Comments on: The “rock licker” badge.

By: Science Scouts | Updates from the Paleontology Lab

Science Scouts | Updates from the Paleontology Lab — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 02:37:13 +0000

[...] The Rock Licker Badge [...]

By: mulch

mulch — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 22:10:10 +0000

[...] SCIENCE SCOUTS » Blog Archive » The “rock licker” badge. [...]

By: gus

gus — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:02:50 +0000

I’ve licked rocks to help distinguish if they’re composed of halite or not. I’ve eaten rocks to see if they’re mudstone or siltstone. I suppose that has to count.

By: Susan Drymala

Susan Drymala — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:42:28 +0000

Well, as a geologist/paleontologist, I’ve licked a lot of rocks, but here’s my favorite instance:

I was out in Wyoming, searching for dino (stegosaurus) gastroliths in the Morrison Formation. Now, your fingers cannot tell the difference between rock that has been polished by water and rock that has been polished by stomach acid. Only your tongue can do that, so whenever I found a rounded chert pebble, I licked it. The only problem was that most of these rocks were dark and it was very sunny out. Burned my tongue quite a few times.

By: caco2=argh

caco2=argh — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 06:15:35 +0000

This is not my field but I have licked rocks in my undergrad sedimentology lab. I forget what I licked but I know I did it.

By: Stacy

Stacy — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:58:39 +0000

As an archaeologist, I regularly lick pottery to tell its porosity. And pottery is, of course, make from dirt.

By: Christine

Christine — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:01:39 +0000

Oy! Nothing wrong with licking rocks for non-classificatory purposes! I am both a scientist and an aesthete, and tasting the shapes of pebbles at the seaside is a thoroughly legitimate activity. ^_^

By: Cory

Cory — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:25:03 +0000

Oh, I’ve identified halite by taste more often than I choose to admit. Great on scrambled eggs

By: Diana T.

Diana T. — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:05:19 +0000

As an archaeology field student, I was taught to lick fragments to determine if they were non-fossilized bone or wood. In certain strata, those can look surprisingly similar! If it sticks to your tongue, it’s bone, BTW.

By: A. Hardison

A. Hardison — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:06:22 +0000

Because sometimes, the best way to tell the difference between NaCl, and KCl is to lick it.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:42:21 +0000

I thought this category was absurd. Then I remembered that I licked my piece of meteorite Sikhote-Alin for the sheer pleasure of licking an object that fell from outer space. And I have no reservations about doing it again. In fact I’m looking at it right now…

By: Sam S

Sam S — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:15:14 +0000

i was definitely taught to lick rocks when i studied geology, but then went into uranium exploration and then radiation safety where that’s not such a great idea and now suffer conflicting urges whenever i see a rock

By: Meagan Hogg

Meagan Hogg — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:50:53 +0000

I have licked rocks to distinguish the grain size, and also to dangle a large piece of kaolinite off my tongue to impress non-geologists.

By: David Tana

David Tana — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:26:55 +0000

I can’t imagine being a student of geology and not having licked a rock a two.

By: Briny Deep

Briny Deep — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:59:35 +0000

I work at a nature center, and we have a huge (unlabeled) rock and mineral samples. When we moved to our new (LEED Certified Platinum, yo) building, I was in charge of moving the rocks. I decided to wash them, as they were sorta grotty, and wondered why the large quartzy things had gone a little funny looking in the bath. A quick lick and I discovered- not quartz! We have large blocks of very transparent halite! No more baths for the halite.

By: Kathy B.

Kathy B. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:19:48 +0000

Licking rocks is a very important way to gather important geological data! I am an evaporite sedimentologist and I lick rocks to test whether a sample is halite or sylvite or epsomite, etc. In my field area in Western Australia, the locals have dubbed my research group “the rock lickers”. I study acid saline lakes, some of which are brightly colored. When I first encountered a yellow lake, I tasted it (just a drop on my tongue) and predicted that it had very high dissolved aluminum (it tasted like aluminum foil). Sure enough, when we measured the dissolved Al in the water in the lab, it had almost 8,000 ppm Al! You can also use rock licking to test for a volcanic tuff.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:21:03 +0000

I too was taught to touch things to the tip of my tongue to verify if they were bone or not. I’ve since been yelled at for it for DNA issues, but not before I touched a nice big piece that ended up being part of a human cranium. Cannibalism for science, indeed.

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:48:09 +0000

I’m a hydrogeologist, and have licked rock core samples during drilling to see if I could taste chlorides in the groundwater. Also to determine silt from clay. I smell rocks more often than I taste them though…pretty sure I can smell clay (maybe dolostone too?).

By: JamesS

JamesS — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:40:01 +0000

Absolutely! Along the lines of eating siltstone, there’s an outcropping of Stephen Formation on the highway west of Jasper, Alberta. No Burgess beasties in it, sadly, but I couldn’t resist putting a piece in my sandwich.

By: gusgus

gusgus — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:50:30 +0000

Does eating rocks count? I’ve licked halite (NaCl) to differentiate it from Sylvite (KCl), but eating is really the best way to differentiate mudstone from siltstone. If its siltstone, you can still feel the individual grains in your mouth after taking a bite, while mudstone feels smooth all the way down. Yummy!

It’s really the only way to tell the difference in the field where you lack the ability to make thin sections and measure the grains with a microscope.