Dr. J. M. Bell, FRGS: A Canadian Auxiliary Geographer in New Zealand

Using Hodder’s notion of “biography as method,” this paper examines the geographical endeavours of James Mackintosh Bell, Director of the New Zealand Geological Survey from 1905 to 1911, in New Zealand and Canada. Canadian born, Harvard trained, Bell has a significant place in the history of geology in New Zealand and mining geology in Canada, yet much of his writing was explicitly geographical in orientation. This essay analyses this body of work and its significance and limitations in adding to and disseminating knowledge of the geography of NZ, particularly. Bell credentialed himself geographically as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). The FRGS were important builders of geographical knowledge in NZ from the 1850s up to the establishment of university geography in the 1930s when formal geographical research commenced. Geologists were a numerically significant group amongst the NZ FRGS, distinctive in that they held university qualifications, and Bell was particularly wide ranging in his geographical interests.

Basic Mining Geotechnical Training in Mining Geology Department Vocational School (SMK) Aviation Techno Makassar

The main target of the Lembaga Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat (LPkM) UMI program for SMK Penerbang Techno Terapan is to prepare early for the ability of the students of the Mining Geology Department to be able to starter Mining Geotechnics before entering the world of work, this is related to the Geology and Mining fields in the learning process teaching in high schools. The problems experienced by partners are limitations in knowledge regarding Mining Geotechnics, especially in open mines and underground mines, with this training, it can indirectly teach students to interpret Geotechnical data in the field and assist in working neatly, planned and effective every time, so that the expected result is to facilitate knowledge and improve the quality of students in learning Mining Geotechnical training. Abstrak Program Lembaga Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat (LPkM) UMI kepada mitra SMK Penerbang Techno Terapan Makassar adalah mempersiapkan secara dini kemampuan para taruna-taruni Jurusan Geologi Pertambangan agar dapat menguasai Geoteknik Tambang sebelum memasuki dunia kerja, hal ini terkait dengan bidang Geologi dan Pertambangan dalam proses belajar mengajar di sekolah. Permasalahan yang dialami oleh mitra yaitu keterbatasan dalam ilmu pengetahuan berkenaan Geoteknik Tambang terutama pada tambang terbuka dan tambang bawah tanah, dengan adanya pelatihan ini, secara tidak langsung dapat mengajarkan kepada taruna-taruni untuk menginterpretasikan data Geoteknik yang ada dilapangan dan membantu dalam bekerja secara rapi, terencana dan efektif setiap waktu, sehingga hasil yang diharapkan adalah memperlancar ilmu pengetahuan dan peningkatan kualitas para taruna-taruni dalam mempelajari dan menguasai pelatihan Geoteknik Tambang.

Blended Learning Integrated Fieldwork on Fundamentals of Geology Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic

The purpose of this research was to test the blended learning integrated fieldwork in the Fundamentals of Geology learning. Classroom Action Research (CAR) was used in this study. The research subjects consisted of 32 Grade 10 Mining Geology students of SMK Negeri 1 Binuang in the 2019/2020 academic year. Data analysis was carried out using quantitative descriptive analysis, namely by observing the research data which was then followed by synthesis using a literature review. From the results of research during the Pre-Cycle, it was known that the number of students who met the Minimum Completeness Criteria (KKM) was 18.75%, while in Cycle I it is 84.374%, and Cycle II was 77.78%. These results indicated that there was an increase from Pre Cycle to Cycle I, but there was a decrease in Cycle I to Cycle II. The results obtained in this CAR showed that blended learning integrated fieldwork has the potential to be effective as a learning model for the Fundamentals of Geology during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Some things that need to be considered so that blended learning integrated fieldwork can be effective in learning is by paying attention to scientific steps during learning, choosing fieldwork locations that are accessible to accessibility and there are communication and internet signals, as well as intensive guidance from the teacher. Regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic, it is also necessary to design integrated blended learning fieldwork that complies with health protocols.

Method and Realization of Efficient Extraction of Basic Geological Data from Two-Dimensional Mine Drawings

In coal mining technology systems, it is very important to acquire, store, and represent basic geological data comprehensively and accurately. Based on the current working mode and information level in mining geology at coal mines, this paper proposes a process of building basic geological database for modeling of coal mines by using existing results’ data of mining geology and develops the efficient program for getting the basic geological data from the important 2D plane drawings’ achievement at mines, such as the contour maps of mine coal seam floors, geological cross-sections, underground drilling results, and geological survey results, based on AutoLISP, which is a programming language for the secondary development of AutoCAD. The obtained data in general text format is stored and managed by the MongoDB database, which realizes the storage, query, analysis, and correction of massive data of geological objects in the space of the underground coalmine. The application results show that compared with the previous data acquisition methods such as manual input and graphic transformation attribute, the extraction of spatial and attribute data from the existing mine 2D plane drawings by programming can effectively avoid the prominent problems such as artificial gross error, distortion of graph conversion, and different database structure, make the obtained spatial geological data more comprehensive, accurate, and effective, and, meanwhile, increase the rate by more than 60%, which plays an important role in data support for the construction of the geological modeling systems for transparent mines.

Goblins and Demons

The belief that there were no more than seven metals persisted for hundreds of years, and it was not until the seventeenth century that the inconvenient, inescapable realization came that there were probably many more. I’ve already mentioned Barba’s report from 1640 about the new metal bismuth; it was one of a number of metals or metal-like species that began to be noticed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In his History of Metals from 1671, Webster begins Chapter 27: ‘Having now ended our Collections and Discourse of the seven Metals, vulgarly accounted so; we now come to some others, that many do also repute for Metals; and if they be not so, at least they are semi-Metals, and some of them accounted new Metals or Minerals, of that sort that were not known to the Ancients.’ In the chapter Webster speaks of antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cobalt, and zinc. While we now understand these as distinct elements, earlier on there was great confusion, with the names being used for compounds rather than the elements themselves—and, furthermore, the different compounds and elements often being mistaken for each other. This makes unravelling their history all the more complicated. We’ll start with Barba’s ‘Mettal between Tin and Lead, and yet distinct from them both’: bismuth. The first mention of bismuth predates Barba’s reference by more than one hundred years. The name appears in its variant spelling, ‘wissmad’, in what is probably the very first book on mining geology. This was published around the turn of the sixteenth century and attributed to one Ulrich Rülein von Calw, the son of a miller who entered the University of Leipzig in 1485. Ulrich mentions in passing that bismuth ore can be an aid to finding silver, since the latter is often found beneath it. Consequently, miners called bismuth ‘the roof of silver’. As Webster later put it in his History of Metals, ‘The ore from whence it is drawn . . . is also more black, and of a leaden colour, which sometimes containeth Silver in it, from whence in the places where it is digged up, they gather that Silver is underneath, and the Miners call it the Cooping, or Covering of Silver.’

Subject specific encyclopedias as an important stage in the development of scientific disciplines and terminology systems (on example of The Mining Encyclopedia as a work in mining industry and geology)

The peculiarities of the development of some scientific disciplines (such as mining, geology), primarily the professional terminology system are shown on the example of the project The Mining Encyclopedia (ukr .: Hirnycha Entsyklopediia). The study describes The Mining Encyclopedia, its relevance for technical education in Ukraine, as well as for the integration of national higher education in the European and world educational space in general.