That Geological Mini-Documentary

Just in case you’re interested, the mini-geological documentary mentioned in “Urban Geology… wait…wha?” is now completed and uploaded to YouTube on the producer’s YouTube Channel. We did film more than went into this final cut, but it was done for one of the producer’s Film and Media course modules so there was a limit on airtime.

I’ll make a couple of notes about it here because there are some errors that need to be highlighted, mostly caused by my nerves in front of a camera:

1) at 3:27, The photograph used for the oolitic limestone is in fact the lower bio-micrite, as is the photo used later for the bio-micrite itself – I suspect this is an “aesthetic” choice by the producer because the SLR used to photograph the pillar may not have picked up much texture in the oolite.

2) at 5:49, I make the mistake of trying to do unscripted “ad-lib” and get the names of the co-discoverers of DNA wrong (EPIC FAIL), it should be Watson and Crick, not Francis and Crick… c’est la vie.

3) at 6:26, I make an even more egregious error of mis-quoting Charles Darwin, by missing out one of the most poetic parts of the last paragraphs of The Origin, for the record it should read thus (missed words emboldened):

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
– Charles Darwin – Closing words to “On the Origin of Species”

Anywho, I hope you enjoy the short film despite it’s errors.

Ben Brooks