This week we take on the FG test — the Fundamentals of Geology exam — the very first step on the road to becoming a professionally licensed geologist. Jesse just sat the exam this past fall (yes, a geology professor going back to take Geology 101), and we get into exactly what that was like: the nerves, the cram sessions, and the very real fear of an embarrassing fail.

We break down what's actually on the ASBOG FG exam — 110 multiple-choice questions across eight content domains, from general and field geology to hydrogeology, engineering geology, mineralogy, structure, and economic geology — and which sections scared us the most (looking at you, Darcy's law and soil mechanics). We talk through why university programs prepare students so differently, why the exam exists in the first place, and how we'd study for it if we only had two weeks.

Then we put it all to the test: Josh takes on a round of real and AI-generated practice questions live on the mic, and we share our honest take on using tools like Claude to build your own study guide. Whether you're a student staring down the FG exam, a geologist heading back to the field after years away, or just curious how much a PhD really remembers, this one's for you.

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A good study guide? Getting reps. Our Camp Geo mobile app is our intro-to-geology companion — grab it from the first link in the show notes.

Follow us @PlanetGeoCast on all social media, and reach out anytime through the contact link at planetgeocast.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

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In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Mike Ackerson (Smithsonian) for the kick-off of a deep-dive series on granites and granitoids. This one goes into the weeds: the 250-year history of how arguing about granite shaped nearly every major idea in the geosciences.

We trace the great controversies from the 1700s to today:

🌊 Neptunism vs. Plutonism — Did granite precipitate out of a global ocean, or crystallize from molten rock? How James Hutton's fingers of granite at Glen Tilt helped kill the Neptunist worldview.

⏳ Uniformitarianism & deep time — How Charles Lyell's expansion of geologic time gave his friend Charles Darwin the temporal runway for natural selection. (Yes, the founder of biology was basically a geologist.)

🧪 Magmatists vs. Transformists ("granitizers") — The 20th-century brawl over whether granites are intruded magmas or rocks transformed in place by fluids — and how Bowen, Tuttle, and experimental petrology tipped the scales.

🪨 The Room Problem — Walk across the Sierra Nevada and you cross miles of granite. How do you make space in the crust for that much rock? The 150-year-old puzzle that's still not fully resolved.

Plus: the legendary Norman Bowen "horse equilibria" letter, why H.H. Reid said "he who has seen the most rocks wins," and where the most exciting frontiers in granite petrology lie today — low-temperature magma storage, fluids in the crust, and links to geothermal energy and critical mineral ore deposits.

This is Part 1 of a series — future episodes will tackle the timescales of granite emplacement, geochronology, and a return to the Room Problem.

Want the intro-level foundation first? Download the CampGeo mobile app (first link below) for our textbook-style content on igneous rocks, including a full episode on Bowen's Reaction Series — what is granite, what is basalt, and all the basics.

#geology #granite #petrology #geoscience #earthscience #PlanetGeo #magma #JamesHutton #Darwin #science

Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

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In this episode, we sat down with Keith Rapp, senior hydrogeologist, longtime volunteer with ASBOG (the Association of State Boards of Geology), and immediate past president of the organization. We dug into the professional geologist licensure process — what the FG (Fundamentals of Geology) and PG (Practice of Geology) exams actually test, how questions get written and vetted by panels of subject matter experts, why some states require licensure and others don't, and why Keith argues that licensure is fundamentally about protecting public health and safety.

Keith walked us through his path from growing up in Duluth with a geomicrobiologist uncle, to a master's in hydrogeology at Baylor, to a career cleaning up contaminated sites using microbes — what he calls hydrogeomicrobiochemistry. We talked about his current work on PFAS bioremediation, the idea of "pushing evolution" by engineering biofilm environments where microbes can adapt to degrade forever chemicals, and the role of zeolites as remediation media.

We also got into the practical stuff students and early-career geologists actually want to know: how to study for the FG exam, why test scores point you toward weak domains, what reciprocity between states looks like, the difference between an ASBOG license and an AIPG Certified Professional Geologist (CPG) designation, and why writing skills still matter in a hiring pile. We closed with a conversation about AI in geoscience — where it helps, where it gets you in trouble when your name is on a signed report, and how the profession should think about it going forward.

If you're a student preparing for the FG, a working geologist thinking about getting licensed in another state, or just curious about how a professional credentialing system gets built and maintained, this one is for you. The ASBOG annual meeting is in Hershey, PA this October — open to anyone interested in the profession.

Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

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What distinguishes supervolcanoes from regular or non-super volcanoes? How many supervolcanoes are on Earth today? What are the precursors to supervolcano eruptions? In today's deep dive, Dr. Rachel Phillips, from GeoGirl, and I we got to talk to supervolcano researcher, Dr. Shan de Silva, to answer all your supervolcano questions (and more)!

Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

Like, Subscribe, and leave us a Rating!

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Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

Like, Subscribe, and leave us a Rating!

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Jesse and Dr. Joshua Davis introduce a new series on professional geology licensure, prompted by listener questions, exam study use of their podcast, and continuing-education approvals. Jesse shares starting the U.S. process by taking the FG (Fundamentals of Geology) exam and explains the typical U.S. pathway in 31 states: FG exam, geologist-in-training status, years of work experience under a licensed geologist (with some state-dependent education carve-outs), then the PG exam and references. Josh contrasts Canada and the UK, noting the UK’s Chartered Geologist is less central, while Canadian systems are province-based and may restrict the “geologist” title; Quebec lacks an academic carve-out and requires supervised experience plus an exam. They discuss rationales for licensure—public protection, minimum geology competency amid changing degree names, professional trust, insurance coverage, employability, and continuing education.

Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

Like, Subscribe, and leave us a Rating!

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Today Jesse talks with Christie Capper, founder and CEO of Deep Earth, which aims to visualize the subsurface by digitizing and unifying scattered underground data into accessible 3D maps. Christie describes her path from a toy-inventor upbringing to studying economics and mechanical engineering (robotics) at Claremont and Columbia, then working at SpaceX, interning at the UN and Boeing, moving into early-stage VC in Europe, and joining a fusion startup. Work in carbon removal and geothermal led her to subsurface problems; mining research highlighted boom-bust cycles and long development timelines, motivating a broader focus on faster-feedback markets like water, geothermal, utilities, and construction. She discusses pre-seed funding, network-driven early hires, first paying customers, lessons on pricing and execution, and how investor rejection sharpened the company’s focus.

Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

Like, Subscribe, and leave us a Rating!

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Chris is back!!

Today we answer the simple question - Why do we see a predictable geologic and topographic progression as we drive from flat plains into mountains?

We use examples from Michigan to Tennessee, the Canadian Rockies, Glacier, the Bighorns, Colorado, and the Appalachians to walk through a common sequence: we start on broad areas of mostly flat-lying sedimentary rocks (sandstones, shales, limestones) deposited in shallow seas, rivers, intertidal settings, and deserts; as we approach the range, we cross subtle, long-wavelength, low-amplitude folds that are often hard to notice without measurements; then we enter the fold-and-thrust belt where anticlines, synclines, and large thrust faults stack sedimentary packages and create dramatic ridges, valleys, and cliff faces (thin-skinned deformation).

We explain how the growing mountain load flexes the plate to form a foreland basin that fills with sediment eroded off the range, typically thickening and coarsening toward the mountains. Farther inboard, we describe how erosion and unloading help exhume deep, high-grade metamorphic “roots” in metamorphic core complexes (gneiss, schist, and other intensely metamorphosed rocks), and how overthickened crust can later relax and extend, aiding exhumation.

We also discuss how some mountain belts preserve suture-related features like ophiolite complexes, while others show subduction-related batholiths (e.g., Sierra Nevada, Idaho Batholith), and we note modern analogs such as the Persian Gulf foreland basin.

Download the CampGeo app now at this link.

On the app you can get tons of free content, exclusive images, and access to our Geology of National Parks series.
You can also learn the basics of geology at the college level in our FREE CampGeo content series - get learning now!

Like, Subscribe, and leave us a Rating!

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