Northern Adventures (and My Medication #2)

I couldn't resist one last trip of the summer.

The graduate student society in my department organised a field trip to the Northwest Territories, to check out one of the largest lead-zinc mines in Canada and the Alexandria Reef Complex, dating back to around 300 million years ago. The mine has been closed since the 1990s, but plenty of ore remains, and now metal prices are up again it's due to be re-opened soon. This means it was a final chance to roam around the old pits and pick it over for leftover goodies.

So we packed up a few hire cars and drove the ten hours north to a campsite near the town of Enterprise (a ramshackle town of only 90 or so colourful characters), just south of Great Slave Lake. The campsite was dreamily placed next to a waterfall on the Hay River, and in between tall pines we set up our tents and a roaring fire as the sky turned to a million stars blurred into the Milky Way.

The next day we set off for the mines. A quick introduction from our leader, a senior grad student, and we were off examining every rock for treasures. It didn't take us long to find some fantastic things, for example this rock chock-full of large calcite crystals:

The lead-zinc ore was concentrated in the host rock by circulation of hydrothermal fluids. Originally, the area was a coral reef, not far north

of the equator. The reef and the surrounding area were built-up of carbonate sediments, think warm, white, tropical beaches. While the rocks are strong, they can be reasonably easily dissolved, so that after some time pockets of emptiness develop, into which the metal-hosting fluids can gather. These leave areas dense with ore, and associated calcite, the remains of the fluid that didn't contain metals. These crystals are a stunning example (hiding under a rock we made a few boys turn over for us).

We also found numerous ore remnants: cubes of galena, veins of pyrite and sphalerite, and unexpectedly heavy rocks, dense with lead. For geologists, it was a giant playground ripe with beautiful samples.

But that's not to say we didn't do some learning too. In fact that was one of the things I enjoyed most about the trip. It seems like I long time since I learned something new just for the joy of it, and there's no better way than by picking up a rock and asking someone about it, and by looking at a long cliff face and reading thousands of years of Earth history.

The next day after the mine, we headed out on a journey through an ancient reef complex, full of bewildering extinct animals, some so perfectly preserved, but still mysterious in their mode of existence.

Here is a beautiful example of preserved corals. This type of coral doesn't exist today, these great reef-builders of the past succumbed to a great extinction event not long after this rock was created. This small example I found in a quarry we spent a happy hour or so digging around in. In fact, over two days we visited several quarries and roadcuts, things that most people just pass by, but are secret slices of history. Walking one simple roadcut for 50 metres took us through phases of the reef, from the edge where broken reef material tumbled down the continental slope, to productive mounds of reef containing primitive sponges, corals, brachiopods: a myriad of life.

Finally, after spotting from the car a bear, a moose, a beaver and a few falcons among the branches, the sky danced with green and finished off the trip in true northern style: with the Aurora Borealis.

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In other news, I finally went to the doctor about my medication. I sat down and mumbled something about the studies I'd seen and what did she think about that? Her answer was along the lines of that you can find some studies that say that, and you can find studies that say the opposite, and improvements of this sort are difficult to measure. And she's seen a lot of anecdotal evidence that people have significantly improved with antidepressants. And the pills definitely do have some biochemical effect. I told her about my restless leg syndrome, possibly as a side effect of the pills, and she noted that I'd not had much of a routine this summer, with all the travelling, and prescribed me sleeping pills.

To be honest, I'm not best satisfied with this response. Anecdotal evidence like that she described doesn't really prove anything, especially as people 'feeling better' could just as easily be the result of the placebo effect. And prescribing me more pills seems to be just avoiding the problem.

OK, it's partially my fault for falling for that aspect of human nature that makes us revere figures like doctors and take their word as true wisdom. But talking it over with the group I realised how differently I should have handled it. Like the restless leg syndrome: my depression generally causes me to sleep excessively, not to feel insomnia like many do. This means that suddenly being awake all night with restless legs is almost certainly due to a biochemical effect of the pills rather than a mental issue. And by prescribing me this certain antidepressant in the first place is really just playing the odds; it turns out that which pill works depends on the make-up of your brain (which they can't know for sure until you die and they can cut the thing open), and the original prescription is just based on which works best for the majority of people.

So, what I really wanted out of this doctor's visit was a different antidepressant. Why didn't I just communicate that properly to my doctor? As my peers pointed out, they are not infallible experts, a lot is just trial-and-error guesswork, and in the end, who knows your body better than you? Ah, I will just try harder next time.