On Saturday 7th July, I gave assessments of rocks brought in by the public to the Geology Centre on Fogo Island. This event was part of my involvement as a Visiting Artist at the Museum of the Flat Earth’s Tectonic Shift Programme.
So, over a three hour period, I looked at a variety of rocks and considered them as per my own Stone Classification System. While some stones fitted the classifications, others were not so clear and so I had to create some new categories. For example, VERNE describes a rock from the centre of the earth, while GULLIVER is a stone which should be bigger.
My approach was complemented by Jane Wynne, Geologist-in-Residence for the Shorefast Geology at the Edge programme. Jane also provided members of the public with a more scientific assessment of their stones, using formal geological classifications. She was able to draw on the specimens within the Geology Centre as well as her considerable experience as a practising geologist.
My own systems are not derived from scientific process, although Jane did give me a quick primer in that I should take quantitative data and conduct tests on stones. I was working from two different systems, outlined in my leaflet Some Ways to Identify Rocks and Stones in the North Atlantic – the Beuys Stone Classification System and the Thorne Rock Classification System.
I had developed the first of these as part of my ongoing research into Joseph Beuys, which considers how he might have classified stones in the West of Ireland. I noted this system mainly dealt with collections of stones or large boulders, which are quite different to the smaller pebbles one might casually pick up. Thus the second system is based on a selection of stones from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. I created a series of names (DEDGE, SHOALE, SPECKED) for these stones, all of which were around the size of a cherry.
