Over at Wired Science, there is a post with the fairly dramatic title Humans vs. Robots: Who Should Dominate Space Exploration Now I enjoy Wired's articles despite their somewhat inflammatory titles. While this article has some interesting information, I dislike the false dichotomy between the two sides. Especially since the tech heavy readership (if the comments are anything to go by-and I know it isn't the best representation) do not understand geological field work in the slightest. The problem with robots are simply that they aren't people, they can have automatic functions and carry out experiments on other worlds, but they can't make snap decisions based on years of expertise. In short, robots are tools, but there has to be people working those tools for them to be useful.
One of the main problems for robots is the delay between the robot detecting something, sending that to Earth, Earth receiving it, deciding what to do, then sending the instructions to the robot, the robot performing that operation, sending the results back to the Earth, and then the researchers ensuring that the robot did what it was supposed to do and then analyzing the data. As it can take several minutes for radio waves to travel from Mars to Earth, the delay eats up a lot of time; in addition, the rover teams always have to consider if the robot can accomplish its goals. Can the robot make it up the hill? Is the sand too loose for it to drive through? Are the systems operating efficiently? These questions eat up time, and if you read about the MER rovers you'll see stories about the rovers spinning their wheels for several meters worth of travel, but being stuck in the sand and not moving. These are problems humans can identify and fix quickly, without the need of caretakers back on Earth.
The article brings up a comparison of Apollo 17 (the only moon trip which NASA decided that a geologist might be useful) and the MER rovers, now I love the little guys; however, it took them eight years to cover the ground that the astronauts covered in three days, and at the end of the robot's leash were human experts. I don't mean to come down on the side of Team Human (though I guess I'd have to in a robot uprising) because the robots are an invaluable tool and extremely important for our understanding and future exploration of the solar system.
There is truth in the old saying "look before you leap" and that is where robots come in, we don't know exactly what is out there, thus rather than sending humans into the unknown without a clue as to what they are landing in, we send robots to scout the trail ahead. I believe the first Mars colonists will be extremely grateful for the information gained by the different rovers and probes that went before them, that information will be invaluable for telling us the dangers facing the first human explorers, and is vitally important. In addition, NASA has been experimenting with different robotic systems to help humans in outer space, Robonaut is already aboard the ISS working with astronauts, and the engineers at NASA have also developed similar 'centaur' systems which may be useful on other planets.
Although, I'm not sure that these robots can ever replace human explorers in the long run, as even compared to a burdensome space suit they are not as natural for an astronaut to use to collect samples or to operate heavy instruments like drills. While robots will most likely be a vital part of human exploration, they will most likely work along side humans, helping planetary geologists gather data and perform experiments.
Especially if we expect to find life on Mars, we will have to rely on human explorers. Robert Zubrin, the president of the Mars Society, once commented that if you dropped a fleet of robotic explorers into Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado they wouldn't be able to find a single fossil, and most paleontologists I've talked to tend to agree with this as well. It will take meticulous human exploration, not weighed down by extensive lag times to conduct a thorough geologic investigation of the Moon and Mars. Robots will always be useful and at the forefront of planetary exploration. However, it will take the boots of trained geologists (of which there has been only been one) on the other terrestrial objects in the solar system before we can develop a clear pictures of the geologic processes throughout the Solar System.
Edit: Sorry but I realized yesterday that I had something I needed to add
Yesterday I watched the TAM9 Future in Space panel discussion, and as usual (I've seen it several times) really enjoyed it; however, one thing really bugged me. When they talked about human or robotic exploration of the planets, there was fairly diverse opinions, but they all agreed to some extent that the point of human exploration was to keep the public interested and that in the near future robots could do it better than humans. I won't comment on the feasibility of autonomous robotic telescopes in astronomy as I am not all that knowledgeable in that field. I would ask, though, that if they feel the need to comment on planetary exploration they would return the consideration and ask a planetary geologist. The problem is that the panel had two astrophysicists (three if you include Phil Plait but he didn't talk much), a cosmologist, and a mechanical engineer, but no geologists or planetary scientists.
It is not like there wasn't any highly qualified scientists with experience with public speaking or outreach that they could have contacted. In fact, Dr. Jim Bell is the president of the Planetary Society (thus he works with Bill Nye) and is on the same facility as Dr. Lawrence Krauss, so it seems like somebody could have gotten a hold of him for this. In addition, the Planetary Society's great blogger Emily Lakdawalla has her degree in geology, there is also Dr. Bell's student, Dr. Ryan Anderson, who blogs at Martian Chronicles at the AGU blog network and the MER Principle Investigator and author Dr. Steven Squyres. I don't see how none of these people were tapped for this panel. They all would have provided a different point of view than those present, and I would think that they could have provided some interesting insight into future planetary exploration.
As any immediate future in Space will involve landing on rocky bodies which planetary scientists are already studying, it again is strange that any panel discussion on this wouldn't include somebody with a background in both space science and geologic field work. I hope that any other organizations that decide to hold similar panels will include planetary scientists or geologists as astronomers usually don't do field work.
However, if you have not seen the video please do so, it is highly entertaining and very informational.
Showing posts with label Geology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geology. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Accretionary Wedge 44: My Most Important Teacher
Metageologist over at the All-geo blog network has put out calls for posts about most important teachers, which really wasn't something I had to think much about. I easily could identify that person.
My sophomore year of high school I decided to participate in Science Olympiad, I wasn't sure what I would do, but I knew I liked science so I went out. Well at the first meeting I committed a great heresy; when my friend asked me to team up with her to try out for the Rocks and Minerals competition, I told her no, that it would be too boring. However, she called in an old favor or something like that, and twisted my arm into trying out for the team.
I barely knew anything about rocks and next to nothing about minerals, so when I met up with the team mentor I had no idea what to expect, but I was quickly proved wrong in my initial assumptions. The mentor, Coach Ford, was a science teacher I had never met, but I had only been on campus for a few weeks so it wasn't suprising. He was fairly tall, a little lanky, grey and wrinkled, but with a kind and wiley smile. He spoke extremely softly, and if the room wasn't silent you could easily miss almost every word he said. We started in on minerals, which was interesting, especially the crystalline geometries, though I had some trouble grasping them at first.
I wouldn't say I was that interested in the subject until he opened up a textbook and went over the rock cycle. I believe we might have gone over it once before, but after having a grasp on the basics of geology, I was blown away by the implications of the cycle. The idea that all material on the Earth had been recycled was amazing and I sat at home dumbstruck that night. Then he started talking about igneous rocks, and showed us the basic identification chart and I was sold hook, line, and sinker.
If that's all he had done it probably wouldn't have been enough to become my most important teacher; however, you have to understand the trouble he had to go through to reach me. First off, I was a high school athlete, so instead of meeting after class we had to meet after wrestling practice (either at 7:00 or 8:00 pm) and then he would go over geology (as well as other competitions such as astronomy, ecology, oceanography, etc.) for up to two or three hours, thus he came back to work at all hours of the night just to teach us subjects; not because it was his job, but just because he wanted to.
Then during my junior and senior years, I took his classes and he still liked me afterwards, which is in of itself somewhat impressive. I wasn't a good student, I got good grades, but I didn't pay attention, I had a tendency to nap in classes, and was given to flights of fancy. School had never been challenging and I was bored, but he didn't get frustrated; instead he inspired me. We learned about a numerous miraculous phenomena, he took us on field trips, and he made us teach each other. Other classes were fun and other classes were useful, but the two classes I took (Environmental Science and Astronomy, Meteorology, Geology) were the most useful and the most interesting.
The best part of his classes was that he pushed scientific literacy; he honestly believed that our lives would be improved by a greater understanding of the natural world. Those of his students who took advantage of his teachings were greatly improved by this philosophy, although most probably didn't do so as we lived in a very religiously conservative area, and I would say this made his work even more impressive as he reached out his hand to students who slapped it away.
Suffice it to say that I would not be in this amazing field if it was not for Coach Ford, to the extent that whenever I receive a great opportunity (like a NASA internship) I e-mail him and thank him for inspiring me so much.
My sophomore year of high school I decided to participate in Science Olympiad, I wasn't sure what I would do, but I knew I liked science so I went out. Well at the first meeting I committed a great heresy; when my friend asked me to team up with her to try out for the Rocks and Minerals competition, I told her no, that it would be too boring. However, she called in an old favor or something like that, and twisted my arm into trying out for the team.
I barely knew anything about rocks and next to nothing about minerals, so when I met up with the team mentor I had no idea what to expect, but I was quickly proved wrong in my initial assumptions. The mentor, Coach Ford, was a science teacher I had never met, but I had only been on campus for a few weeks so it wasn't suprising. He was fairly tall, a little lanky, grey and wrinkled, but with a kind and wiley smile. He spoke extremely softly, and if the room wasn't silent you could easily miss almost every word he said. We started in on minerals, which was interesting, especially the crystalline geometries, though I had some trouble grasping them at first.
I wouldn't say I was that interested in the subject until he opened up a textbook and went over the rock cycle. I believe we might have gone over it once before, but after having a grasp on the basics of geology, I was blown away by the implications of the cycle. The idea that all material on the Earth had been recycled was amazing and I sat at home dumbstruck that night. Then he started talking about igneous rocks, and showed us the basic identification chart and I was sold hook, line, and sinker.
If that's all he had done it probably wouldn't have been enough to become my most important teacher; however, you have to understand the trouble he had to go through to reach me. First off, I was a high school athlete, so instead of meeting after class we had to meet after wrestling practice (either at 7:00 or 8:00 pm) and then he would go over geology (as well as other competitions such as astronomy, ecology, oceanography, etc.) for up to two or three hours, thus he came back to work at all hours of the night just to teach us subjects; not because it was his job, but just because he wanted to.
Then during my junior and senior years, I took his classes and he still liked me afterwards, which is in of itself somewhat impressive. I wasn't a good student, I got good grades, but I didn't pay attention, I had a tendency to nap in classes, and was given to flights of fancy. School had never been challenging and I was bored, but he didn't get frustrated; instead he inspired me. We learned about a numerous miraculous phenomena, he took us on field trips, and he made us teach each other. Other classes were fun and other classes were useful, but the two classes I took (Environmental Science and Astronomy, Meteorology, Geology) were the most useful and the most interesting.
The best part of his classes was that he pushed scientific literacy; he honestly believed that our lives would be improved by a greater understanding of the natural world. Those of his students who took advantage of his teachings were greatly improved by this philosophy, although most probably didn't do so as we lived in a very religiously conservative area, and I would say this made his work even more impressive as he reached out his hand to students who slapped it away.
Suffice it to say that I would not be in this amazing field if it was not for Coach Ford, to the extent that whenever I receive a great opportunity (like a NASA internship) I e-mail him and thank him for inspiring me so much.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
New Mexico Geology: Where Rocks Grow out of the Ground
I had this mostly written back in January, but then I got distracted and forgot about it. I will do my best to finish the New Mexico Geology series. Sorry for the delay
Almost a year ago I participated in a community service project called Eastern In Action, which is basically a beautification project for the town, and if you had ever seen a town in Southeast New Mexico you would think that would be sorely needed. Unfortunately, there is no oversight process so anybody can ask for help, so instead of being sent to help the elderly, disabled, or disenfranchised who needed the help, my group was sent to help a well off farmer in his fields. Now besides doing 'charity' work for a man who could afford to pay for that service, I was most annoyed at the fact that the problems in his fields were his own fault.
Why you might ask? Well you have to understand that the area I live in has a classic arid soil referred to as caliche soil. Caliche is easily identifiable due to the layer of calcite at varying layers within the soil. So what does this have to do with the greedy farmer? I'm getting to that; calcite dissolves in water so on the rare occasion that we do get rain, the mineral goes into solution, and then in the more common high heat, the water evaporates and as it does it pulls the calcite towards the surface. So when the farmer was watering his fields he was speeding up the caliche forming process, pulling up the calcite very quickly and creating numerous evaporite rocks in his fields. Thus we toiled in his fields for several hours in order to rid the field of the rocks he created.
Moral of the story? Mostly that trying to grow water intensive crops in an arid (well semi-arid, but it feels like a desert) environment is not a good idea. However, if you feel like doing so learn from the cultures who have been successful in that goal. One such group are the Mormons in Utah. When they built their society in Utah the only water they had access to was from the Great Salt Lake, so in order to water their crops without salting the land and rendering it useless they saturated the soil pushing the salt deeper into the ground away from the plant roots. However, when there is very little water to go around this doesn't work, and since we rely on fossil aquifers this solution is unworkable and would kill the area..
However, here are a few photographs of a cut into the soil, with the caliche soil is brilliantly displayed.
So this is probably the most interesting geology near the college, but there is one more thing. The area is a very slight valley and this is because it was once a large meandering river. The water dried up after the last ice age when the Pecos River was formed; this River is much faster and thus moved up through what is now New Mexico and pirated the ancient streams that once flowed off of the Rio Grande Rift.
After the river was cut off, some of its water was stored in the sands it once carried forming a perched aquifer (an aquifer sitting on top of an impermeable layer) so when settlers first came to Portales they had ample water and like all humans they quickly depleted them. In fact there used to be year long lakes in Portales where the ground dropped beneath the water table, something most of the students at the university would find quite surprising. Well I exaggerate, there is still one aquifer that hasn't been depleted, but the geniuses out here put a dairy on top of it because there is no way that the dairy could pollute the aquifer with E.coli.
Luckily we do have the Ogallala Aquifer to fall back on
Right there, where the star is, you know where it is losing water instead of recharging. Hey, can I come live with one of you? I don't think there is going to be much water here anymore.
Almost a year ago I participated in a community service project called Eastern In Action, which is basically a beautification project for the town, and if you had ever seen a town in Southeast New Mexico you would think that would be sorely needed. Unfortunately, there is no oversight process so anybody can ask for help, so instead of being sent to help the elderly, disabled, or disenfranchised who needed the help, my group was sent to help a well off farmer in his fields. Now besides doing 'charity' work for a man who could afford to pay for that service, I was most annoyed at the fact that the problems in his fields were his own fault.
Why you might ask? Well you have to understand that the area I live in has a classic arid soil referred to as caliche soil. Caliche is easily identifiable due to the layer of calcite at varying layers within the soil. So what does this have to do with the greedy farmer? I'm getting to that; calcite dissolves in water so on the rare occasion that we do get rain, the mineral goes into solution, and then in the more common high heat, the water evaporates and as it does it pulls the calcite towards the surface. So when the farmer was watering his fields he was speeding up the caliche forming process, pulling up the calcite very quickly and creating numerous evaporite rocks in his fields. Thus we toiled in his fields for several hours in order to rid the field of the rocks he created.
Moral of the story? Mostly that trying to grow water intensive crops in an arid (well semi-arid, but it feels like a desert) environment is not a good idea. However, if you feel like doing so learn from the cultures who have been successful in that goal. One such group are the Mormons in Utah. When they built their society in Utah the only water they had access to was from the Great Salt Lake, so in order to water their crops without salting the land and rendering it useless they saturated the soil pushing the salt deeper into the ground away from the plant roots. However, when there is very little water to go around this doesn't work, and since we rely on fossil aquifers this solution is unworkable and would kill the area..
However, here are a few photographs of a cut into the soil, with the caliche soil is brilliantly displayed.
 |
| The white rocks are evaporite calcite minerals |
 |
| This is right above the main layer, with a hammer for scale |
 |
| Here is the main layer with a hammer in it |
After the river was cut off, some of its water was stored in the sands it once carried forming a perched aquifer (an aquifer sitting on top of an impermeable layer) so when settlers first came to Portales they had ample water and like all humans they quickly depleted them. In fact there used to be year long lakes in Portales where the ground dropped beneath the water table, something most of the students at the university would find quite surprising. Well I exaggerate, there is still one aquifer that hasn't been depleted, but the geniuses out here put a dairy on top of it because there is no way that the dairy could pollute the aquifer with E.coli.
Luckily we do have the Ogallala Aquifer to fall back on
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Update on Rio Grande Rift
In my last post on the Rio Grande Rift, I was hesitant to say if it was still spreading. I don't have access to all the journals, I had heard some conflicting opinions from a few geologists, and my cursory search didn't find a lot of information. However, the January issue of Geology did have a study dealing with exactly that. And guess what, the rift is spreading, about one inch every forty years, so that's pretty cool. I can't wait to read the full article (once I get my reimbursement check from my school and can afford to pay my student dues to the GSA).
However, due to my status as a college kid with limited funds; I unfortunately did not read about this from a cool source, instead I learned about it from this Yahoo News article which didn't even turn out to be an intelligent source. It doesn't start out bad, but then it starts saying a few things which demonstrate a lack of real understanding about geology. First off, it says this is a very slow pace (direct quote is "paltry rate", and it is compared to Usain Bolt or a landslide or really anything we deal with in our day to day experience. However, this is geology so almost everything happens slowly, so if you are going to say it happens slowly compare it to another plate. It is moving slowly compared to other plates which can move around 2.5 cm a year, while this rift is widening around 1 mm per year, 1/250 slower!
Then, the author makes a comment about controlling the expansion which seems odd and raised a few questions. First, why, it is barely moving and at those rates shouldn't disrupt humans at all; however, stopping the motion would just mean all the energy is pent up and then released when whatever is keeping from moving fails, causing an earthquake. Second, since when is it the goal of geology to stop plate tectonics? I've heard of geo-engineering projects, but I don't think anybody has ever even thought of something this large.
The article did leave a few questions I had unanswered. Do the scientists know if this rate is accelerating, decelerating, or remaining the same? This would be nice to know; is another East African Rift opening up in Southwest America or is this movement dying out. I would like to know this because there are inactive volcanoes around the rift (including near Albuquerque) and it would be nice to know if they might wake up. In addition, does this movement have any implications for earthquakes around the rift, especially in the Sandia Mountains where New Mexico's largest city sits on loosely compacted sediments from the mountains surrounding it oh and an aquifer. So as my Intro to geology professor once (somewhat gleefully) pointed out, should a large earthquake hit the city, the soil would probably liquify and consume large parts of the city.
By the way, I'm not too worried about earthquakes or volcanoes as a result of the spreading; however, it is not a stretch that some people who live in Albuquerque might be, and it would only take a extra sentence worth of effort to soothe these fears. Questions like this is why you should talk to a scientist before you publish a story because now I have to wait to gain anything valuable until I either bum the latest copy of Geology, or get the money to look at it online. Thanks Yahoo News, for all the effort you put into the story.
However, due to my status as a college kid with limited funds; I unfortunately did not read about this from a cool source, instead I learned about it from this Yahoo News article which didn't even turn out to be an intelligent source. It doesn't start out bad, but then it starts saying a few things which demonstrate a lack of real understanding about geology. First off, it says this is a very slow pace (direct quote is "paltry rate", and it is compared to Usain Bolt or a landslide or really anything we deal with in our day to day experience. However, this is geology so almost everything happens slowly, so if you are going to say it happens slowly compare it to another plate. It is moving slowly compared to other plates which can move around 2.5 cm a year, while this rift is widening around 1 mm per year, 1/250 slower!
Then, the author makes a comment about controlling the expansion which seems odd and raised a few questions. First, why, it is barely moving and at those rates shouldn't disrupt humans at all; however, stopping the motion would just mean all the energy is pent up and then released when whatever is keeping from moving fails, causing an earthquake. Second, since when is it the goal of geology to stop plate tectonics? I've heard of geo-engineering projects, but I don't think anybody has ever even thought of something this large.
The article did leave a few questions I had unanswered. Do the scientists know if this rate is accelerating, decelerating, or remaining the same? This would be nice to know; is another East African Rift opening up in Southwest America or is this movement dying out. I would like to know this because there are inactive volcanoes around the rift (including near Albuquerque) and it would be nice to know if they might wake up. In addition, does this movement have any implications for earthquakes around the rift, especially in the Sandia Mountains where New Mexico's largest city sits on loosely compacted sediments from the mountains surrounding it oh and an aquifer. So as my Intro to geology professor once (somewhat gleefully) pointed out, should a large earthquake hit the city, the soil would probably liquify and consume large parts of the city.
By the way, I'm not too worried about earthquakes or volcanoes as a result of the spreading; however, it is not a stretch that some people who live in Albuquerque might be, and it would only take a extra sentence worth of effort to soothe these fears. Questions like this is why you should talk to a scientist before you publish a story because now I have to wait to gain anything valuable until I either bum the latest copy of Geology, or get the money to look at it online. Thanks Yahoo News, for all the effort you put into the story.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Erosion vs. Weathering
I never really explained why I named this blog what I did, but there is a reason. You see, since I'm an undergraduate student (for only two more semesters) I wanted to tell the story of my journey from lowly and ignorant undergraduate through graduate school and into my own career (however long that takes). However, that only makes sense if you know the actual definition of erosion:
Erosion-The physical removal of rock by an agent such as running water, glacial ice, or wind.
And compare that to weathering:
Weathering- The group of processes that change rock at or near the Earth's surface
Now why do I care about that? Well besides confusing the two makes it seem like I feel like my education is disappearing or being torn down some how, the real problem is that erosion is used as a literary device by several people and it is almost always used wrong. Here are two examples:
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/19/halt-us-educational-erosion/
http://chronicle.com/article/Public-Higher-Education-Is/124292/
Now I understand that educational erosion makes a good almost alliteration (look at my blog title) however, they are not describing erosion. They are describing weathering, and there is a fundamental difference.
Weathering can be broken up into two categories, chemical and physical. Physical is the easiest to understand, as it is simply mechanical processes which break apart the source rock. Examples include frost wedging, water running over rocks or rivers down cutting into the ground, wind sand blasting formations, or even animals walking over the same trail numerous times.
Chemical weathering is different. This is when the minerals withing a source rock are changed into different minerals, which is often caused by water. Near Albuquerque are the three peaks, three inactive volcanoes which spewed basaltic lava thousands of years ago. On these volcanoes you can see the mechanical weathering from the water flowing down the slopes creating the classic V-shape indicative of mountain streams. However, the most interesting part is that where the black lava is along the stream, you can see how high the water gets when it does flow. As the once black rocks are turned white where they were submerged in the stream. This is due to chemical weathering, the Calcium Feldspars, indicative to basalts, are chemically weathered into calcite, a much softer mineral, which compromises the integrity of the formation.
Erosion, on the other hand, is all about transportation. So while the forces of weathering and erosion may be the same, the processes are different. Weathering breaks down a mountain, while erosion spreads the pile of rubble far and wide, flattening out the landscape. Some of the mechanisms of erosion include landslides, turbidity flows, rivers, and wind.
So please remember, I'm on an educational journey and my education is not being torn down. Thank you
Erosion-The physical removal of rock by an agent such as running water, glacial ice, or wind.
And compare that to weathering:
Weathering- The group of processes that change rock at or near the Earth's surface
Now why do I care about that? Well besides confusing the two makes it seem like I feel like my education is disappearing or being torn down some how, the real problem is that erosion is used as a literary device by several people and it is almost always used wrong. Here are two examples:
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/19/halt-us-educational-erosion/
http://chronicle.com/article/Public-Higher-Education-Is/124292/
Now I understand that educational erosion makes a good almost alliteration (look at my blog title) however, they are not describing erosion. They are describing weathering, and there is a fundamental difference.
Weathering can be broken up into two categories, chemical and physical. Physical is the easiest to understand, as it is simply mechanical processes which break apart the source rock. Examples include frost wedging, water running over rocks or rivers down cutting into the ground, wind sand blasting formations, or even animals walking over the same trail numerous times.
Chemical weathering is different. This is when the minerals withing a source rock are changed into different minerals, which is often caused by water. Near Albuquerque are the three peaks, three inactive volcanoes which spewed basaltic lava thousands of years ago. On these volcanoes you can see the mechanical weathering from the water flowing down the slopes creating the classic V-shape indicative of mountain streams. However, the most interesting part is that where the black lava is along the stream, you can see how high the water gets when it does flow. As the once black rocks are turned white where they were submerged in the stream. This is due to chemical weathering, the Calcium Feldspars, indicative to basalts, are chemically weathered into calcite, a much softer mineral, which compromises the integrity of the formation.
Erosion, on the other hand, is all about transportation. So while the forces of weathering and erosion may be the same, the processes are different. Weathering breaks down a mountain, while erosion spreads the pile of rubble far and wide, flattening out the landscape. Some of the mechanisms of erosion include landslides, turbidity flows, rivers, and wind.
So please remember, I'm on an educational journey and my education is not being torn down. Thank you
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
New Mexico Geology: Seas of Gypsum
Sorry right now I don't have pictures of my own for this, two weekends ago I was going to meet up with family in Alamagordo then visit White Sands, but the family activity ended up taking over twice as long as planned, so it was dark by the time we finished. I will update with better pictures when I get them.
Update: Check out Ron Schott's post about White Sands, he has two amazing GigaPans of the dunes.
In second grade we took a field trip to White Sands, and I still remember that day. It wasn't too far of a drive, just on the other side of the Sierra Blanca, but it was amazing. After we passed through the military sign posts warning us of the dangers should we trespass on to the base, we drove into the national monument. It was like a sea of white stretched out before us as far as we could see; the white waves, frozen in time, just asked for a bunch of little kids to run up and down on and try to sled down. Eventually we gave up on trying to sled down the hills (damn you friction!!!) and instead took to rolling ass over teakettle down the huge dunes, burying each other in the sand and jumping off the dunes into soft(ish) piles of loose sand below us.
White sands is amazing because it is a beautifully bizarre place that illuminates some already pretty awesome geologic processes, but in an unique and beautiful way.
Dune Formation:
White Sands (which is a very original name) is the largest gypsum dune field in the world, and demonstrates the highly variable nature of dune formation. First off, there are Barchan Dunes which are crescent shaped dunes which move in the same direction of their limbs. These dunes move incredibly fast up to 100 meters in a year (hey anything you can measure in terms of years instead of 100's or 1000's or 1x10^6 years is really fast to a geologist). Barchan dunes are common when there isn't much sand and the dunes are free to move across the desert pavement (highly cemented surface common in desert, it is this phenomena which allowed Rommel to quickly move across North Africa in WWII).
Then there are Parabolic dunes, which look like Barchan Dunes, but they are going the wrong way. This happens when Barchan Dunes move into areas with more vegetation, the vegetation bogs down the limbs of the dune first and turns them around. The vegetation acts as an anchor and makes these dunes really slow.
When there is plenty of sand, the Barchan Dunes join together into Transverse dunes, which are long lines of wavy sand. This is very common at White Sands.
Evaporite Minerals
If you are not familiar with geology, you might be curious what exactly is Gypsum, and if you are not, you should be curious (don't make the gypsum angry it is probably right behind you, hiding in plain sight). Chemically Gypsum is CaSO4*2H20, translated to Calcium Sulfate (Sulfur plus four Oxygens) and two water molecules within the crystalline structure; it is an ionic compound, like table salt, which means it dissolves in water into ions (a +2 Ca and -2 SO4) and is precipitated out when the water evaporates. If you are unfamiliar with this, take a bowl fill it up with water and then a lot of salt into it, then hang a string where it is only just in the water and tape it to the sides. Put the bowl in a window (or under a heat lamp to speed things up) and as the water evaporates salt will precipitate on the string. SCIENCE!!
One cool thing about this mineral is that crystalline gypsum can come in three forms, satin spar, selenite, and alabaster.
Satin Spar gypsum is fibrous gypsum that has a silky luster (luster refers to the way the mineral interacts with light, so Satin Spar gypsum reflects light similar to the way silk does).
Selenite is the transparent and colorless (geologists hate the word clear) version of gypsum. In New Mexico you can sometimes find dunes with large selenite crystals within them. A good place to check these out is the Living Desert Zoo and Garden in Carlsbad, NM, which has a whole exhibit dedicated to this feature.
And Alabaster resembles the sands at White Sands, just clumped together into a soft rock.
One important thing to note about Gypsum is that it is all around, as the mineral is used to make wallboard. In addition, Gypsum is used in art and other applications as Plaster of Paris. This application highlights a very cool property of gypsum, remember when I said earlier that Gypsum has two water molecules in its crystal lattice? Well if you heat gypsum you can drive off the water molecules and you end up with annhydrite which is just CaSO4 and if you know anything about making plaster casts, you know that the plaster first comes ground up in a fine powder which is the gypsum that has been ground up and heated which drives off most of the water, then you mix it with water and pour it into you want to make a cast of. The annhydrite then absorbs the water becoming gypsum after it crystallizes thus hardens or sets. Well that's White Sands in a nutshell.
Update: Check out Ron Schott's post about White Sands, he has two amazing GigaPans of the dunes.
In second grade we took a field trip to White Sands, and I still remember that day. It wasn't too far of a drive, just on the other side of the Sierra Blanca, but it was amazing. After we passed through the military sign posts warning us of the dangers should we trespass on to the base, we drove into the national monument. It was like a sea of white stretched out before us as far as we could see; the white waves, frozen in time, just asked for a bunch of little kids to run up and down on and try to sled down. Eventually we gave up on trying to sled down the hills (damn you friction!!!) and instead took to rolling ass over teakettle down the huge dunes, burying each other in the sand and jumping off the dunes into soft(ish) piles of loose sand below us.
White sands is amazing because it is a beautifully bizarre place that illuminates some already pretty awesome geologic processes, but in an unique and beautiful way.
Dune Formation:
White Sands (which is a very original name) is the largest gypsum dune field in the world, and demonstrates the highly variable nature of dune formation. First off, there are Barchan Dunes which are crescent shaped dunes which move in the same direction of their limbs. These dunes move incredibly fast up to 100 meters in a year (hey anything you can measure in terms of years instead of 100's or 1000's or 1x10^6 years is really fast to a geologist). Barchan dunes are common when there isn't much sand and the dunes are free to move across the desert pavement (highly cemented surface common in desert, it is this phenomena which allowed Rommel to quickly move across North Africa in WWII).
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| Photo Credit: getintravel.com |
When there is plenty of sand, the Barchan Dunes join together into Transverse dunes, which are long lines of wavy sand. This is very common at White Sands.
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| Photo Credit: wikipedia.org |
If you are not familiar with geology, you might be curious what exactly is Gypsum, and if you are not, you should be curious (don't make the gypsum angry it is probably right behind you, hiding in plain sight). Chemically Gypsum is CaSO4*2H20, translated to Calcium Sulfate (Sulfur plus four Oxygens) and two water molecules within the crystalline structure; it is an ionic compound, like table salt, which means it dissolves in water into ions (a +2 Ca and -2 SO4) and is precipitated out when the water evaporates. If you are unfamiliar with this, take a bowl fill it up with water and then a lot of salt into it, then hang a string where it is only just in the water and tape it to the sides. Put the bowl in a window (or under a heat lamp to speed things up) and as the water evaporates salt will precipitate on the string. SCIENCE!!
One cool thing about this mineral is that crystalline gypsum can come in three forms, satin spar, selenite, and alabaster.
Satin Spar gypsum is fibrous gypsum that has a silky luster (luster refers to the way the mineral interacts with light, so Satin Spar gypsum reflects light similar to the way silk does).
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| Satin Spar Gypsum in a unique shapePhoto Credit utexes.edu |
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| Selenite Hills at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Carlsbad, NM |
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| An example of Alabaster Gypsum from Geology.com |
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Fallibility of Heroes
I have a personal hero, and like all humans he is flawed. However, he is flawed in such a way that I have to question my admiration of him, and I am left wondering what I should think.
I have looked up to Harrison Schmitt for a few years now for a few reasons. First he is the only geologist to walk on another world. Which is an amazing feat, and one that I dream about repeating myself (I doubt this would ever happen). As planetary geology is my dream field, this is the most amazing thing one could do in my eyes, actual field geology on another celestial object, and this alone would make him one of my favorite scientists of all time. I even have a poster taken of the Apollo 17 mission on my wall, I don't know if Dr. Schmitt is the astronaut pictured but there is a 50/50 chance that it is, and I like to think it is him.
Dr. Schmitt and I also share something in common, in that we are from the same state, not only from the same state, but we are both from small, southern New Mexican towns whose entire economy rested on the exploitation of a limited resource (copper for him, oil for me). Maybe this isn't the strongest connection; however, growing up I saw the people around me and thought that my home town was like a black hole and the people born or raised there were already past the event horizon. I honestly feared for years that I would never escape, that no matter what I did, there would be no way out. Thus the idea that there were people from the crappy and poor areas of my state (one Political Science professor at my school referred to much of southern New Mexico as the Third World within the First World) had lived the dream filled me with hope and confidence that I was not already past the event horizon, that there was a way out.
However, Dr. Schmitt is a Climate Change denier, a position I find irresponsible and uninformed. He has tried to do a tremendous amount of harm to the good science done by the climate scientists; I wouldn't be so upset about this if he wasn't a good geologist, but his body of work is impressive and he rightly won accolades earlier in his career. Thus to the uniformed his presence among the deniers seems like damning evidence.
It is becoming more and more evident that the position held by Schmitt and others like him is both wrong and dangerous. We see the effects all the time, pacific island nations looking for places to evacuate after the sea swallows their home, heat waves, storms; the evidence is so solid that the pentagon has become concerned that it poses a risk to national security. At times like these we need our best and brightest to look at the evidence without bias. It is pointless to bicker about the reality of situation, when its consequences are already barreling down on you.
I would like to remember Dr. Schmitt as the type of person I want to be, a brave explorer who advanced the cause of science both by increasing our knowledge about the universe and by keeping scientific progress close to our hearts and in our imagination. However, these wonderful things that he did are tainted by his recent actions as a politician and I cannot separate the two, though I wish I could.
I won't take the poster down, though, because at the moment it was taken, he was doing something noble and beautiful, something that I can still strive to emulate and surpass.
For more information here is NASA biography, and in the interest of fairness, his biography on desmog blog as well.
I have looked up to Harrison Schmitt for a few years now for a few reasons. First he is the only geologist to walk on another world. Which is an amazing feat, and one that I dream about repeating myself (I doubt this would ever happen). As planetary geology is my dream field, this is the most amazing thing one could do in my eyes, actual field geology on another celestial object, and this alone would make him one of my favorite scientists of all time. I even have a poster taken of the Apollo 17 mission on my wall, I don't know if Dr. Schmitt is the astronaut pictured but there is a 50/50 chance that it is, and I like to think it is him.
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| This is the image I'm referring to |
Dr. Schmitt and I also share something in common, in that we are from the same state, not only from the same state, but we are both from small, southern New Mexican towns whose entire economy rested on the exploitation of a limited resource (copper for him, oil for me). Maybe this isn't the strongest connection; however, growing up I saw the people around me and thought that my home town was like a black hole and the people born or raised there were already past the event horizon. I honestly feared for years that I would never escape, that no matter what I did, there would be no way out. Thus the idea that there were people from the crappy and poor areas of my state (one Political Science professor at my school referred to much of southern New Mexico as the Third World within the First World) had lived the dream filled me with hope and confidence that I was not already past the event horizon, that there was a way out.
However, Dr. Schmitt is a Climate Change denier, a position I find irresponsible and uninformed. He has tried to do a tremendous amount of harm to the good science done by the climate scientists; I wouldn't be so upset about this if he wasn't a good geologist, but his body of work is impressive and he rightly won accolades earlier in his career. Thus to the uniformed his presence among the deniers seems like damning evidence.
It is becoming more and more evident that the position held by Schmitt and others like him is both wrong and dangerous. We see the effects all the time, pacific island nations looking for places to evacuate after the sea swallows their home, heat waves, storms; the evidence is so solid that the pentagon has become concerned that it poses a risk to national security. At times like these we need our best and brightest to look at the evidence without bias. It is pointless to bicker about the reality of situation, when its consequences are already barreling down on you.
I would like to remember Dr. Schmitt as the type of person I want to be, a brave explorer who advanced the cause of science both by increasing our knowledge about the universe and by keeping scientific progress close to our hearts and in our imagination. However, these wonderful things that he did are tainted by his recent actions as a politician and I cannot separate the two, though I wish I could.
I won't take the poster down, though, because at the moment it was taken, he was doing something noble and beautiful, something that I can still strive to emulate and surpass.
For more information here is NASA biography, and in the interest of fairness, his biography on desmog blog as well.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
New Mexico Geology: Rio Grande Rift
I still vividly remember learning the words to the Beach Boys’ Surfin USA when I was five years old. I was due to graduate from my preschool and we were going to sing that song for our families at the graduation ceremony. For those of you who don’t know, the songs begin with the quintessential Californian Boys lamenting the lot in life for the rest of their countrymen. Specifically they bemoan that:
If everybody had an ocean
Across the U. S. A.
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like Californi-a
You'd seem 'em wearing their baggies
Huarachi sandals too
A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
Surfin' U. S. A.
While learning this song I remember trying to imagine a United States cut in half by a body of water large enough to generate waves like the ocean. I imagined cowboys surfing from Texas up to Kansas herding cattle who were chilling on rafts, or businessmen windsurfing through city streets to their office buildings (I had a really overactive imagination as a kid). I didn't think an ocean in the middle of the continent would be such a great idea, but I thought it would be interesting none the less. On a side note, when we went over the Vietnam War in high school, guerrilla warfare was described as like your whole country being an ocean, and all your people floating in it which always made me think of this song. Yeah, I know I'm weird.
However, what I didn’t know was that the interior of America did share some features with the ocean (the Atlantic though not the Pacific) and even more surprising, that this feature cut my home state in half. What could dry, land-locked New Mexico have with the Atlantic Ocean? It would seem that no two regions could be less alike. But somehow they are, but for that to be obvious, first we need to understand a very fundamental aspect of our Earth's surface.
However, what I didn’t know was that the interior of America did share some features with the ocean (the Atlantic though not the Pacific) and even more surprising, that this feature cut my home state in half. What could dry, land-locked New Mexico have with the Atlantic Ocean? It would seem that no two regions could be less alike. But somehow they are, but for that to be obvious, first we need to understand a very fundamental aspect of our Earth's surface.
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| Change in Location of continental Plates from the Permian to the present, Photo Credit Geology.com |
While the ground beneath our feet may feel solid and static, we know that it is not. Instead the surface is made up of tectonic plates which floats on the flowing plastic of the Upper Mantle. The plates can be divided into two groups, oceanic and continental plates; the continental plates are mostly composed of granite with a thin veneer of sediments coating it and the oceanic crust is composed mainly of basalt. Since granite is composed of lighter (in color and density) than the iron rich basalt, it stands to reason that the continental plates would float above the basalt. Now look at the changes our world has undergone, specifically look at how the continents were torn apart, forming the east and west hemispheres. This formed a divergent plate boundary, and you can almost make out the change in this picture from the initial valley (in the Triassic) that the rift formed to the ocean we see now.
Plates can interact in three primary ways. If two plates strike together head on, this is called a converging plate boundary, and in this instance three different outcomes are possible. If a light continental plate and heavy oceanic plate converge, then the oceanic plate will subduct, or sink, beneath the continent. In this instance a lot of oceanic water end up mixing with the magma, this creates some seriously violent volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens. If two light continental plates crash together, they push each other up like a rug bunching up when you slip on it; this creates massive mountain ranges a great example being the Himalayas. Two heavy oceanic plates can meet, here both plates get pushed down, partially melt and form a volcanic arc. Plates can also slide past each other, like in California at San Andres Fault, and if those movement is interrupted then the plates will lurch forward in a jerking motion causing an Earthquake.
Plates can interact in three primary ways. If two plates strike together head on, this is called a converging plate boundary, and in this instance three different outcomes are possible. If a light continental plate and heavy oceanic plate converge, then the oceanic plate will subduct, or sink, beneath the continent. In this instance a lot of oceanic water end up mixing with the magma, this creates some seriously violent volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens. If two light continental plates crash together, they push each other up like a rug bunching up when you slip on it; this creates massive mountain ranges a great example being the Himalayas. Two heavy oceanic plates can meet, here both plates get pushed down, partially melt and form a volcanic arc. Plates can also slide past each other, like in California at San Andres Fault, and if those movement is interrupted then the plates will lurch forward in a jerking motion causing an Earthquake.
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| Photo Credit: cotf.edu |
However, none of those are what makes the Atlantic Ocean similar to New Mexico. Instead we have to discuss the third type of plate interaction, divergent plate boundaries which are places where plates pull away from each other . Like we saw in the break-up of Pangaea, this small crack in the plates can grow into a huge rift valley and eventually into an ocean! Luckily we have the opportunity to see a Rift Valley in the process of growing farther a part; we see in the aptly named East African Rift Valley the convergence of a few rifts cutting up the eastern coast of Africa. While the mechanism which cause this phenomena are not well known, the popular model among Earth Scientists involves elevated heat flow from the mantles causing bulges under the plates, forcing those plates apart.
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| Photo Credit: Geology.com |
In New Mexico we have our own example of this process, a massive structure that cuts the state in two and formed mountains and volcanoes at its sides making it one of the two features that dominate the geology of the state (the other being the Jemez Lineament). It began about 35 million years ago and then entered a phase of major volcanism for around 15 million years, and the first phase of crustal extension occurred about 5 million years after the start of the volcanism and lasted for ten million years. The rift then took it easy for a few million years, until the northern and southern portions of the rift underwent a period of expansion in the last 10-12 million years.
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| Photo Credit: Originally produced by the USGS |
The rift formed numerous interesting features, but I like the Sandia's the best, so that is a great place to start. Why do I like the Sandia Mountains the best? It might be because they translate to the Watermelon Mountains, it might be because my fiance is from Eastern flank of those mountains, or it might be because it was the first stop on my structural geology field trip. Whatever the reason, they are really cool. Here the crustal extension resulted in horst and graben mountains; the grabens were mostly filled in with sediments eroded off of the Sandias.
The Sandia's culminate at the crest, which is a beautiful sight and I could not more highly recommend that anyone visiting Albuquerque drive up to the top and look out over the city.
In addition to being beautiful the Sandia's also hold some amazing geologic features. First and for most is the amazing unconformity which represents a 1.2 billion year gap in the geologic feature. I have to give you my sincerest apologies for not taking pictures of it on my trip, but I'll try to get some the next time I'm in the area. However, just imagine the ancient granite crumbling into a pile of grus at its base tilted slightly with sandstone and limestone laying on top of it. The bottom of the sedimentary layers have been exposed in some places by crumbling granite, and you can walk under the rock and pull out fossils buried above your head! The Sandias also contain hydrothermal vents perforating the area which have resulted in mineral deposits (including some gold).
On the western edge of the Rift are the Three Sisters, who are now kind of old and cold but they used to be HOT...get it because they are dormant volcanoes, I'm hilarious...In all seriousness these three volcanoes are not that large, but they are awesome. These were also caused by the tectonic forces which shaped the valley, and sit on top of a 5 mile long fissure. They are dormant now, but they once spewed out basaltic lava over the area - side note you can actually see the path and level of the rain water over these volcanoes, the calcium minerals in the lava have been weathered in some parts into calcite, so that you have rocks which are black on top and white on bottom.
It would be easy to write a book just about the Sandia's, but the rift gave us more than just this, including the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces which is made up of granite, rhyolite, some sedimentary rocks and even some welded volcanics. The rift dominated much of New Mexican geology and most the North-South trending features in New Mexico were caused by the Rift (East-West trending features are a result of the Jemez Lineament. Including the very river that named the rift.
You see the Rio Grande is a fairly unique river, in that it formed within the valley, instead of forming the valley it now resides in. When the rift was opening up it created several lakes which then began to start linking up, eventually they started to flow south, and provide part of our border with Mexico. These massive forces are at their most striking at the Rio Grande Gorge which drives home more than any other site the awesome power that was tearing apart the crust millions of years ago.
I should really go into more depth about these features; however, when I first said I would talk about this feature I forgot about how freaking huge it was and just how much the rift affects the geology of the entire state, so when I take some trips out to the areas I'll write them up, but until then why don't we just try to imagine what if the rift had expanded farther until there was an ocean across the U.S.A, do you think everybody would be surfin' like Californi-a?
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| Photo Credit: academic.emporia.edu |
The Sandia's culminate at the crest, which is a beautiful sight and I could not more highly recommend that anyone visiting Albuquerque drive up to the top and look out over the city.
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| From my Structural Geology field trip |
In addition to being beautiful the Sandia's also hold some amazing geologic features. First and for most is the amazing unconformity which represents a 1.2 billion year gap in the geologic feature. I have to give you my sincerest apologies for not taking pictures of it on my trip, but I'll try to get some the next time I'm in the area. However, just imagine the ancient granite crumbling into a pile of grus at its base tilted slightly with sandstone and limestone laying on top of it. The bottom of the sedimentary layers have been exposed in some places by crumbling granite, and you can walk under the rock and pull out fossils buried above your head! The Sandias also contain hydrothermal vents perforating the area which have resulted in mineral deposits (including some gold).
On the western edge of the Rift are the Three Sisters, who are now kind of old and cold but they used to be HOT...get it because they are dormant volcanoes, I'm hilarious...In all seriousness these three volcanoes are not that large, but they are awesome. These were also caused by the tectonic forces which shaped the valley, and sit on top of a 5 mile long fissure. They are dormant now, but they once spewed out basaltic lava over the area - side note you can actually see the path and level of the rain water over these volcanoes, the calcium minerals in the lava have been weathered in some parts into calcite, so that you have rocks which are black on top and white on bottom.
It would be easy to write a book just about the Sandia's, but the rift gave us more than just this, including the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces which is made up of granite, rhyolite, some sedimentary rocks and even some welded volcanics. The rift dominated much of New Mexican geology and most the North-South trending features in New Mexico were caused by the Rift (East-West trending features are a result of the Jemez Lineament. Including the very river that named the rift.
You see the Rio Grande is a fairly unique river, in that it formed within the valley, instead of forming the valley it now resides in. When the rift was opening up it created several lakes which then began to start linking up, eventually they started to flow south, and provide part of our border with Mexico. These massive forces are at their most striking at the Rio Grande Gorge which drives home more than any other site the awesome power that was tearing apart the crust millions of years ago.
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| Photo Credit: NM BLM |
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
New Mexico Geology Primer
I haven’t talked about geology as much as I want to on this blog, so I have decided to change that, this was inspired by Anne at Highly Allochthonous, and in an effort to ease in (and because I won’t start anything resembling research until next semester) I’ve decided to write about a few important geological sights in my home state. Why? Because I love it here, and because it has fascinating and varied features which you could spend a lifetime exploring. In addition, I can pepper the stories with anecdotes about the great and sometimes very strange people and events associated with those sites. You see, New Mexico is very odd from our diet (depending on who you talk to it ranges from strange to a dire sin for any restaurant not to provide green chile as a topping) to music (go to a large dance or party the music will shift between dance music, country, and tejano) to the landforms (I’ll talk about that later) and it makes for an interesting place to live.
Why is New Mexico so odd? It might be because New Mexico has the oldest, continuously inhabited settlement within the United States or the oldest center of government in the country or maybe it is because our history includes a tremendously successful Native American revolt which forced the Europeans out of the state and when they finally returned they had to play nice. Or it might be because of our more recent history of government research or the dichotomy of having the highest rate of PhDs per capita of any state in the union (at least according to History Channel’s series The States) and having the tenth highest rate of high school dropouts in the country. However I always assumed it was due to the diversity and uniqueness of the ecosystems surrounding us. In New Mexico you can take a four hour drive starting in the High planes and drive through deserts, mountains, and wetlands. It was a fascinating place to grow up in, and luckily for me my parents took every opportunity to teach me new and wondrous things about the history and nature surrounding me.
However, eventually I grew older and wiser and learned a very important thing about New Mexico, all that diversity of nature I grew up being fascinated by wasn’t due to the biology which was just a symptom of a much more interesting aspect to the state, instead I learned better and learned that New Mexico is amazing due to its geology. So I am going to call my shots for future posts and provide some background info for the places I plan to write about as well.
First off is the Southern High Plains, which isn’t my favorite part of the state, as it is flat and flat and oh did I mention flat? But it is the specific place in New Mexico where I was born and raised, so it deserves some attention. The Southern High Plains are flat because they used to be crossed from west to east by meandering streams which lazily spread across the planes through Texas into the Gulf of Mexico, however their waters were pirated away by the faster Pecos River—on a side note you know it is going to be an awesome class when your professor starts talking about pirating water.
The High Plains now don’t have too much water, besides on the far western edge where that dastardly Pecos River still resides smugly taunting those he left destitute of water, and are mostly reliant on aquifers for the stuff (okay so even the parts of New Mexico with lakes and rivers rely on aquifers, the state’s drier then straight gin in a martini glass). I grew up drinking well water pulled up from the Ogallala Aquifer (at least for twelve years there was an interlude which we will talk about later); however, for a long time the discharge rates of the aquifer has far outstripped the recharge rate and the residents of the High Plane who think about such things fear very probable water shortages in the region’s future.
Sierra Blanca:
Luckily, I did not spend my entire childhood out where short grass prairie and desert mix and intermingle, but instead I spend most of my elementary school years on a VOLCANO! Okay, well a very dead volcano, but a volcano all the same. Unfortunately for me, though, I did not know this while I grew up there and I didn’t completely appreciate it until after I had been gone for far too long. However, it was here that I first read a book on plate tectonics and the whole reason I stumbled into geology was that I was trying to understand how I was living on a mountain in the middle of the continental crust far away from any plate boundaries. Also this was where we went on my first college geology field trip, so happy memories!
The first time I ever visited this site was during a field trip in Elementary school, and it was amazing; huge white dunes stretch across as far as the eye can see, and I could remember my child brain trying to reconcile the heat with the fact it looked like it had just snowed which wasn’t helped out by us trying to sled down the dunes—if you ever want an extremely effective illustration on static friction first go to Ruidoso in the winter and sled down a hill, then drive down to White Sands and try it there(actually do it the other way around unless you want to end your day on a downer).
There is a lot I could say about this area, but to understand why this area is so cool all you need to do is imagine me excitedly screaming “THE CRUST TRIED TO PULL ITSELF APART HERE!” and you get the gist.
Carlsbad Caverns:
When I was a child I loved bats, I don’t exactly remember why but I know the obsession I had about Chiroptera (which I actually memorized as a third grader) was greatly aided by the Caverns. If you have never seen a bat flight, I cannot highly recommend it enough. However, I recommend exploring a highly decorative cave like Carlsbad even more, the speleothems are amazing, and if you are healthy and wealthy enough you should walk in from the natural entrance and then take a guided tour to get a better appreciation for the beauty and grandeur of these caves. I still remember very vividly my second grade field trip down into the caverns and I’m pretty sure it had a huge effect on me growing up.
So there you go, five posts that I want to get out as soon as possible, and as I have several of them in some level of completion. I’m going to try to finish one every week to week and half from time that this post is published.
So I'm running really late on these, but I have the last two started, and I'll try to finish them soon.
So I'm running really late on these, but I have the last two started, and I'll try to finish them soon.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Geology Analogies
I tutor science for my school, and recently was able to add geology to my list of classes I tutor, which is amazing because now I get to be paid for talking about geology. So today I had my first client, and while explaining some concepts, I came up with two analogies. I thought they were pretty fun and useful, and the student lit up after I had finished as they had just grasped the subject; however, I was wondering if I could improve these analogies, or if I had overlooked anything. Please keep in mind, though, that this is an intro class aimed at non science majors
1. Bowen's reaction series:
This mostly deals with the continuous reaction series; I was attempting to explain why the heavier elements form minerals at higher temperatures. To do this, I linked minerals in a melt to children on a playground, and the heat is analogous to massive amounts of sugar fed to them. As they run around the playground, the bigger kids will collapse first and the lightest most energetic kids will be the last to collapse, with collapsing being analogous to coming out of solution.
2. Crystal Formation in Phaneritic and Aphaneritic rocks
In this analogy there are two sets of kids with a lot of Lego blocks in two separate rooms. The Lego blocks are analogous to the molecules in the melt, and the shapes they are built into are the crystal shapes of the minerals. The group in the first room isn't given much time and each kids quickly puts together very small geometric shapes. This is analogous to Aphaneritic rocks cooling on the surface. In the other room, the kids are given a lot of time to build their shapes, and instead combine the shapes each kid makes into much larger shapes. This is analogous to Phaneritic rocks.
So do these analogies make sense to you? Can they be improved? And if so, how?
1. Bowen's reaction series:
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| I forgot where I found this, but if you know please tell me and I will add proper credit. |
2. Crystal Formation in Phaneritic and Aphaneritic rocks
In this analogy there are two sets of kids with a lot of Lego blocks in two separate rooms. The Lego blocks are analogous to the molecules in the melt, and the shapes they are built into are the crystal shapes of the minerals. The group in the first room isn't given much time and each kids quickly puts together very small geometric shapes. This is analogous to Aphaneritic rocks cooling on the surface. In the other room, the kids are given a lot of time to build their shapes, and instead combine the shapes each kid makes into much larger shapes. This is analogous to Phaneritic rocks.
So do these analogies make sense to you? Can they be improved? And if so, how?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tour of the Lunar Lab
I don’t really remember when, but at some point last year I realized how different the geology of Mars, Venus, and the Moon are from our home planet, not just their lack of plate tectonics, but also the strange features and processes that seem to exist, separate from our own experiences. At the same time, I was researching graduate schools and trying to figure out what I would want to study when I got there. Lucky for me, somehow those three factors converged and I learned that it was possible to major in Planetary Science, so I changed my plans for the future, and decided to study the planets. Now I don’t know exactly what I will study, but there are enough unanswered questions to go around, so I’m not really worried, I just want to learn one of those questions.
With a new goal for the six plus years once I graduate, I started looking for opportunities to participate in real research, and while on a whim I started looking at possible NASA internships. While I do have faith in my own abilities, that faith does not extend to my resume because it was not that impressive when I started applying to different programs. I have never had any experience working in a scientific field and I go to a very small school that is not known for its STEM fields; however, I applied anyways, but I honestly didn’t expect to hear back from them. They did call back, first for an interview, and then I was emailed about a great opportunity during the summer. I worked with Crew Earth Observations, building a database of astronaut photography of volcanoes. So I spent this last summer in Houston, working a dream job.
Let me first say, if you are a STEM major and you do not have any opportunities on the table for next summer, look up NASA SOLAR and apply for something. NASA has set up a one stop shopping initiative for interns, thus you can fill out one application and apply for as many opportunities as you possibly can. It was a wonderful experience, and the Education office there does an amazing job to provide lectures and learning experiences beyond just what you worked on. However, by far my favorite opportunity was a suited up tour of the Lunar Sample Lab.
I had the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of the tools and processes used to examine and study extraterrestrial materials, and I was amazed by the thorough processes utilized to prevent contamination. First, we gave up our cameras so they could be sterilized, and then we went into the first room which we had to put booties on before we came in. Then we went through a series of rooms each time upping the amount of protection we had before we finally reached the lab. Each room is pressurized slightly more than the one before it, so any contaminants floating in the air would be blown out of the room when the door was opened. Once inside the Lab, everything was inside containment boxes, so a pair of thick rubber gloves provided even more protection to the samples. The most striking thing to me was the intense protection given to every sample. They are hermetically sealed to prevent contamination during storage, and the samples are not opened until they are safely sealed in one of the containment boxes, and only then could scientists examine them. In addition, every bit of every rock has to be kept track of, and unless the researcher has express permission to perform a destructive test, the weight of the sample at the beginning must match the weight of the sample at the end. The people who run the lab and gave us our tour were both highly professional and very friendly; at one point we had a conversion about mineralogy of the rocks and the processes that formed them. In addition, they explained that the unique processes on the surface of the moon (such as micro-meteorite impacts) cannot be duplicated in laboratories which led into a joke about the moon hoax people. If I could get an internship in that lab next summer I would jump on the opportunity in a heartbeat; it was an amazing opportunity.
And now pictures to prove I was there! (Really I was, I didn’t Photoshop any of them)
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| Hands on experience with a containment box |
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| Tools inside the containment box |
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| This is from memory, but I believe this is the Genesis Rock |
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| Observing the Genesis Rock under a microscope |
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| Basalt from the Moon |
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| Close up on another sample of basalt |
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| More Lunar basalt |
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| The black cube in the bottom right corner is used to show the original orientation of the sample on the Moon! |
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| Three Pieces of Lunar Basalt |
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| This is a station used to cut the samples |
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| If you can't tell, this tour made me excited |
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| Well I didn't use Photoshop, so technically I told the truth |
Monday, July 25, 2011
Five Reasons Geology Rocks
Today was a very frustrating day, I’m working with computer programs I am not familiar with at all and trying to do more with them then I feel capable of, in addition to that, my internship is up at the end of next week so I’m feeling the crunch to finish the last bit of my project. So in order to remind myself why I usually like to work in geology I decided to write myself a list of reasons why I love the earth sciences (this also has the additional benefit that it would give me answers when I am asked “Why do you study Geology?” besides my usual answer of “I like rocks!”)
1. Every rock tells a story (you just have to figure out what it is):
· If you have studied geology at all, you understand this and are probably fascinated by even the simplest stories rocks can tell: from coral reefs becoming beds of limestone, to lava flowing across the surface cooling into basalt, to the massive heat and pressure beneath the surface of the Earth which produces gneiss. All of these stories are fascinating; however, with more study the stories become even more interesting and subtle
· For example, my girlfriend and I were hiking in around the three extinct volcanoes near Albuquerque, and at the first peak we went to I noticed an obvious path for water to flow down and as I looked down the path I noticed that the rocks in the path were not all black like most of their brethren, instead their bottom quarters to halves were white. The rocks in the pathway of the water were being chemically weathered but only as far up as the water ran during the periodic flash floods. I wish I still had pictures from that day, but I’m not sure what happened to them, so I guess I’ll have to go back another time.
2. It is everywhere!
· Okay look down, well you are probably inside so imagine the ground under you, guess what that’s geology. Everywhere you go there is geology, even in boring flat places (like most of the places I’ve lived) have had some really interesting geologic events at some point, and if you read up on them before you drive through it, it will give you something to think about instead of slowing going insane due to boredom.
· In addition, nothing spices up a road trip like cursory identification of rock strata as you cruise through road cuts at 75 mph, especially if you are the driver (caution this will cause you to swerve into oncoming traffic). This is why I love the roadside geology book series, it really doesn’t get much better than driving across country and getting to see new geology as you do (and learning why it is there)
3. Thinking in geologic time
· I have a love hate relationship with this one while I think the concept is great and awe inspiring, but also it is hard to appreciate the time span of anything humans have ever done, empires last for hundreds of years while a geologic age is measured in millions of years, kind of screws up your appreciation for history. However, the idea of incredibly long processes slowing shaping and reshaping the landscape is a beautiful (and true) idea, some days I like to sit and look at different formations and think about the massive time it took for it to form (unless it is a volcanic formation usually those things didn’t take too long to form).
· Near Carlsbad, NM there is a part of Lincoln National Forest called Sitting Bull falls which is a spring fed waterfall. The spring comes up on sandstone and then comes into contact with limestone which was laid down during the Paleozoic, it is a beautiful example of differential erosion with the sandstone having barely eroded in that time, and the limestone having being cut away into a large hole around 50-60 feet below the coarser stuff up top.
4. People ask you questions
· I get asked a lot of random questions, from friends, family, and random people when I tell them I am a geology student, everything from “how do ocean waves work” to “what causes volcanoes” and a lot of other things. This is great since I love talking about science because 1. I like to hear the sound of my own voice and 2. Science is awesome and a lot of fun to talk about. Sure sometimes people try to trap you with questions about Global Climate Change and Evolution, but I welcome them, I have facts on my side, you just have crazy.
5. It is like a detective story
· I’ve always like detective stories, however, most thrillers and mysteries are pretty transparent to me now days, I think I just read and watched too many of the stories so I am too used to them now. However, trying to figure out what happened in the geologic history books (rocks and strata) is an intense mental exercise that requires you gather and then use every bit of information available for that area, and it is always incredible rewarding to finally understand how a feature formed and the consequences that holds for the area around it.
So those are my five favorite reasons to study geology, and honestly I think any one of them is a good reason to study it, and honestly I do feel a lot better now, sure some things might be frustrating when you first encounter them; however, the payoff once you overcome it is completely worth the effort in the first place.
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