Here’s a song I wrote for Professor Raymond Ingersoll, who’s being honored today in a special session of the 20th International Sedimentological congress in Quebec.
VERSE 1
I am a great emeritus professor of geology,
I specialize in paleotectonic sand petrology,
I know the names of stratigraphic ages prehistorical,
From Hadean to Holocene in order categorical.
I’m very well acquainted too with matters geochemical:
I write on them extensively in papers academical;
I say in our department no-one studies better rock than us…
[bothered for a rhyme] rock than us …. rock than us… Ah!
Especially the specimens we find to be autochthonous.
CHORUS: Especially the specimens we find to be autochthonous,
Especially the specimens we find to be autochthonous,
Especially the specimens we find to be autochtho-tochtho-nous!
I scrutinize the stones of ancient monuments and palaces,
And classify them stepwise by Discriminant Analysis:
In paleotectonic sedimentary petrology
I am the great emeritus professor of geology!
CHORUS: In paleotectonic sedimentary petrology
He is the great emeritus professor of geology!
VERSE 2
I’m good at making inferences paleoclimatical
From Pliocene and Miocene deposits amagmatical;
I quantify and analyse the provenance of sediments
Performing palinspastic reconstruction of their pediments.
I know just how to implement consistent methodology
In second-order actualistic petrofaciology,
I slice the sample rocks and microscopically scan ’em all…
[bothered for a rhyme] scan ’em all … scan ’em all … Ah!
For information vegetable, mineral and animal.
CHORUS: For information vegetable, mineral and animal,
For information vegetable, mineral and animal,
For information vegetable, mineral and anim-anim-al!
I stratify the layers in a manner that’s splendiferous,
Dividing late Devonian from early Carboniferous:
In paleotectonic sedimentary petrology
I am the great emeritus professor of geology!
CHORUS: In paleotectonic sedimentary petrology
He is the great emeritus professor of geology!
VERSE 3 (slower)
I’ve time to play the trumpet on my permanent sabbatical;
I criticize the use of Oxford commas ungrammatical;
My knowledge of great music is particularly large in Bach;
I understand dissection of a continental margin arc.
I contemplate subduction in the zones that are orogenous;
I moan at stone that’s overgrown with biomass exogenous;
At tennis I complain whenever umpires make a dodgy call…
[bothered for a rhyme] dodgy call …. dodgy call… Ah!
(a tempo) And go to every congress that is sedimentological.
CHORUS: He goes to every congress that is sedimentological,
He goes to every congress that is sedimentological,
He goes to every congress that is sedimentologi-logi-cal!
I overturn the field of rocks and rock the world scholastical
With new ideas volcanometamorphiconoclastical,
For in the realm of paleotectonic sand petrology
I am the great Emeritus Professor of Geology!
CHORUS: For in the realm of paleotectonic sand petrology
He is the great Emeritus Professor of Geology!
–Nick Mitchell
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