Temka Vegtamchik'a

I'm writing here because I want to share something again. This time, it's about my studies. Today, I had the first two classes for one of my core subjects – structural geology. These two classes were great because the professor is very engaging and presents the material with explanations and examples. The topic of these two classes was the basics of structural geology and its importance. I want to share one of the examples he gave. The Soviet Union, Kazakhstan, 1930s. A geologist found a copper outcrop in the steppe. A team of geologists and drillers was sent to drill wells. A schematic view of the drilling results is shown in the attached image 1. At the top is a four-meter layer of loose sedimentary rock, and the copper ore is indicated by hatching. Based on these drillings, a diagram of the deposit was created, and an approximate view is shown in image 2. Such conclusions seem obvious, don't they? The deposit was considered very rich and easy to develop. They brought in young communists, built a plant, and started mining and smelting. But then it turned out that the ore reserves were three to four times less than predicted. What happened? The problem was that this geologist was probably not very familiar with structural geology. Therefore, he did not invite a team of geophysicists to verify his assumptions about the deposit, and he didn't even dig test pits in the upper layer to look for other outcrops. In reality, the deposit in cross-section was approximately as shown in image 3. The consequences for the geologists and drillers were quite sad. By the way, if anyone is interested in geology and geophysics, and if you want to expand your knowledge in these areas, I will be happy to publish similar interesting materials in the future.