to throw rocks at, the floating delicacies of rotting carcasses bobbing down river and refrigerator-sized watermelons falling from trees to tumble up their doorsteps. Continuing geomorphologic processes would rob erectuses of all that as the rising Ngong Hills to the east created rain shadows blocking incoming moisture from the Indian Ocean. Swimming holes dried up and the only excitement left was waiting to see if the convalescing Oldonyo Esakut and Mt Olorgesailie volcanoes had any lethal pyroclastic belches left in them. Little else for H. erectus to do but emigrate to China and try evolving on dim sum and lo mein.

   Rankled over the abandonment, Earth used its geologic sorcery to hide the evidence of erectus’ presence. Gusting jets of dust blanketed the hearths and leftover bones from monkey barbecues. Yearly monsoons sent roaring charges of water down dry ephemeral streambeds, or lagas, to sweep some hand-axes away and bury the rest under thick layers of gravel and creek snot. Eventually Mother Earth’s lost the sense of jilt, grew sweetly reminiscent of the empty nest and reversed the efforts. Lagas were recoursed to cut away the tombs of the tools and semiannual downpours began to scour the sediments leaving fossil reminders of greener pastures exposed on the scrubby landscape. Curious Homo sapiens were instilled with an odd lust to rake into Olorgesailie with pick-axes and trowels, gawk at eroding ex-volcanoes, complain about the heat and drag undergraduates out to discuss the is, was, what and how of Olorgesailie.   

   The exotic incarnations of extinct life play in my imagination and fuel my interest in paleontology to a near lascivious state but it is geology which envelopes my lust and sets it all to music. The dosey-do’s of saber-tooth cats and the cotillions of Australopithecines spin above sonorous, metronomic pulses grinding deep within the strata. The earth slides, setting a reverberation of sparks sizzling through the crusts and new layers of harmony creak and ring globally as a ragtime concatenation inspired in the gut of the planet. Pebbles, crystals, and boulders to bark your shins on en route to the exposed toe bones of a mastodon are all strains in the Theremin swing of geomorphology. The tunes are universal and the language of geology itself sticks in my head like the stickiest of bubble-gum pop songs.

   All disciplines struggle to live through their own jargons yet most are hobbled by the effort to create unique vocals for the guild. Clubby phrases in science fall from mouths and word-processors like damp clots that toll with arrogance here or there and just clunk in the facetious buffoon tones of nerds sweating to sound catchy. Even the digitally hip palaver of the Webbed World is nothing more than stale slang re-slung. Crap, all of it, when sided against the articulations of geology. Here is a science with a language that is genuinely lyrical, whistling over the divisive, xenophobic mutterings of all disciplinary jargons. It has plucked choice terms from tongues across the globe – barchan, pahoehoe, mafic, wadi, aa – to forge a lingual collective of words which are tidy, on topic or plain silly. Expressions of fun which would appeal in sound whether I was a radiologist or a Cossack – gabbro, hornblende, Mohorovicic Discontinuity…laissez les bon temps roulez!

   The vernacular of Geology belittles poetry of any ilk. It isn’t written by pricks in turtlenecks developing carpal tunnel syndrome as they flip through archaic thesauri and scribble with expensive boutique pens. Poets are crafty little word-stringers who can’t tell a fucking story to save their lives. Geology has a long story to reveal and isn’t ever impelled to stick French italicizations into the narrative, unless it’s the tale of the Dordogne, to make it feel the account has been better related with a smirk. It’s not a language which dithers in alternate terms that bleat with pomposity but fail to carry a tune, let alone accuracy. Who needs an erst, ere, e’en or an eider? Distractive, shitty terms which get a reader’s eyes rolling as he loses interest in the verse. How about fjord? Or fumarole or feldspar of foraminiferal ooze? Funky, danceable words that shake and shimmy your ass over into the party and get you thinking, Astrobleme? Damn, I gotta find out what that is! Geological terminology is lyrical but it’s always specific. A karst ain’t a craton, Panthalassa ain’t the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and a horst might look a graben but they sure ain’t the same. One needs a post-graduate degree in crossword puzzles to fabricate an interest in the endeavors of poets; so many words used to say so very little a whole very lot. To fully comprehend the jolly speech of a geologist you only have to request him to explain one or two to the goofy terms which pricked your ears like a slide whistle in the lecture. As a matter of fact, until I’d found my way to the Koobi Fora Field School I’d never even met a geologist who wasn’t graced with a toe-tappin’, perpetual good mood. I’d temporarily forgotten that there were exceptions until the school’s own geologist, Dr. Melvin Waybill, arrived in time to help helm the tour of Olorgesailie.

   Waybill just isn’t a fun guy. The music of his own profession seems to have had no effect on him and he’s far from moved to communicate any of it to others. Perhaps he’s spent too much time among Stone Age archaeologists, most of whom are as lifeless as the chipped rocks they cuddle in their dreams. In a recent course I’d had in Geomorphology each class with Dr. Nick Genes was like attending a feast of spit-grilled wild boar in a room fattened by the scent of roasted garlic with caramel sundaes and crushed Heath Bars stuffed up Twinkies for dessert. Listening to Waybill yawn out rock talk on the slopes of Olorgesailie was like dehydrating on a saltine while crumpling a long spent candy wrapper. A student posits the question Are these hand-axes made from basalt? and the drone of Waybill’s response puts the spiders to sleep in the dirt… Ummmmmmmmm, they lack the, ummm, well their color, ahhh errr, I’d have to say that they are volcanic, probably. To him the site is like any other in the world where the Earth did something to make something else happen. In Waybill’s perspective Oldonyo Esakut used to be a volcano but it doesn’t act very volcanic anymore. His bland take on specific features muffle the opera of the Great Rift Valley and students could mistake dormant, eroding magma vents for isolated mounts rather than passing decrescendos in the epic symphony of a seething and surging Earth showing its distaste for Somalia by trying to shove it out to sea. Some of the kids grew wise to Waybill’s anti-drama and started directing their geologic questions elsewhere. Some received Harry’s direct, factual answers which still vibrated with the lithe play of a string section. Some took their info from Ives in his bouncy tones of carnival music. Vacated Waybill looked pleased with the drop-off in inquiries directed his way, content just to shuffle a shoe in the dust and focus a lazy stare into the thatch canopy covering the fossil hippo excavation-exhibit, occasionally giving his nails a Swiss Army manicure but mostly offering his mustache some finger love.

   Now and then a student would throw a question my way.

   “Hey Frank, are the walls of the Rift Valleys horst blocks?

   “Excellent freakin’ question! Nope. Some of the cliffs have that look, but a horst is what you get when the crust cracks and one side of it gets shoved up towards the sky. The rifts are places where the crust broke on parallel lines and the ground between collapsed as the rest of the land pulled away from the faults. And that makes the valley a graben. Ain’t graben a groovy word? It’s right up there with lasagne, booger and tyrannosaurus…”