Question: what is geology-art

Hazel Gibson answered on 5 Mar 2018:

This is a question that is actually quite hard to answer – because geology-art can be so many things! Basically, it is the way we look at geology ideas or answer geology questions using art. Often what you will find is people saying: ‘are you a science person, or an art person?’ (among other things) but actually I see science and art as being very closely related. Scientists can be very creative and artistic and artists can be very methodical and questioning.

Geology-art is a way of appreciating the way we can think about geology by looking at it artistically, and its really easy to do when we start to get into it! I start by thinking about how all geologists are taught to draw in a special way; if you are studying fossils or minerals you have to draw them as part of your scientific description. Also you learn to draw landscapes in a special way too – looking for the clues of how the geology shaped the land. Thin sections (thin slices of rock looked at through a microscope) are just beautiful in their own right – check out #ThinSectionThursday for more inspiration. But also letting people create art around geology ideas helps them find their own way of talking about it. For instance, in my work with geothermal I like to ask people to draw what they think is underneath them and what I really want to do is take that a step further – let students create models, sculptures and drawings around their ideas about geothermal power to help us have really important conversations about the future of energy, here in the UK.