If I were a geologist on Star Trek...

...I could apply for a joint medical degree, because sometimes rocks need doctoring.


...Sometimes a rock hammer wouldn't be enough to deal with those really stubborn minerals.


...I could give up hand lenses, thin sections, petrographic microscopes, microprobes, XRD, and point counting for this...

(although a good geologist would never give up their hand lens)

...It wouldn't take me until the end of the episode to figure out that I could use the local geologic resources to make a cannon to fire at the angry dinosaur-type aliens.


...I'd be really popular whenever Scotty needed some new dilithium crystals.


Unfortunately, I'm not a geologist on Star Trek (they tend to be rather expendable, at any rate). But I will be a geologist watching Star Trek when the movie comes out on Friday!

(Sorry for the sparse posting - grading and finishing up the final version of my thesis proposal is eating up all my time! Something more substantial later this week, I promise.)