That one field trip to the Nevada mine where I learned to trust my own eyes

I was on a student trip to an old silver mine near Tonopah about three years ago. Our professor kept pointing at a vein and calling it quartz, but the luster and fracture just looked wrong to me. I finally spoke up and said it looked more like calcite, so we did a quick acid test. Sure enough, it fizzed. The whole class just went quiet. He admitted he was going off the old map and hadn't checked it himself. Now I never just accept a label in the field, even from an expert, without doing my own basic checks. Anyone else have a moment where a simple observation totally flipped the script on a site?

3 comments

3 Comments

lane.cameron24d ago

That whole "trust your own eyes" thing is a fast track to chaos. If a geology professor with a map says it's quartz, it's quartz. The class time spent doing acid tests on every hunch is time not spent learning the actual lesson plan. Sometimes the expert is just right and the student is just wrong.

the_piper20d ago

Remember my buddy who argued with his mechanic about a weird engine noise. Cost him two grand when the "trust your gut" fix failed.

the_fiona24d ago

Totally get that. I mean, sometimes you just gotta take the L and listen to the person who knows the stuff. Saves everyone a headache.