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  • ABACUS
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GEOLOGIC HAMMER AND CHISEL

The basic tools of geologists and fossil hunters

Even though geology and geophysics use much more complex tools, field geology has traditionally plied its science with little more than a hammer, chisel, and often a hand-lens. This detail of the hammer depicted in the main image with its opposing blunt and chisel heads is crossed with a long stone chisel for deeper cuts and extraction of samples. This indicates the basic activities of the field geologist, preparatory to returning to the laboratory for study, arrangement, and correlation of the samples gathered.