Trend-Spotting in the Geosciences

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The Geological Association of Canada (GAC) Presidential Address is an exceptional opportunity for Presidents at the end of their term of office to share personal thoughts and comments with fellow geoscientists on just about any geoscience matters they wish. Free of any obligation to submit a technical paper, this essay provides a light summary of my personal reflections and forecasting on aspects that I believe will govern and influence the future success of geosciences in Canada and abroad. For a good recent review of the current status of geosciences in Canada see GAC President’s address by Lebel (2010). In 1871 Lewis Carroll wrote his most famous poem Jabberwocky which some historians believe was written at that time as a reflection on the rising popularity of paleontology and geology in Victorian England (Fig. 1). It was a critical time for our discipline (see GAC President’s address by Johnston in 2011), one that was influenced by many notable visionaries including Hutton, Lyell, Cuvier and others. With his creation of Jabberwocky I take liberty and stretch the link between geosciences and Lewis Carroll and therefore propose him to be one of several 19 century visionaries. Accepting this reasoning, I look towards another one of Carroll’s accomplishments, in particular his 1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The quotes by Alice and the response by the Queen at the start of this essay are offered as a caution to Canadian geologists to not dwell on the good old days. As a community we can celebrate centuries of success, we should accept the competitive economic realities that exist today between disciplines and we must avoid questioning the raison d’etre of geology. Disciplinary self-doubting, lamenting over days long gone and an intransigence to adapt will not sustain our discipline’s relevance and longevity. Indeed the ‘geoscience train’ left the station a long time ago (Fig. 2). New ideas, interesting questions and fantastic possibilities are available to all of us in geosciences if we accept a significant shift in our paradigm of collaboration. The title of my presentation is obviously a play on the term ‘Trainspotting’ which was popularized in the 1996 British cult film based on Irvine Walsh’s book of the same title. Ignoring the lively and underlying bizarre content of the book and movie, it is noteworthy that the term trainspotting is linked to a special group of train enthusiasts and hobbyists, aptly called train spotters, who spend much of their time watching, collecting data, photographing, analyzing, interpreting, discussing and debating issues related to trains. Apparently it is not unusual for train spotters to gather en masse along rail tracks and share in their collective delight to catch glimpses of otherwise ordinary looking trains; as far as the rest of the world is concerned (Fig. 3). Although many people would look upon train spotters with some trepidation, the same can likely be said by others on the outside that look at this strange group of pro-