1082: Geology

|< < Prev Comic #1082 (July 16, 2012) Next > >|

Geology

Title text: That's a gneiss butte.

Explanation

Here we have Cueball and Megan discussing geology and the words they use are ripe with puns and double entendres which also have sexual meanings. In the end, they just decide to get it on.

Specifically, the suggestive terms are "bedding," "spreading," "friction," "cleavage," "deeper in the rift," "orogeny," (perhaps a portmanteau of orgy and erogenous), "huge," and "thrust."

The technical terms are:

Bedding 

The division of usually sedimentary rocks into distinct layers.

Spreading 

A process in which two geological regions are moving apart, and potentially allowing for magma to rise between them. Spreading occurs in mid-ocean ridges and in rift valleys.

Friction breccia 

Breccia is a rock made of broken fragments of other rocks. When these fragments can be formed from the rubbing between rocks in a fault, it is a friction breccia.

Flow cleavage 

The crystals in a rock can be aligned by the plastic flow of a rock when it is hot. This causes the rock to split (cleave) along particular planes.

Rift 

A result of spreading is that rocks break, forming vertical faults, and allowing regions to sink and form valleys.

Orogeny 

The process of mountain forming, or a period in which mountains are formed.

Thrust fault 

A sloping crack in the rocks at which one region of rocks is pushing another up.

So it seems that Megan tells Cueball to ignore the layers in the rock, as there is evidence that the valley they are in is a recent rift valley. It was formed in cracking following the lifting up of the surrounding rocks.

The title text is a wordplay, as it could sound like "nice butt". Gneiss is a type of metamorphic rock made up of different bands, and a butte is an isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top that is smaller than a plateau. However, "butte" is not pronounced as "butt", but more like "beaut".

Transcript

[Two people are doing a geological survey in a rock-strewn landscape. Megan pointing off at the ground, wearing a fedora, Cueball apparently comparing a paper/map with another patch.]

Megan: Forget the bedding - we were wrong about the whole valley.

Cueball: The spreading is recent.

[Close up on the figures: Megan in a thoughtful pose, Cueball turned her way.]

Megan: See the friction breccia?

Cueball: Oh - flow cleavage!

Cueball: Deeper in the rift.

Megan: Deeper.

[An idea pops into Megan's head.]

[Megan also turns to Cueball.]

Megan: This orogeny

Cueball: is driven by a

Megan: huge

Cueball: thrust fault

[They both drop to the ground, off-panel, leaving only Megan's tumbling hat and a vocal effect.]

The couple: MMM

[Down from comic]: Geology: Surprisingly erotic.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

Actually, in the UK "gneiss" is pronounced exactly "nice", so it fits even better there.

If Wikipedia's phonetic guide is any authority, it's also said that way in the US (hover-text: 'n' as in 'nigh', long 'i' in 'bide', 's' as in 'sigh')... it doesn't make any distinctions between regions. -- IronyChef (talk) 04:51, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. American geologists also pronounce it "nice" lcarsos (talk) 18:06, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

According to my geologist father, 'gneiss' is pronounced as "nice" and 'butte' as "beaut." He also says that buttes are almost never gneiss: gneiss is a metamorphic rock, and buttes are almost always formed from sedimentary rocks. (Gneiss can form bornhardts, which are also bumps of rock, but form by a different process and don't look very similar.) Variables won't, constants aren't. (Osborn's Law) (talk) 00:58, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Your father is kind of a buzzkill.

108.162.216.38 16:42, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

A gniess hardt bone? Umm... 108.162.216.36 22:33, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Rather impressive to see an erotic geology joke that doesn't even need to bring up cleavage, lol. One of my favourites. -- BruceJohnJennerLawso (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Oops, my mistake, they did mention cleavage, but still not bad anyways. -- BruceJohnJennerLawso (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Another gneiss butte interpretation, that Randall can't possibly have intended because of his politics, is a small hill- much like pregnancy.Seebert (talk) 12:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

What are you talking about? How does any political position preclude punning about pregnancy?

173.245.50.174 19:46, 7 September 2015 (UTC) This makes a odd sort of sense, but right there!?!?.... Why?! (It's not even sanitary missed a prime opportunity to make a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cummingtonite pun smh