An agate is a microcrystalline form of quartz formed by a reaction between a volcano and water. Agates changed forever the lives of two Idaho geologists: Reed Lewis and Loudon Stanford.
“We go back a long ways,” Lewis said.
Lewis and Stanford grew up on opposite sides of Idaho, and now work on opposite sides of the same office for the Idaho Geological Survey (IGS) as interim director and data manager respectively. They didn’t know each other as kids, but even then they were connected by geology.
Lewis was born and currently lives in Moscow, and graduated from Moscow High School and the University of Idaho. But he found geology while collecting agates in Central Idaho.
“My dad and I got into collecting rocks when I was a kid,” Lewis said.
Stanford grew up in Caldwell. He, too, was influenced by his father, a biology and geology professor at College of Idaho — albeit in a more roundabout way.
“I swore when I was in eighth grade, that I’d never be a geologist; that would be the last thing I do,” Stanford said.
But during high school his father got sick, and the family purchased land in Central Idaho. The land sat on a moraine, a deposit left by glaciers long ago. Like Lewis, Stanford started a rock collection.
“I used to find agates,” he said.
It was mystery. Where did they come from?
“I started hiking up and found the source,” Stanford said, “And that kind of hooked me.”
Lewis interrupted him: “It was out of the same rock unit.”
Lewis and his father used to go to the East Fork of the Salmon River, on the other side of the mountains from where Stanford found his agates.
Two boys — destined to share an office — on either side of a mountain range, scoured the same granite bedrock for the same agates. For the last two decades, they’ve been in Moscow. They inhabit the third floor of Morrill Hall, which Lewis pointed out, like all of Moscow and its surrounding rolling hills, is set in basalt.
Stanford’s office is cluttered but neat, and is filled with computers, maps, charts, and scientific-looking instruments.
Over the past year, the IGS has been moving in a new direction, hoping to push its meticulously put-together maps out of academia and into the mainstream. A large part of that effort is the 2012 Idaho Geological Map. The last statewide comprehensive geological map was produced in 1978.
“A lot of work has been done since then,” Lewis said. “There’s more detail.”
The product of more than 10 years of work, the 2012 map uses a service called the Geographic Information System (GIS). Computer-Assisted Design (CAD) and GIS are the two primary tools in digitalization, as maps have moved from paper to computers.
“Basically you’re taking spatial objects (points on a map),” Stanford said of the GIS system, and putting them in a database. “These databases keep track of the special coordinates for the objects. Then you want to assign different attributes.”
GIS allows users to tag any spatial coordinate with different types of data, including elevation, geology, and in urban areas, even housing data. With GIS, the amount of data is essentially limitless, and can be added as new layers, like you might find on Google Maps or your favorite weather app.
Stanford said the goal of IGS is to make state maps less esoteric without “softening the science.” Stanford and Lewis hope the maps will appeal to the average outdoorsperson, as well as the scientist. And so IGS has made nearly all of its maps available for download.
“We reach more people than we ever did before with our website,” Stanford said.
IGS Facebook and Twitter pages have appeared, and an Android app for the 2012 Idaho Geological Map is in development.
Though it’s been more than 30 years in geology for Lewis and Stanford, the fuel that fires their passion is inextinguishable.
“A lot of people get into geology because they like to be outdoors,” Lewis said.
But a good excuse for fresh air isn’t what keeps these ex-adolescent agate hunters working in the field.
“It’s just the whole science part,” Lewis said. “It’s trying to figure out the story, improving on the story, trying to get the history of the Earth.”
He leaned back in his chair and glanced at Stanford.
“We never ever figure out the story perfectly, but I think we’re improving on it.”
Written by Nate Brown