Tonight is an auspicious night! It is 1 am and I have just emailed off my geologic background to my advisor for review and edits! This is the first section of my master's thesis that I have completely drafted, and it was, I believe, the most difficult.
I had to figure out how to summarize the late Miocene extensional history of Death Valley, explain it's relevance to the competing explanations for the mechanism of the exhumation of the Black Mountains, and then discuss the previous geochronologic work in the area. Sounds straightforward, but there is such an immense body of work about Death Valley that it was quite an undertaking. It took me seven weeks to write this section, and much of that was re-reading articles, studying figures intently, looking up new articles, and making multiple outlines to organize my thoughts.
I am really pleased to have met my deadline for sending out a draft. It may not be a pretty draft, but it is as complete as I could make it, even if there are notes such as (figure here) left in.
Tomorrow I will begin on my methods section. The goal is to have that completed in the next two weeks, leaving the last week of February and most of March to deal with results and discussion. I don't have all the data from my results processed through the computer yet (this is out of my hands)...so I need to be ready for that.
My main feeling right now is relief, but I am also a little proud. I wasn't really sure how this section would get written, but it did. I think it will only get easier from here.
Keep up the good work. As noted in the tweets, I'll be interested in your results!
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