Basalt for the Dummy Earth Science Student

Columnar basalt at Devil's Postpile

We're not sure just what it is that keeps our staffers going back to posts about geology in the former eHow.com niches. It might be that the oldest posts are attributed to some "eHow Hobbies, Games & Toys Editor" (now known only as "Contributor" at sites like Sciencing.com). It's weird that the site's content editors demanded the Oxford comma in writing, but the designers didn't use it in titles... whatever the case, today's DotD labored mightily to explain "How to Identify Basalt." The only problems was that whoever wrote this dreck did a lousy job of plagiarism...

Contributor (or Editor, whatever the name may have been) started off immediately by telling the readers that,

"Basalt, a volcanic igneous rock, occurs worldwide, but especially in India, Scotland, Greenland, Iceland, Canada and the northwestern United States..."

...which is a load of hooey, given that basalt is the most common rock on the surface of the earth and is darned near everywhere in the ocean basins. The places this idiot cites are merely the most scenic. Oh, by the way, "volcanic igneous" is redundant. Moving right along, anonymous begins the process of explaining identification: follow these steps, supposedly...

• "Note the rock's color. Basalt appears black or grayish-black, sometimes with a greenish or reddish crust": It has a "crust"? Is that a reference to oxidation? to weathering? Dumbass.
• "Feel its texture. Basalt consists of a fine and even-grain": Idiot: in this context, "texture" refers to the size and arrangement of mineral grains, not how smooth or rough the sample may be. Moron.

• "Determine its structure with your naked eye or a microscope. Often vesicular or amygdaloidal, basalt has columnar jointing": It might help of anonymous had defined "vesicular" or "amygdaloidal," but No-o-o-o! Oh, and while we're here? Columnar jointing is a large-scale feature of lava flows, not something you'd notice with a microscope. Think Devils Postpile National Monument (above). Idiot.
• "Examine your rock's composition with a microscope. Basalt occurs more often as pyroxene (shiny, black) and as plagioclase (tabular, white-gray)": Those are the most common minerals in basalt, not how it "occurs," whatever that's supposed to mean. And plagioclase crystals (in basalt, anyway) aren't generally tabular – another term the anonymous fool declined to define.
• "Varieties of basalt include olivine basalt and quartz basalt, which contains a minuscule amount of quartz. Basalt is used as a source of iron ore, roadstone [sic] aggregate, sapphires or native copper": Too much bull to debunk. We'll just say that only one of those "uses" – aggregate for roads – is likely. Jackass.

It's times like this that we truly regret the lack of identifying information for early eHow articles like this one. Demand Media did not identify its contributors for the first few years. We understand, we'd have been ashamed to put our names on crap like this, too. That's why the winner of today's Dumbass of the Day award remains anonymous, but if you'd like to come forward, we'd be happy to give you a byline!

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