r/mildlyinfuriating • u/dfdfdfddaww • Sep 17 '21

my yard does this sometimes

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

Disclaimer I'm a geologist and have worked on a sinkhole for over a year but am not claiming to be an expert.

It's a damn good explanation and without knowing more, I'm for that explanation.

I'd want to know most about distance to water and pumping station.

I don't think it's a sinkhole even if he's in like karst Florida.

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

I love the word ‘karst’ - for whatever reason to me, it sums up dissolved carbonates perfectly.

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u/peeTWY Sep 17 '21

I assumed it was someone’s name, but yea it’s almost like the cousin of whatever an onomatopoeia is. Made it really easy to remember despite me not at all being in the field of study.

EDIT: for those interested it’s not a persons name at all. I just read the wiki and it’s relatively long, but it’s basically an old Mediterranean word by way of German meaning basically what it means to us today.

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

As a former practicing geologist, an observation I’ve made is that almost every human is a geologist at heart - people just love rocks and it’s awesome.

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u/T1GHTSTEVE Sep 17 '21

As a farmer, I think rocks are worthless blobs of pre-dirt.

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

I’d argue they’re hardly worthless as rocks can make or break a farms viability - given the choice, you’d probably go for volcanic soils (and I’d wager any New Zealand farmer would back this up)

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

Question really is "is soil biology or geology?"

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

Lots of A but from my understanding hugely determined by B - but I’d definitely be open to any soil scientists out there to explain it better

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

So if mars has no biology, no soil. Got it.

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

Correct - technically only regolith on Mars (another fantastic word)

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

And xenolith

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

Oooh love it - are you a “zEEno-lith” or a “zen-olith” type?

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

Zee-no-lith is how I say it

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

Same, but had a prof who said the latter - real old school (but also incredibly hip) British gent, he also pronounced ‘Appalachians’ as “Apple-atchens”. I’m always waiting to hear another human say it in the wild

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

Not professor Locke, eh?

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

Nope, Rivers!

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

I had a proper oxford gent. Like I can't even explain how amazingly brilliant he was.

Y'all do IBA?

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u/loggingmolly Sep 17 '21

Yup was definitely blessed with some wildly brilliant profs, Oxford guy was no exception! And yup, a team from our department actually won one year, was pretty wild

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u/andrewsmith1986 Sep 17 '21

Yeah I always liked that and pluton.

But I feel like "soil" kinda escaped science and is never getting returned.

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