At this point in time

So, at this point in time I should probably be studying for my upcoming Marine and Ore mid-semester exams, but the old, siren-like lure of the blogging world has proven too strong to resist tonight. Must be something bloggy in the air. (I do believe that Stu has just started a blog, too? He freaks me out sometimes. He makes street lights go on and off at will. No, really. So, small wonder the man has totally been tapping into my brain waves.)

Neither the study of ore deposits nor the murky world of marine geology is particularly earth-shattering stuff. (Wait, what? Why is everything I say these days somehow related to geology?) It is proving quite difficult to get excited about the delicate intricacies of a magmatic sulfide deposit... this is a sample of the glorious crap I have to magically memorise before my exam on Wednesday:

The genesis of magmatic nickel-sulphide deposits depends on the formation of immiscible magmatic sulphide liquids (the natural analogue of blast furnace mattes) in magmatic plumbing systems, where large volumes of magnesium- and iron-rich magma penetrate the Earth's crust or erupt over it (Figures 1 and 2). The process of ore formation is analogous to that of separating matte from slag, and involves two processes: addition of sulphur to the system to generate the "matte", than physical segregation and accumulation of the metal-bearing sulphide liquid. The essential process is the same in both komatiite-hosted and gabbroic intrusion-hosted deposit types.

Massive magmatic nickel-sulphide deposits occur where the following two essential elements are present.

• A major magmatic plumbing system (intrusive or extrusive), where large volumes of magma flow over a long period of time past a suitable deposition site;

• A source of sulphur in the crustal rocks which are intersected by or underlie the plumbing system. Assimilation of this sulphur has two effects: firstly, sulphur will dissolve in the assimilating magma until it reaches the point of sulphur saturation, where no more sulphur can go into solution. Any addition of further sulphur then causes formation of an immiscible iron-sulphide liquid, into which copper, nickel and platinum-group elements are partitioned very strongly.

Yay. I am just burning to cram all that the night before I am due to regurgitate it for my poor lecturer to grade.

I made a token effort to study yesterday (omg) but was quite gratefully distracted from my exhaustive pursuit of knowledge by my trusty Stu, some termite traps, Chinese food and the consumption of copious amounts of wine and odd movies/documentaries... (Not my fault... sulfide immiscibility and little bits of dead animals that fall to the bottom of the sea to form rocky stuff is just not all that interesting).

Other than procrastination: A concerted effort will be made this week to cut down on alcohol consumption which has spiked in recent months and continues to follow something of a worryingly steep upward trend...

Beowulf is a disgusting movie.

Sam Neill has an awesome hologram device in which he created the universe.

My dog is awesome.

My chickens have fled the garden but may be returned at some stage. (They will likely be enormous upon return, as they have been gone for a good couple weeks since Easter when they decided to run away over the fence and sup upon greener pastures...)

My finches are procreating, we assume. (Nobody is game enough to dismantle the nest and go egg-hunting)

And this is possibly the 10th blog I have created in four years, and will likely suffer the fate of all the others... A death caused by an initial, escalating neglect, then rampant, passionate deletion of posts, and then a slow and painful demise of decay as it rots back into obscurity within the great wide world of teh internetz.

But yes, where would we be without our avenues of procrastination?

Time to go and eat some toasted cheese, or something...