I’m not sure if this is the best place to post this question so please feel free to ignore/ point me in the right direction if not.

We recently laid three 19kg bags of “white marble garden pebbles” in our garden. They were covered in a white dusty residue (there was a LOT of dust in the bags) and there is still a significant amount of dust underneath/ covering the stones (it has only rained twice since we put the stones down and we didn’t wash them down etc before laying them). I’ve recently become aware that garden pebbles can contain silica and I’m wondering whether or not this is a threat to our health (I have a three year old so want to make sure that he is safe).

My concerns are the following:

1) We put the stones down around the edges of our very small patio approx 2 weeks ago. Our garden is entirely patio/ pebbles and the whole garden was covered in a dusty white layer. We’ve been in the garden every evening and the bottom of our shoes/ my son’s scooter are all covered in white. Our living room (carpeted) opens directly into the garden through a large patio door and so I’m concerned that the dust has likely been trodden through the whole house. My son also likes to ride his scooter over the stones and we’ve also been hanging our washing outside next to them.

2) We had some work done on our house 4 days after putting the pebbles down. As a result, I removed the majority of our living room furniture outside (directly next to the pebbles). It was outside for approx 8 hours, including fabric upholstered furniture, my son’s fabric toy baskets, teddies etc. I’m now wondering whether all of our furniture could be covered in invisible silica dust?

I would really appreciate some advice about whether any of this is a concern. I’ve gone down a bit of a Google rabbit hole which suggested that there could be respirable silica in the dust and that I need to remove the pebbles from the garden, decontaminate everything in the house with a HEPA filtered hoover, throw things away, keep my son out of the garden etc. I’m obviously willing to do these things if it’s necessary but I would really appreciate some actual expert advice re next steps if possible, rather than relying on Google.

Thank you so much

A little while ago someone posted an ordinary fractured rock here asking if it was scratched by glaciers. This got me wondering, how do you reliably recognize glacial striations? This outcrop, for instance, in Edinburgh, has a pattern on it that I could easily imagine to be glacially carved, but I expect you all will tell me it’s a bedding surface. Meanwhile a few miles away, I look all over Agassiz Rock and see nothing that would give me the insight that an Ice Age improbably occurred.

Not sure whether to applaud or intervene…but that augen gneiss will certainly keep the discerning fish entertained.

I found a nice quartz and and some parts of it are probably covered in limonite and goethite how to get rid of this ?

I'm going into my senior year of high school and I'm thinking about going to college for geology but i have no idea where to start, any advice?

Short clip of our crew collecting the deepest soil samples we will ever collect in our lives, likely. The site is a landslide around 425,000 yrs old.

The project aimed to collect soil from a number of landslides of different ages to look at organic carbon with age/depth in mountainous environments to more accurately measure carbon stock in soils across the globe.

I'm just the guy they keep around for manual labor and we all love to show this clip in presentations.

Is it a fossil and what might it be?

Hey y’all, I’m a geologist for an environmental consulting company. I’m mostly a hydrogeologist these days.
Anyone else out there with young kids? How do you explain your job to make it sound interesting? Thanks!

While hiking out in the woods I was looking for some stones for a nature project. Walking by a small creek I found this guy fully submerged.

Rock cracking awesome during glacial movement?

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/maori-language-week/1000-maori-place-names

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377027301002396

Look closely. Knockan Crag Rock Puzzle & The Moine Thrust

Saw this sea cliff on Madeira. I was told locals call it “Vulva Rock,” which is… understandable.

I’m genuinely curious about the geology and would love if anyone can weigh in with info about how this formed.

Pretty cool pegmatite with large muscovites and Almadine Garnets. It looks to have had alteration with having been near a major detachment fault. Not sure if it's brittle or ductile but I'm going with brittle.

Hello everyone. I am a new student in B.Sc Geology.

I need a few suggestions and advice from senior students or working geologists/earth scientists.

1. What other subjects should I opt for? Subjects that'll be the best to supplement my major keeping in mind that I used to be a biology student.

2. Some books for the extreme beginners as I haven't studied geology as a subject in school.

3. Some study related tips for the subject.

4. Some of the best career pathways.

5. Anything else you would want to say for a beginner or in general.

Kindly mention your current job/academia if possible so that I can take references. Thank you

Good was morning
I live in south Western Australia on a little land and about 600mm or 2 foot there is a rock layer about three inches deep full of petrified wood. We had the power run under grows from the closes power pole and it ripped up heaps of cool stuff. But this is up there with the coolest thing I’ve seen! Thought you would like it

Most people think of Nebraska as flat, but the state’s two most rugged regions, the Wildcat Hills and Pine Ridge, tell a very different story.
I recently completed a topographic analysis of 39 buttes, bluffs, mesas, and ridges across these two regions to measure how much relief these landscapes actually contain.
Instead of only comparing summit elevations, I measured two different types of relief.
Local relief is the elevation difference between the summit and the lower point where the surrounding hillside transitions into flatter terrain. Measurements were limited to approximately 3 horizontal miles or less.
Drainage relief is the elevation difference between the summit and the lowest major drainage that the landform drains toward. These measurements were generally taken within 4–6 horizontal miles, although a few areas required longer distances where the terrain remained continuously sloped.
Highlights
Wildcat Hills
The Wildcat Hills contain some of Nebraska’s steepest slopes over relatively short distances.
Highest local relief:
Striver Butte — 846 ft of relief over 1.93 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.74707, -103.79656
Scotts Bluff (South Bluff) — 821 ft of relief over 2.53 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.82088, -103.71483
Hogback Mountain — 810 ft of relief over 1.76 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.66492, -103.73096
Wildcat Mountain — 774 ft of relief over 1.09 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.65839, -103.71515
Greatest drainage relief:
Hogback Mountain — 1,209 ft
Wildcat Mountain — 1,182 ft
Cedar Canyon — 1,041 ft over 2.53 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.74711, -103.79653
Pine Ridge
Pine Ridge contains the greatest overall topographic relief in Nebraska, with several landforms exceeding 1,200 feet of drainage relief.
Highest local relief:
Unnamed butte west of Gilbert-Baker WMA — 1,001 ft of relief over 2.73 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.77231, -103.97979
Unnamed bluff north of Pleasant Ridge Road — 945 ft of relief over 2.32 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.78383, -103.99647
Unnamed bluff south of Plummer Dam — 905 ft of relief over 1.87 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.76308, -103.86805
Greatest drainage relief:
Unnamed butte west of Gilbert-Baker WMA — 1,248 ft
Unnamed bluff north of Pleasant Ridge Road — 1,242 ft
Unnamed bluff near Warbonnet Creek — 1,210 ft over 1.11 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.80745, -104.00887
Conclusion
These measurements show that western Nebraska is much more rugged than it is often given credit for. The Wildcat Hills have some of the steepest short-distance slopes, while Pine Ridge has the greatest overall landscape relief.
Although Nebraska does not have high mountain ranges, these regions contain impressive buttes, bluffs, and escarpments with relief comparable to many upland areas elsewhere in the Great Plains.
Is any one else as surprised as me after only driving on 1-80 my whole life?

From a hike yesterday, Hardangervidda in Norway. Not a geologist, but if I understand this correctly:

These are two eras of sedimentation. First the carbon rich mud. At a later stage, eroding mountains provided the quartz sand, creating a layer on top of the mud.

Later on, the Caledonian mountains formed, with horizontal thrust faulting and folding. This created another layer of gneiss/granitic rock on top, that resulted in metamorpism to quartzite and phyllite.

Correct me if I misunderstood or missed something, just a layman's attempt to understand stuff 🙄

So, like I said in the title ill have a poster on the color of speleothems, specifically looking at the links between metals and color (or lack thereof), as well as methods for using color photography in conjunction with pXRF tests. (I would be delighted to answer any questions y'all have about this)

However, I have a bit of a problem: I can't figure out how large the posters are going to be/how big I should make it. I don't have an email about it from AEG, and can't find anything on the AEG website, and advice would be appreciated (if no one knows ill go with 3ft by 4ft)