Things Geologists Do. Part 1

Report Writing.

In an earlier blog post, I took an unpleasant but necessary dive into the murky waters of earth science to ask the question “What Is A Geologist?” All very useful if you spot one in the wild, but it left many questions unanswered. At the top of the ask-list is something you’ll hear whispered by the senior management of every major mining company. Skulking in Blenz in Bentall #5, sipping on their triple shot, half-sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiatos with extra soy foam, contemplating the latest quarterly compensation figures, someone finally looks around the group and asks: “What the bloody hell do our geologists do anyway?”

Not to worry. Urbancrows is here to help with Part 1 of an interminably long series of posts “Things Geologists Do.” I promise by the end of the series you’ll have a renewed appreciation for them. You’ll gasp at their daily trials, and you’ll end up pushing HR to big-up their annual salary increment. Really.

Trust me, I’m a geologist. A bit greyer now though.
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Mediocre May

Stock picking club update

What follows is an edited version of my monthly junior mining update to the members of the carnivorous stock picking club informally known (for this month anyway) as the “Lows and Lowers”. The usual disclaimers.. all names of members have been removed and some of my more abusive comments have been diplomatically edited out. The update is firmly tongue in cheek so don’t take it personally if you work for one of the companies I’ve mentioned. Consider it a free daily dose of sarcasm. PS: may involve swearing.

So here we go…

Greetings Stock pickers,

I’ve just about recovered from the trauma of watching Liverpool beat Spurs in the God-awful Champions League final. As one wag on Twitter noted, he chose the wrong game to introduce some American friends to footie. Can you imagine paying good money just to see 2 top-flight teams stand around for 90 minutes, trying desperately not to get a shot on goal? Things were briefly livened-up by the appearance of a Spanish-style streaker. Beats the usual fat, red, drunk bloke from Newcastle that we English always seem to get in EPL games. Doesn’t the security guy look happy?

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Crows Are Smart.

Crows are smart. How smart? Pretty bloody clever if you ask me. Their ingenuity never fails to impress.

Crows on my fridge.

Last weekend I hosted a boozy dads’ weekend at our cabin up near Pemberton. I don’t mean a weekend for alcoholic dads. I mean it was a boozy weekend for dads, and we played lots of cribbage, charred meat on a BBQ, and talked rubbish into the night.

Just down the lake from our place is the local Mr Fixit, Mark. He lives there all year round, and looks after three cabins for their owners; gardening, fixing stuff that falls down or drops off, and generally taking good care of his little piece of lake side.

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How To Promote A Mining Stock

All The Rules You Need To Know.

Over the weekend, I was perusing archived computer files from my days with Anglo American PLC in London, 20 years ago. It was a bit of a lost cause- I was looking for digital photos from a trip I took to western Pakistan (see “My Project Went Boom“) to illustrate an upcoming print article on my misadventures there, but couldn’t find them.

The other AA, not that one.

The files are stored on a collection of dusty CDs, saved in a variety of file formats, some long since extinct. Tucked away in a folder, I spotted a Word file named “How to promote a mining stock”. It turned out to be a series of humorous rules for promoting a mining company, which are spot on even decades later. The piece is at least 20-years old and I’ve no idea who wrote it. It may well have been me but I don’t remember and can’t claim ownership for it, although it is along the same lines as my earlier blog piece “Mining stocks are crap”

To be honest, I suspect it’s not mine; there’s too much junior markets cynicism in the piece. Back then, I was still latched firmly on to the warm bosom of Anglo American, well paid and with little or no exposure to the dark side of the Canadian junior markets. There’s also a reference to a “portly chairman” that suggest to me a UK provenance for the piece. Anyway, I’ve taken the liberty of updating it a bit, adding a couple of rules of my own, and have removed some of the less “PC” bits. If you wrote it, or you know who did, drop me a line through the Comments section.

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A Hitchhiker’s Guide To The 80s

Going my way?

Hands up if you’ve ever hitch hiked anywhere? You know, the old-fashioned thumb up, side-of-the-road-have-back-pack-will-travel way? We’ve all thumbed a last-minute ride into town to go drinking, but that’s not what I mean. No, I mean long distance stuff, going hundreds of miles, at the mercy of truck drivers, motorway service stations, and dodgy slip roads.

My class circa 1983? Bloody freezing.

In the early eighties, I was hard up geology student in Portsmouth and I hitch hiked regularly. It was a rite of passage for a lot of fellow students who were strapped for cash. Train ticket, or beer and food?

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The Things Geologists Do.

Last week, a regular Urbancrows reader emailed me to suggest I write about what minerals geologists actually do. Not a bad idea thinks I, from up high on my perch in the Urbancrows e-rookery. So I’ve decided to take him up on the idea with an informal series of blog posts, starting soon, loosely themed “The Things Geologists Do”. It’ll be based largely on my own experiences since I graduated in 1984, but I’d welcome suggestions or questions from non-geologists who might find themselves puzzled by the activities of their rock-hound cousins.

Hi tech geology style. My well-worn Estwing. And a rock.
Continue reading “The Things Geologists Do.”

Do You Have Wind?

My friend Brent posted a link on Twitter today to an article about the inexorable growth in wind power capacity in the US. It reminded me that I’d been sitting on this piece about wind power for a month or two because I couldn’t figure out how to finish it properly. But ending be damned… the stats speak for themselves. They’re an interesting counterpoint to the Trump government’s continued idiotic obsession with bringing back carbon-heavy fossil fuel power generation. His antiquated energy policies look dafter and dafter as every month passes.

Sandbanks and Seaweed.

Growing up in southeast Kent, we spent our summers on the beach, assuming we could get past the great piles of stinking, rotting seaweed washed up on the tideline. When the tide is low, a large sandbank –the Goodwin Sands- emerges a few miles off shore; a 10 mile long yellowish-orange strip of sand rising up gently out of the sea.

Low tide on the Goodwin Sands, 3 miles offshore.
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Mining Clichés Explained

A Cheese Primer for Investors

There’s nothing like a cheesy marketing cliché in a news release to make you immediately buy a bucket-load of a company’s stock, right? Spend five minutes talking to any IR professional at an investor conference and see how many clichés you can spot. This is the kind of stuff I mean.

“We’re undervalued relative to our peers and poised for success.”

“Our management is best-in-class with a proven track record”

“That’s the steak, now here’s the sizzle.” (wtf?)

I’ll buy 20,000 at 2c above market, because…sssssssssssizzle.

Anyone who follows the junior mining sector will -just maybe- have spotted the odd cliché tucked away in marketing materials, or in one of the many stale corporate PowerPoints that end up unread on a dull home page. The judicious use of meaningless phrases is an art form that our industry has perfected, and sadly we all use them, UrbanCrows included. I admit it -guilty as charged- before you start pointing fingers. It’s hard to come up with marketing copy that sounds fresh without delving into the bloated lexicon of hackneyed phrases at some point. So as a public service to my readers, I’ve polled some mining friends (thanks, you know who you are) to compile a short list of the ones that we see regularly, and that we love to hate.

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Enchanted April.

Stock picking club update.

What follows is an edited version of my monthly junior mining update to the members of the steak-eating-red-wine-drinking stock picking club informally known as the “Get Rich Short Our Picks Club”. All names of members have been removed and some of my more abusive comments have been diplomatically edited out too. Which is a shame really. I’d love to leave them in so you can all see how bad this motley collection of mining experts is at choosing winners. Anyhoo, here’s the table, dateline end of April.

The “Get Rich Short Our Stocks” portfolio in gory smell-o-vision.
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When Turkey Meets Italy.

I’m a wannabe classical guitar player. The trouble is, I’m too bloody old to practice enough to get to the standard I’d like to reach. So, I lied. I’m not really a guitar player. But I do listen to a lot of classical guitar and have, over time, convinced myself that I’m a talented-albeit-vicarious musician. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, I know.

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