2 weeks 5 days
Blog Posts Tagged "exp334"
How do we know?
We are at the first station and the research has begun. We are close to shore, about 10 miles from the land which in terms of the ocean is very very close to land. Isla del Cano is all we can see, other than blue water and blue skies.
What does it mean?
In school, students learn the basic facts of plate tectonics. They usually can tell you that there are something called plates that cover the Earth’s surface. They also know that when plates come together the interesting things happen. They may mention earthquakes and volcanoes. They might recall that subduction or convergence is when one plate moves under another.
How the Pacific got its name
The water has been so calm lately. A few little ripples and once in a while a wave that sorta moves the boat gently. Gary J. Huftile, a structural geologist from University of Technology Queensland, Australia, started telling me how the Pacific got his name. One of our scientists aboard the JR talks about how the Pacific got its name http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNj0z4nwmWQ I didn’t know this story. My family and I always joke that it is the specific ocean but I don’t know where that came from.
Word meanings
Living on a ship with people from all over the world means that language becomes a topic of conversation. The science party is made up of people living in the US, Japan, France, Germany, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, China, Korea and the UK (sorry if I’m forgetting anyone!). The ship crew has a large number of people from the Philippines. Sometimes we don’t understand each other because we don’t know the words to say, other times it is because the words have double meaning, and for me, it is sometimes because I think my brain just works a little bit different than everyone else.
Teaching with Models
On Friday I decided I needed something better than just my hands and voice to teach about subduction zones. Every Earth science teacher and researcher will use their hands to represent the plates. But my guess is that most people don’t really have a sense of what tectonic plates are. By using our hands we may not really be helping them understand. We may just be confusing them more.
What is a Core?
I’d seen pictures of cores. I’d seen the data and analysis of cores. But to see a core fresh from underground is very exciting. Everyone was out on deck watching the first core arrive. Mud, oh lovely mud. What color is it?
Time is Money
You’ve heard it, or maybe said it. Time is money. In scientific research drilling, time really is money.
Samping in the Chemistry Lab
Core on deck is the call to everyone that another tube of rock has been recovered from the seafloor. That’s when the fun begins. The core has many different paths it may take and some of it ends up as a hockey puck.
A different kind of Saturday
Today is a different kind of day on the JR than we’ve had in past 8 days. So the blog on sampling in the core lab will just have to wait.
My day began with a very gray and unspectacular sunrise. I got up 15 minutes earlier than my usual 5:00 am so I could actually see the sun peak above the land. Next time I think about skipping precious sleep time, I’ll check the weather report the night before.
Ladders (or stairs to us landlubbers)
On the first day at the ship, we stayed in port at the pier. I took some pictures of the JR while on the pier of angles that I knew I wouldn’t see while sailing. This spiral staircase leads up to an area where the drilling operations take place.
