tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40703297633575535402024-03-13T22:47:01.438-07:00Oberlin College Geomorphology Research GroupAmanda Schmidthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992641177359293415noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-61387620169365825092019-11-05T19:42:00.001-08:002019-11-05T19:42:42.553-08:00An Exciting China Project Update!<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It’s Sophie and Paige, working on the China Project. Sophie is a 4th year, Geology and Latin American Studies double major. Sophie just came back from studying abroad in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Paige is a 2nd year, double majoring in Geology and Environmental Studies. She spent the past summer working in the lab and preparing for her first conference! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We have been busy this semester in the lab; running samples, drafting our results, and attending conferences have kept us busy. With the addition of new gamma-spectrometers, allowing us to run four samples a day now, we have run almost 150 of our samples in the past few months. Consequently, we have started analyzing China samples and drafting our results. Paige spent long hours in the lab over the summer learning data analysis processes, so she was able to tie up some loose ends of the leached coarse-grained fractions. Sophie will be applying her GIS skills to analyze the watersheds of collection sites, which will be used in writing the radioisotope paper.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unleached fine-grained sediment fractions (top drawer) and leached coarse-grained fractions (bottom drawer) that were recently ran in the detectors.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Interesting salt growth on dried, neutralized leachates.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In September, Paige presented our work at the Geological Society of America Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. As this was her first time attending a conference, she said “it was very exciting to see the research process unfold and discuss my work with peers in a more professional setting.” She was able to network with other geoscientists from all over the country and see the first hand collaboration with other sciences in the geomorphology field. The most exciting part of her experience was talking with graduate programs and future employment opportunities, like the National Park Service, to understand the next steps she would need to take after Oberlin. She also got the chance to meet multiple Oberlin geo-alumni and our collaborators at the University of Vermont! Overall, her experience was overwhelmingly positive, and she looks forward to presenting updated research on the China samples next year in Montreal. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paige presenting the China poster at the GSA conference in Phoenix.</td></tr>
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Paige Monyakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03181716073269421893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-88599025188418631762019-11-05T16:50:00.004-08:002019-11-05T16:50:58.654-08:00Geomorph Family!!!! <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We work hard here in the Oberlin geomorphology lab but having fun is important as well!!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please enjoy this story by Liz, Ely (the creative directors behind this project) and Amelia. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our Stories: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harbin has been alone for so much of their life but is very happy to have found a full family this past year. Harbin, a graduate of Rutgers (class of ‘77) has had an on and off residency at Oberlin, taking breaks for frequent repair. The first to join, last summer was Quincy the oven. Quincy went to Earlham with a major in Pottery and has done research in places like Antarctica, the North Slope of Alaska, and off the coast of the Bahamas. It was a rough transition here, being an inanimate object and all, but it was love at first sight. Eventually, Quincy happily announced that they had TWO buns in the oven. However, the star crossed lovers were forced to be four floors away from each other after the births of their two children: Soufriere and Cienfuegos. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-e69e56b8-7fff-7c72-a89f-5dc821a5b555" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soufriere is often described as “Mad chill and is definitely a detector I would kick it with.” Graduated in 2003 from Ithaca College with a major in Social Justice Change and Peace & Conflict Studies with a minor in the stand-up Bass. The only mistake they have ever made was frosted tips (the junior year was tough). Their twin, Cienfuegos, believes themselves to be “too cool for school” and often refuses to work. An ‘03 ASU graduate with a major in Econ but is a proud member of ΔΒϕΩ and the Lacrosse team. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quincy became pregnant again but unfortunately fell ill due to rust from evaporated HCl (we don’t make this mistake any more). After a 13 month difficult pregnancy, out came 112lb baby Emeishan, a literal pile of lead bricks. While we love Emeishan with all our hearts, we can’t even touch them with our bare hands due to the possibility of lead poisoning. We are so happy with our full house!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quincy</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Long distance, loving parent</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cienfuegos</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, an airpod user</span></td></tr>
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Amelia Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00142926841627632087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-21688106248533203562019-11-05T08:58:00.002-08:002019-11-05T08:58:15.147-08:00Dominica Group is Making Progress! <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.68; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello All! </span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-ad9a8b3e-7fff-f39c-b077-3198ca845b71" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As hurricanes are a repetitive part of the erosional processes on the Caribean Islands, we have been interested to see whether a single mass wasting event could be seen in the spatial weathering patterns of the island. We compared the concentrations of fallout radionuclides before and after a single storm event, Hurricane Maria. Fallout radionuclides have different half-life time scales, from millions</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of years (Be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">10</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) to approximately 53 days (Be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">7</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). Due to this difference, some will show the influence of the storm and some will not. Our poster that we presented at GSA built on previous research and provided a context of Dominica. This poster showed the results of having an incredibly unique data set of before and after Hurricane Maria samples on the island of Dominica. Since Melinda Quock finished her part of the study on Beryllium</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">10</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, we had one full set of data to discuss at the conference and a set of beautiful figures. The preliminary Lead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">210</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Cesium</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">137</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and Beryllium</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">7</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are hoping to be finished within the year to compare to Melindas’s work. </span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.68; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is a current update on our results that we presented at GSA:</span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As part of this study, we did GIS analysis which is a mapping tool that allows us to gather high-resolution photos. We found that landslides post-Hurricane Maria tend to be smaller but in higher density around the island and occur at higher elevations. This also leads to the fairly intuitive conclusion that an increase in activity which deforests the island would lead to greater susceptibility to mass-wasting events in the future.</span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our main technique at Oberlin is Gamma spectroscopy. This is the part of the study that we are still really working but we do see preliminary data suggest low </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">137</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cs concentration that generally indicates frequent deep landslides.</span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Melinda’s work at UVM showed us that the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">10</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be is very important in the story of Dominica but is not influenced by the single storm event. We do not see systematic variability in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">10</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be measurements which suggest that large storms do not affect the long term erosion rates. We also found an interesting result between grain size and location. An increase of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">10</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: sub;">m</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">concentration seen in coarse-grain samples post-hurricane on the north side of the island indicated that shallow erosion and longer residence time occurred in the southern part of Dominica. Additionally, the lower </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">10</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: sub;">m</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> concentration in coarse-grain samples on the southern side suggests lots of gullying and deeply sourced sediment mixed in after the hurricane precipitation ended. Similar north-south trends are seen in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">10</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: sub;">m </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">concentrations in fine-grained sediment but are not as strongly correlated.</span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are really excited to keep up with this project and keep discovering fun new elements of Dominica. </span></div>
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- Liz, Ely and Amelia<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sO83wlooiik/XcGp4p26pTI/AAAAAAAAAt8/LjHeRFnBx5oGUUYbFuUbKztDIMFDBe_GQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0743.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sO83wlooiik/XcGp4p26pTI/AAAAAAAAAt8/LjHeRFnBx5oGUUYbFuUbKztDIMFDBe_GQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0743.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
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Emily, Paige and Amelia checked out the geology of Phoenix on a hike while at GSA!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iZEO7TzqFW0/XcGp_Txi8ZI/AAAAAAAAAuE/pjANuzv8GXEwUyQtNk4kDOQcnhM6a8ydACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0761.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iZEO7TzqFW0/XcGp_Txi8ZI/AAAAAAAAAuE/pjANuzv8GXEwUyQtNk4kDOQcnhM6a8ydACK4BGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0761.JPG" width="240" /></a><br />
Here is our very large Dominica poster!<br />
<br />Amelia Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00142926841627632087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-1248139138661598822019-11-04T19:59:00.002-08:002019-11-04T20:02:08.391-08:00Fall Semester Lab managing: Learning to babysit 4 temperamental Germanium Detectors <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hello adoring Geomorph Blog fans! </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3358217c-7fff-52be-7cd9-ecfe3d42a398" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is Monica, checking in with my main project for the semester which is lab managing for our Research Advisor, Amanda. While she’s gone in China, I’ve been taking on some of the on-site lab responsibilities, which mostly involves running meetings and keeping an eye on the lab equipment and spaces. This post is a behind the scenes look into running a lab, and will mostly give y’all a sense of some of the equipment behind the work that we do.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The largest change from past semesters to this semester is that we finally have all four of our Germanium detectors operational, largely thanks to some stellar technicians at Canberra. Our system is interesting because it was pieced together gradually, instead of being purchased all at once. Since a lot of our equipment was bought from labs around the country, it is in different models, shapes and sizes while all performing the same detecting task. I’ve definitely had some hilarious calls with the technicians where they have to pull out a special guide for the more “analog equipment”.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our HVP Supplies show the analog vs. digital charm:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DVb44lvotjQ/XcDv9C44GzI/AAAAAAAABCc/rfLpJRQyDrIrHzbHDxA-iz8hrfL-iX5GACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0194.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DVb44lvotjQ/XcDv9C44GzI/AAAAAAAABCc/rfLpJRQyDrIrHzbHDxA-iz8hrfL-iX5GACK4BGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0194.JPG" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our detectors are a combination of vertical dipstick and horizontal dipstick, which basically means that the long pole that is the detector either conducts measurements on a table with the end sticking into a dewar of Liquid Nitrogen below, or the dewar and the detector sit horizontally to one another. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Top: horizontal dipstick, Bottom: vertical dipstick</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The original detector, Harbin, has its own independent high voltage power supply and multi-channel analyzer, which I had largely taken for granted as very simple in my first three years in the lab. The other three use a system that is a combination of amplifiers, high voltage power supplies, and a multiport channel analyzer all in slightly different boxes that are pinned into one large box. While this system does involve needing to remember each of the unique high voltage power levels that apply to each detector, it is fantastic in that it breaks out in more detail the components that are needed to run each detector. The high voltage power supply is unique to the electronics of each detector and the amplifiers must be set to the exact setting where their analysis lines up with the peaks of the isotopic measurements that we are collecting. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Above: the components that supply the proper voltage for each detector are on the top of the array, with the bottom row amplifying and tuning the signals from the detectors for input into the 4-detector multiport.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Being able to see the components of the electronics broken out was enormously helpful in understanding the hardware required to take isotopic measurements, and the relationship between the tuning of the detectors and the results that we get afterward when we analyze the curves produced by each sample. At a time when we are running so many interesting projects and samples, knowing that the detectors are functioning efficiently is critical to our results, and I’m thankful to play a part in that!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stay tuned for more lab updates!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">-Monica</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Above: Soufriere and I have reached an understanding about troubleshooting some minor issues with her energy curves and agreed to be chill for now, further calibration on the horizon.</span></div>
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Monica Dixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02354581538973213280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-77501546506113393962019-11-04T19:39:00.000-08:002019-11-04T20:07:03.990-08:00Round 1/3 of answering: Has organic agriculture slowed erosion in Cuba?<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hello all! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s Monica and Emily, and we are excited to update you all on the latest presentation of data from our lab’s work in Cuba. After visiting Western Cuba to collect more new samples, we were thrilled to double back to share some of what we’re learned from our first set of samples, and what we’re eager to learn about our newest set that we’ve collected.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-507bc207-7fff-a7e3-6d1a-ad8e5b7a7741"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Above: Map of our August 2018 and July 2019 sample watersheds</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> To give you a refresher: After Cuba </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">transitioned to organic agriculture from sugarcane monoculture after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a country it presents a unique multi-decadal opportunity to assess the impacts that sustainable agricultural techniques have on erosion. A major part of our process has been collaborating internationally across multiple institutions to get a full picture of Cuba’s rivers including water quality and cosmogenic erosion rate sampling, and this data only represents the first of three field seasons in the project.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2a8a656b-7fff-512d-a3d4-30f691034c9f"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With our main question being what the effect of transitioning to organic agriculture had on Cuba, we sampled large (250-850 micron) and small grained (<63 micron) samples from 26 different catchments. With our central question focusing on land use, the variety of land uses depicted in A-I in this second figure show the intense variety in land use type. Another complication was the persistence of sugarcane-based monoculture in certain areas, which adds complexity to our results.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-1321bff6-7fff-51da-6c5f-1acfed6c41b8" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: 0pt solid #000000; display: inline-block; height: 296px; overflow: hidden; width: 443px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="page11image14912" height="296" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RhadLiDQG_LeVAfngCg5VVjwiRfGnhtO6ec1udsj0IBmJsFA13FfijlsQR-u6E9ldrFAi3iwfxWwOJA2lHvviUywv9aBMH08T4lFWAd_uVg26V3PifcTuifHuRDeFPbABTuDuQkF" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="443" /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Above: Sites labeled A-I show different sites in the 26 catchments that were sampled</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Below: Spatial Distribution of isotopic results for both fine and coarse-grained fractions</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 453px; overflow: hidden; width: 438px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img height="453" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/zmqszk37iljmIcc9W7xTCCzBDsOrRDSkx2UX15ie9YnCuoNsziILVtZZV9NU3cZfvEK4jmOle8tgqZ7-GxukYbVVFa-GdW-DyAVsyYKcppMVSajF-q6j0p5S2G4JojIYgkl9qM2-" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="438" /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Our results show some very interesting trends. When showing things from a spatial perspective above, we notice that there were diverse spatial patterns for each isotope. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">7</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be was higher in fine grained samples, but had no overall detectable spatial pattern, with few samples having detectable </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">7</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">137</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cs was detectable in about half of samples, coarse and fine grained activities were uncorrelated, and there were no spatial patterns. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">210</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pb</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: sub;">ex</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was detectable in about 60% of samples, with no spatial patterns or correlation between coarse and fine grained activity and the fine grained activity was higher.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-fa3c4ce9-7fff-a58e-f1ed-e4c9a2ed8642"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We considered instead that the relationship might be better understood through environmental factors, but ran into the issue that these factors often covary (ex: slope and % agricultural land use), so it was difficult to parse out correlation and causation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Below: Activity by different types of environmental factors</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2ff762e3-7fff-25b9-c0ff-fa973ad0d2d2"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 352px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img height="352" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-03WwlNTZeeAgsAj8O7gQ1nWeC-uDwabvgUnPCO4g9A0vdob9jNQgx_XKOKoDW5V1eUoHtIvO892VbOx14Plis76WXukY1IRJBtanWfeZrrVkWdu6k8jOuStsJ2_tanAiAvWlnqk" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Some of our findings from the above analysis were that elevation, slope, area, and agriculture may be directly related to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">210</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pb</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: sub;">ex </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">activity, but as mentioned above covariance complicates the analysis. Additionally, coarse-grained samples may provide more insight into causality due to higher variability in activity. Among the factors, we noticed that sites with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">7</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">137</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cs, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">210</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pb</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: sub;">ex </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have more agricultural land, lower slopes, sites with isotopes below detectable levels tend to have more rain, and sites with only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">210</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pb</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: sub;">ex </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have higher slopes and less agriculture than sites with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">137</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cs and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">210</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pb</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: sub;">ex.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: sub;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To continue with our work, we are excited to have not only rerun some of our samples that were below detectable levels, but also to have now run all the samples from our 2nd field season! As our third and final field season is in planning, we are excited to get moving on some data analysis to hopefully continue to draw more informed conclusions about erosional patterns in Cuba!</span></span></div>
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Monica Dixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02354581538973213280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-48125704945349853832019-03-31T19:57:00.002-07:002019-04-02T13:49:40.081-07:00Miscellaneous China Samples Update! <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello from Paige, Zoe H, and Zoë MDC!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The geomorph lab would like to welcome Zoe H. and Zoë MDC, who began working in the lab this spring semester! Zoe H is a second-year who worked in the lab over winter term. Zoë MDC is a first-year from Brooklyn, NY who is planning on majoring in biology on a pre-med track. Paige and Zoë MdC went on the “Parks and the Environment in Sichuan, China” winter term trip with Professor Amanda Schmidt.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the trip in Sichuan, we visited some of China’s national parks, nature reserves, and UNESCO world heritage sites. We learned about and engaged in aspects of ecotourism, resource management, and environmental ethics throughout many mountainous hikes and guided tours with a focus on geology, sociology and religion. We were able to collect about 20 water samples and 6 sediment samples from streams and tributaries (referred to as SC), and these are one of the sets of samples we have been working with this semester. The other set of samples from China that we have been working with so far are from Jinsha (referred to as JS).</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We are working with these samples to analyze fallout </span></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">nucleotides</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the soil which will tell us about the erosion rates within these areas and how/if erosion has changed over time. In the lab we have spent most of our time organizing samples, wet sieving the SC samples, and running the samples in detectors to measure Pb210 and Cs137 isotopes. For the rest of the semester, we plan to run all of the SC and JS samples of less than 63 micrometers in the detectors and analyze the data, then do the same for another set of China samples labeled YJ.</span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WJmpKjrL_ZQ/XKF8haXFunI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/zvfxduDbRC0gGWApRSFWQlSGVEEGx9RMwCLcBGAs/s1600/SCSampleCollection1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WJmpKjrL_ZQ/XKF8haXFunI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/zvfxduDbRC0gGWApRSFWQlSGVEEGx9RMwCLcBGAs/s320/SCSampleCollection1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">WT trip member Kayla collecting a sample in Sichuan</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paige helping collect a sample in Sichuan </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="239" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/pcBpqhFoVcmQHleKA60AIcRVfjVlGUTC4rzCHigamaIggs2mnus6hInCw6sKIrBx07yBokmMTCIL2HHioNLUT5fgpvwFMY4_Lnu2dSQoSRu_QmM-Uw1oKVqoO_w8nuymNOAWJVSI" style="border: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JS samples waiting to be ran in the detectors</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thank you for tuning in for our update!</span></span></div>
Paige Monyakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03181716073269421893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-68851599906412324622019-03-14T12:06:00.001-07:002019-03-14T12:06:58.666-07:00Winter term on campus<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-25896b76-7fff-7f1b-e63f-77445373c67c" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Hi from Zoe and Emily!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">We stayed on campus for winter term this January working in Amanda Schmidt’s research lab, so here’s a little update on what we were up to: </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">During the first week, we were lucky to be able to work with our lab mate Marcus Hill before he went abroad to London for his last semester here at Oberlin! This meant we were helping him on his Dominica project. We did a lot of smashing of dry leachate samples with a mortar and pestle which was a bit tedious but still very fun. After getting through a number of those, we measured and recorded their heights and weights. When we were not grinding leachate samples, we cleaned up our Geochem lab and also ran Cuba samples everyday through our trusty Gamma Ray detector, Harbin! </span><img height="297" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YaqtUSa61HjMDRhcNdDCIM490_mf7yrBUqvsi0yA39rjt0m_wYCv82Qbqmvh8oQSOtlZObwEyTMDyvGRa8RimnYarIzJ9ma6lP_8wnd5RMvWhL3oKbZFWsERl69imV_WEyE6M1YN" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="285" /></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">After Marcus left, we worked a bit on the Cuba project. Our lab collaborates with Oberlin alum Mae Kate as well as Professor Paul Bierman at UVM. They needed some 250-850</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">µm</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> samples sent over, so we ran them through Harbin, collected weights and heights, and Zoe worked on the angle calculations.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The rest of our time on campus consisted of autoclaving many China samples and putting them into new sample bags and new containers!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="403" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/hSuxW7O6Pg-h7Xd0kXKYAPHhBgVq94Ty4Vg38a14Ucs5InyaKgIbSy56-EQYftG7LNYkE3OqQ6VICbJUhtpvzyDlI-reQuhrMdINoBzi9GnqnR3Im4SqOYCn18GrtifDo3wz-zOO" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="256" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="242" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/fYZxASEEWXoPYAWYlV9VL1tnGBBRGa0KFgJG4UDwU69u-oh9CU4IwoGndDtn-U4-s7H0QKuNDUNpbmPhdu9KLcq56noljt5G0t3aIZBNm-FdPEt5dAMOfrArjmeK19qvPBMqDT93" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="349" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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Amanda Schmidthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992641177359293415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-74958583046890665622018-12-11T18:29:00.000-08:002018-12-12T08:55:42.296-08:00Ely and Amelia take on GSA and field work! <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BTMcE6R_QGI/XBBwKv4M4VI/AAAAAAAAAUA/kY7xP1UjNLMW_AbdM0JQpoWxbhxYA4FvgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/4fb40886-0ab4-498d-8f11-8e51eb7c7c45.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BTMcE6R_QGI/XBBwKv4M4VI/AAAAAAAAAUA/kY7xP1UjNLMW_AbdM0JQpoWxbhxYA4FvgCK4BGAYYCw/s320/4fb40886-0ab4-498d-8f11-8e51eb7c7c45.JPG" width="319" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marcus and Ely presenting on Dominica. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monica and Amelia presenting on Plum Creek Research.<br />
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Last time on the blog, we (Ely and Amelia) had just been to UVM working on XRF data. We then incorporated this data for our collaborative GSA posters! The conference was an exciting experience and we learned a lot from talking to other people in the field and attending sessions. We networked with Amanda's colleagues and took in the exhibits. We also had a great time riding electric scooters from the hotel to the conference center.<br />
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We have also been busy at work in the lab. We moved machine lab spaces and have been preparing to have 4 gamma spectrometers as opposed to 1 soon. We also have been doing lots of housekeeping as we will be doing a larger move in the summer. This means lots of sorting, cleaning and getting samples ready. We also autoclaved. An autoclave is essentially a large steam bath that reaches temperatures that sterilize the machine's contents. We use this on our samples to ensure no creepy crawlies made it back from the field.<br />
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Ely will be away in London next semester and Amelia will be working in the lab again next semester!<br />
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Amelia Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00142926841627632087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-64637793360094173422018-12-06T11:07:00.002-08:002018-12-06T11:07:39.855-08:00China Project Update<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Hey it’s Sophie, Alex, and Paige! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Sophie and Alex would like to welcome our new member of the lab Paige Monyak. She is a first year from Ohio interested in geology and environmental studies. She joined the geomorphology lab at the beginning of her first semester here at Oberlin and has been working on the China project. Over the 2019 Winter Term, she will be traveling to the Sichuan Province of China with a group of students and staff to visit various nature reserves and to have a more in depth understanding of the China project.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Sophie and Alex recently went to the Geological Society of America meeting in Indianapolis to present their research for the China project. It was so much fun to meet other people in the field, learn more about geomorphology, and contribute to a larger conversation surrounding the use of fallout radionuclides. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3kMlIODGzdQ/XAlwqfcyYfI/AAAAAAAAAA8/HBPfrEhN7ekftztKH2CtTNwP-YKldK5ngCEwYBhgL/s1600/AlexSophieGSA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3kMlIODGzdQ/XAlwqfcyYfI/AAAAAAAAAA8/HBPfrEhN7ekftztKH2CtTNwP-YKldK5ngCEwYBhgL/s320/AlexSophieGSA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sophie and Alex presenting at GSA</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Sophie and Alex have been showing Paige the ins and outs of the lab. This semester, the sediment samples were wet sieved to separate them into different grain fractions. The separated sediment (<63um) will be used to begin the leaching process! By using these smaller grain sizes, the grain size dependencies of 137Cs and 210Pb can be eliminated. The next steps will be to run the sieved samples in a detector, create a leachate, then rerun the leached samples in a detector.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Next semester, Alex and Sophie will be studying abroad in New Zealand and Bolivia respectively. Paige and an additional lab member will be taking over! We trust our grains with her :) </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NIlGr3sBajo/XAlw8oOMj7I/AAAAAAAAABE/XrV-BuG0VtwHDac0rURZdLpnxmjjHYZVwCEwYBhgL/s1600/ChinaPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NIlGr3sBajo/XAlw8oOMj7I/AAAAAAAAABE/XrV-BuG0VtwHDac0rURZdLpnxmjjHYZVwCEwYBhgL/s320/ChinaPic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sophie, Alex, and Paige in the lab</td></tr>
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Paige Monyakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03181716073269421893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-6138847202049675472018-10-23T12:26:00.002-07:002018-10-23T12:26:31.348-07:00Ely and Amelia are working on prepping samples for the XRF! <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello from Ely and Amelia! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve been hard at work getting samples ready for the XRF machine at UVM! We have been focused on the Puerto Rico and Dominica samples in the lab. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This meant that we spend a lot of time in the lab getting samples prepared. For me (Amelia), it was the first time I had worked with acid on leaching samples in the lab. Samples that had already been collected are brought to the lab and then the grain coating is separated from the grain using HCl. The grain coating of the grain has many of the FRN’s we are looking for, so seperating from the grain is an important first step. Then, due to the acid used in the process, the sample, both the grain coating and the grain, must be neutralized so it doesn’t destroy our brand new oven. This involved rinsing the grains completely with water to remove the acid and titration the acid/grain coating mixture with a base, NaOH. I found the process to be a lot of trial and error but am getting the hang of it! The samples were then dried in the oven and transferred to containers to be run! </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/9Ua-CSx_wpuwaXAol8ECeqFYsrmCavjQmWc1EKMjStkKSxoMH7lewH-m0BuUkYaryc3l42yT3uinnFGIG1Zp4KhF_9D8UQz3OLbvv1h-EN5eYGvz4rktER6vxrW9lLStfOfvsUl7" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a sample from a Puerto Rico watershed that has just been leached! The grain coating is the yellow sludge part!<br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/xTRqI6pcjYPiGYDmfjgqgXuxuOxSUO1igGq4fkErqCprcS4Sva6we0Bspwyds-Vn3CxU3ftGunSoZNGmADXpaUmVwJ2ddkRk8sRt1meObXyLremrfaNROYpIrUSCMEnGYM-bFX0b" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is our oven (named Quincy) full of drying samples. The white part on the beakers is neutralized salt from the titration and the the darker part is the grain coating. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While at UVM, we have been hard at working running samples through a machine called the XRF. Mae Kate, an ObieGeomorph alum, has been training us to prep and analyze the samples that we are planning on running. Preparing our samples to be run involves transferring them into small plastic containers. This can be a tedious process, as the openings on these containers are small, and our leachates are often very tough to break up. Thankfully, only a small amount (2-3 grams) of each sample is needed to obtain all the info we need. The XRF can give us the element composition of the samples, for example, we can find out that a particular samples contains 5% Fe. We can use this data to learn more about sediment transport and whether a sample has a typical composition. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="270" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/drFspVAeK7I4lTi20KnLBAP6JUChhS4kV5T4o9v95DOxwKtDzRPmMQ_mAWq9-Cwf5AcOPJ5djy_h1R90PSGSttUC6E4keSbj-oZpizBg2bNTz8PgctSNLdTMKpSBMSXa9huat7t0" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="303" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The samples are being transferred into smaller containers for the XRF by Monica (left) and Amelia (right)! Monica is also at UVM running the XRF! </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="239" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/c1rDedDy0WJJ3E8PlC5PCXG8ycOg_A3NpWswzc0J7DT4HasNGaIPlIAml9mIA4vc8YRiKjbRGsRP7zXidlrhwP43eF-jvMpQ4Vkl7Z5XdQ5x1MQjRJIpFoX-W0_jqpaYirmEqTXe" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is Ely running the XRF machine! </td></tr>
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<br />Amelia Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00142926841627632087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-28458804092394820212018-05-14T08:44:00.000-07:002018-05-14T08:44:01.979-07:00GIS; a learning process This semester I have been doing some GIS work for the Cuba project. One step in the project is to find all the gauge stations in Cuba by using different maps, satellite images and tables/graphs from papers. My first step was to download and order some of the declassified satellite images from USGS. With these as well as some maps that Mae Kate found in the UVM digital map archive, I was able to use a tool called rubber-sheeting to create more comprehensive and complete maps. To rubber sheet I took a shapefile of Cuba which included roads and used it as reference to geo-reference the road maps from UVM. I did a similar process with the declass images. However, they unfortunately did not cover as much surface area as was projected on the USGS site. I also used these images to start creating land cover data for the satellite images, which involves creating polygons for a group of pixels on the images and classifying them as either urban, pasture, forest or water. I wanted to create a specific LULC system but the images were not clear enough to distinguish between for example, residential and commercial infrastructure.<br />
This semester was truly an exploration in GIS (but this time, without a detailed description of the steps and process to create a certain map, which is what I had last semester in Amanda's class). I learned the wonders of Google, GIS forums and earned an even greater appreciation for the portfolio I made for Amanda's class (and my mom for the many times I FaceTimed her for advice). I'm now graduating but I hope to continue to do GIS work at some point in the future! Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-91816606638400461212018-05-13T15:58:00.003-07:002018-05-13T15:58:34.660-07:00Amelia Works on Plum Creek Samples <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello, this is Amelia Lewis! This was my first semester in the lab and I worked with Monica Dix on the Plum Creek Study. This study is looking at seasonable variability in the short-lived radionucleotides of the sediment in Plum Creek in Oberlin, OH by sampling 4 sites along Plum Creek with different upstream land uses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I learned a lot about lab techniques and sampling techniques this semester. I went on sampling rounds and collected sediment from the channel bed. I also learned how to process the samples. I worked on wet sieving to separate the clay from the rest of the sample, as the clay has the largest surface area and is therefore what is tested. I learned how to take parameters of the samples and run Harbin, the machine that tests for the radionucleotides. The Plum Creek study ended this spring, so the next step is to get all the samples run and start sorting through the data. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is one of the sites along Plum Creek that was sampled. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is another sample site along Plum Creek.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the class also taught by Amanda Schmidt, Earth Surface Processes, I am working on continuing an investigation of Plum Creek. My final project for the class that I am working on with another research student, Sophie Maffie is re-surveying the locations for the Plum Creek study that were taken Spring 2017 and looking for changes between the locations over time. We also put in re-bar into the channel banks and the thalweg, or the fastest moving part of the river, in order to test if the river is incising and will measure the rates in the future. This data combined with the Plum Creek sediment samples will provide a good idea of what sorts of processes are occurring in this area. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve really enjoyed working in the lab this semester and am excited to continue next year! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks to everyone in the lab for a great semester! </td></tr>
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Amelia Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00142926841627632087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-35201047100313058152018-05-11T12:11:00.004-07:002018-05-11T12:11:55.136-07:00Hi Everybody!<br />
This is Ely Bordt and Josh Biales! This semester our objective was to determine mineral compositions of Sichuan Basin clay samples collected in 2015. We are hoping to see if these minerals are consistent with those found in prehistoric lake beds. In order to determine these compositions, we performed X-Ray Diffraction Analysis on 10 samples to obtain diffractograms of various peaks that may provide insight as to what the mineral makeup of these clays are.<br />
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Having ran our samples in the XRD which produces these diffractograms, we then had to somehow decipher what compositions the peaks indicate. To do this, we analysed each diffractogram using PDXL, a software that produces a list of prospective minerals that our clays could contain, ranking them from best match to worst. An example of a diffractogram that was run through PDXL can be seen in figure 1.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2SnJIfQ1JyA/WvXhimVjSZI/AAAAAAAAAHE/_GL96b784wc_0KGovCaIrV5VPldGAtEtQCLcBGAs/s1600/YJ-011A.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1600" height="250" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2SnJIfQ1JyA/WvXhimVjSZI/AAAAAAAAAHE/_GL96b784wc_0KGovCaIrV5VPldGAtEtQCLcBGAs/s400/YJ-011A.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 1: A diffractogram for sample YJ-011 that was analysed using PDXL. <br />The top 3 best-fit minerals are listed in the right-middle box.</td></tr>
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PDXL produces a list of the best fit minerals that is likely to make up our sample: SiO2 (quartz low), LiD (Lithium Deuteride), and Fe6Si4O10(OH)8 (Greenalite). Because we cannot say that PDXL is 100% accurate, we run the diffractogram again using another program called Match!* 3. By running the plot through this second program, we can double check if PDXL is producing accurate results. The output from our Match!* 3 analysis can be seen in figure 2. Notice that the top best fit mineral is once again SiO2 (quartz low).<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 2 shows the best-fit minerals for YJ-011. <br />The percent match is displayed on the right of the bottom panel in green. </td></tr>
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Having run our sample through both PDXL and Match!* 3, we can use the Open Crystallography Database to obtain .CIF files for our best fit mineral. CIF files are ideal diffractograms for pure minerals. We can search for our minerals (for example, quartz low) in the Open Crystallography Database, obtain its CIF, and overlay it on top of our sample's diffractogram. If the minerals produced by PDXL and Match!* 3 are in fact in our clay, then their CIF should lie neatly on top of our diffractogram.<br /><div>
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The program used to overlay our minerals' CIFs is MAUD. MAUD is able to take our minerals' diffractograms, adjust them on top of our own sample, and depending on how much adjustment was needed, produce percent compositions for our sample. After importing the CIFs for Quartz Low, Lithium Deuteride, and Greenerite, the final diffractogram can be seen in figure 3.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue1ncfs5ZcE/WvXmMdeTUAI/AAAAAAAAAHc/dY0qKAikmkUqSDXuSwFtxCnMskAtgdRwACLcBGAs/s1600/mauud.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="1600" height="275" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue1ncfs5ZcE/WvXmMdeTUAI/AAAAAAAAAHc/dY0qKAikmkUqSDXuSwFtxCnMskAtgdRwACLcBGAs/s400/mauud.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 3 shows our 3 best fit minerals (red peaks) overlaid on top <br />of our sample (black peaks). </td></tr>
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The CIFs matched up amazingly well for YJ-011, and for each of our other 9 samples. For YJ-011 in particular, the percent compositions as indicated by MAUD are 16.7% Quartz Low, 82% Lithium Deuteride, and 0.55% Greenerite. </div>
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Of course, these values are not completely accurate. Since we are dealing with clays, there are likely immeasurable amounts of trace minerals among the material. However, based on the consistency between our samples, getting some amount of Quartz low and Lithium Deuteride for most if not all of them, we are confident that we are headed in the right direction in terms of determining the compositions of our clays.<br /><br />At this point, we still need to take our findings and cross reference them with minerals that are commonly found in prehistoric lakes.<br />
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Over the course of the semester, we learned a great deal about how to obtain data from the XRD and analyze it using various software. Perhaps we could take what we learned about the analyze portion, and apply this to the Dominica samples that we tried XRDing in the fall.<br />
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We can proudly say that we are leaving this semester with new-found skills in compositional analysis.<br />
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Thanks and happy geomorphologing!<br />
Ely and Josh </div>
Ely Bordthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298997877205998190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-31976881065787156712018-05-09T11:56:00.000-07:002018-05-09T11:59:27.094-07:00Smaff and Syd take the Geo Chem LabHi all,<br />
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Sydney Garvis here, with my lab partner Sophie Maffie! It is my second semester in the lab and Sophie's first!<br />
This was a semester of organization, an underrated aspect of lab work. We consolidated a lot of different spreadsheets into one, a full data collection and inventory spreadsheet! Riveting stuff, really.<br />
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Sophie was an eager student and picked up all our lab procedures quickly. We were able to leach and neutralize several samples that were collected in 2013, during Amanda's first field season for this project in China. (The Harlem Shake viral video trend was at its peak in 2013!) We learned the art of wet sieving from other lab mates, and have many CH samples ready to be processed.<br />
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We've learned a lot this semester by reading literature and discussing papers that have been published about the type of lab work we're doing. I also have been mentoring Sophie to set her up for a productive and successful season working in the lab over the summer!<br />
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I've really enjoyed my time working in the lab, with Gabe and Gabriel last semester, and "Smaff" this semester. I'll be graduating at the end of May and for the next two years I'll be in Indonesia teaching English through the Shansi fellowship.<br />
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Sophie and Syd in the lab with our bags of dirt!!</div>
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-13359758933810253152018-02-05T07:04:00.000-08:002018-02-05T07:04:26.660-08:00Dominica, Post Hurricane Maria<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It has been a very adventurous, very busy, and
very exciting month for me. My name is Melinda and I’m an undergraduate from
the University of Vermont where I work in the Cosmogenic Nuclide Laboratory.
How did I end up in Dominica? Here’s a little story:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In the fall semester, I was working on
improving the methodology of extracting Beryllium-10 from olivine. Acid
dissolution had some complications, so my research advisor, Paul Bierman,
suggested flux fusion. However, we flux in a batch of 16 (where one is a
blank), so 14 Dominica samples (pre-Maria) were added to this batch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Soon after the world entered 2018, I received this
fabulous opportunity to collect samples at the rivers in Dominica for
post-Hurricane Maria data (thank you Amanda and Paul!). Fun fact: I love
looking at extreme weather events and have a small dream to chase storms like
the tornado chasers in the movie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twister</i>.
In this two-week notice I had to prep for my first trip ever out of the
country. I started my journey solo to Barbados at 5:30am. Waiting for the
Oberlin fellows, I was able to see sea turtles, crystal blue waters, and be on
an insane taxi ride (I’m originally from NYC so these taxis were a new rush). Only
at almost midnight is when I met the other 3/4<sup>ths </sup>of the field team
– Amanda, Marcus, and Ely (who I have never met until then). The next day, we
headed to Dominica.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Wow” is the one word I decided on to describe
the good, the bad, and the ugly. In the hot, humid 80-degree weather with
random rainstorms (which we were fortunately in the car or sheltered for the
most part) we sieved at about 7-10 sample locations per day. How much I wished
I saw pre-hurricane Dominica instead of having to just hear about the vast
differences in landscape! There were many landslides and many rivers we sampled
at carved a new channel and/or increased in discharge. The views were great,
roads were cleared of debris (even though we got lost a few times), the rivers
kept us cool, and chicken never failed us as a food.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the place we stayed at where we had to walk through a river .</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the Morne Trois Pitons National Park, this trail was covered by fallen trees. However, they have made great progress in cleaning up.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emerald Pool in the national park.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">During the last night of late night packing
and organizing, I took a small portion of the samples that I needed – the ones
that matched the sample locations and grain sizes of the pre-hurricane samples
I used. Once I returned to Vermont, I went straight to work on extracting
meteoric Be-10 in 2 weeks (in order for my samples to be analyzed on time).
Fortunately, I don’t need very much of each sample, but I had to dry, sieve a
few samples, and powder everything before I could flux. Between classes and
work, I was (and still am) in the lab working on extracting Be-10 and drying
them to pellets. Very soon, my samples pre- and post- Maria will be sent to the
accelerator mass spectrometer in Livermore, California to be analyzed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It has been a whirlwind from initially working
with olivine to now working with Dominica samples, which I will be
incorporating into my honors thesis. The beryllium isotope data I will receive
will help understand sediment movement and erosion rates on Dominica. It will
also be super exciting to compare the isotopes pre- and post-Maria!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">One more fun fact: sieves caused a lot of
trouble through security in my carry-on than the sand samples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tvbJ071n5WU/Wnht-wcvbTI/AAAAAAAAABI/wp_Nj3YV5-YocsAjIgsV3haIrxPZa9ElQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_4654.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tvbJ071n5WU/Wnht-wcvbTI/AAAAAAAAABI/wp_Nj3YV5-YocsAjIgsV3haIrxPZa9ElQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_4654.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sneak peak of the meteoric lab and the flux fusion method used. The crucibles hold the sample and the addition of KHF2 and NaSO4 lower the melting point such that the sample can be fluxed.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Here’s to great opportunities and meeting new
people~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Melinda<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13695871214140594899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-19502778006765141862018-02-03T19:10:00.000-08:002018-02-03T19:16:58.921-08:00Dominica Round 2<br />
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Hello Everyone, <o:p></o:p></div>
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Marcus here, and this will be my recounting of another eventful winter-term project. As mentioned in Ely’s post, we went back to Dominica
for post hurricane Maria sampling. In preparation for the trip I worked on
mapping any visible landslides from satellite imagery available after the storm. I was able to
spot well over 500 in the regions of the island that weren’t covered in
clouds. Im sure if I had clearer pictures I’d be able to find another 500. The
good news was that they seemed to be mostly small, not affecting huge swaths of
land. The bad news was that even though landslides
didn’t move that much earth, the island still was catastrophically affected. As
I was searching for anywhere which could’ve been hit by a mass-wasting event I
noticed large areas of bare and downed trees. I didn’t really know what to make
of that, but I figured it was important and marked it down anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y6qGZEC2O_w/WnZ31pS7tEI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/Yxg6q18LVNQUxwJbGrgkbZPlbKPPclUrQCLcBGAs/s1600/island.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="590" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y6qGZEC2O_w/WnZ31pS7tEI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/Yxg6q18LVNQUxwJbGrgkbZPlbKPPclUrQCLcBGAs/s640/island.PNG" width="476" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dark brown regions indicate lots of downed/bare trees while the red/black dots & points are landslides. Much of the eastern portion of the island satellite imagery was blocked by clouds.</td></tr>
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Going back was truly a wild experience from start to finish, especially because
we didn’t know if it was happening until December, and even still, nothing was
set in stone until almost two weeks before we left! Obviously, its very hard to
complain about leaving the oh-so-warm Ohio January for an island in the Caribbean,
but this wasn’t just a vacation. We were working. Hard. The trip started with us
leaving for the Cleveland airport at 4:30AM on Thursday, Jan 18<sup>th</sup>,
and ended with us returning at midnight, Friday, Jan 26<sup>th</sup>. There was tons to do everyday, the first three days were dedicated to sampling. We had 31 unique locations to go to all across the island, and from each we wanted around 3-4kg's of sand. Our final day was spent organizing the mess and preparing it for the four flights home. Have you ever checked 350lbs worth of '''<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">soil</span></i>''' through three different customs offices? Its an exciting time for all parties involved.<br />
<br />
The trip itself was very bittersweet. On one hand, it was amazing to be able to go back<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">—</span>this information is
really unique in that we rarely ever have the before data for serious natural disasters. On the other hand, just seeing what the storm did to the island was breath-taking in every
sense of the word.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nfJtsQqXVLI/WnZwdOdsV4I/AAAAAAAAA08/y0wIsr-7uq8SotSN_C75nPk9K6RbUSJugCLcBGAs/s1600/traf1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1270" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nfJtsQqXVLI/WnZwdOdsV4I/AAAAAAAAA08/y0wIsr-7uq8SotSN_C75nPk9K6RbUSJugCLcBGAs/s640/traf1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Before After<br />
<br />
Both sets of photos are
from one of the main natural attractions on the island, Trafalgar falls. I really
can’t describe what being there in person was like after being
there over the summer, it was surreal. I’d seen pictures right after the storm on Facebook, but
the gravity of the situation really just isn't the same unless you’re there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fawvNE6sHHY/WnZw547BuKI/AAAAAAAAA1E/yXKM3_qF1gIatqE2Vz4UbMk6bDIaA0kRwCLcBGAs/s1600/dm5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="1266" height="224" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fawvNE6sHHY/WnZw547BuKI/AAAAAAAAA1E/yXKM3_qF1gIatqE2Vz4UbMk6bDIaA0kRwCLcBGAs/s640/dm5.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After the storm, 2018 on the left - Before the storm, 2017 on the right. (its wrong, i know, i know)</td></tr>
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This is another sample site, the pictures are harder to
compare but that’s largely because the shape of the channel evolved so much after
the storm. As seen in the before picture, the water is very shallow and easily
navigable. To go to that same spot in the after picture would’ve put me in over
my head. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And scenes like this were common in most of the streams we
sampled. It was a complete 180 from what we observed over the summer. Being there in person really put into perspective what I was seeing from the satellite imagery, and the magnitude of the hurricane. These trees didn't look anything like those that I saw over the summer, instead they were like something out of <i>Horton Hears a Who.</i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Autks9iPZ8M/WnZw62ljmcI/AAAAAAAAA1I/H57SMbAj1vQQvcRKpvr0kR7HUEtrWaO7wCLcBGAs/s1600/dm2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1144" height="468" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Autks9iPZ8M/WnZw62ljmcI/AAAAAAAAA1I/H57SMbAj1vQQvcRKpvr0kR7HUEtrWaO7wCLcBGAs/s640/dm2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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And then there was the toll on buildings..<o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kkh6JFTdUSY/WnZxzlv580I/AAAAAAAAA1g/T2mtpezryHUxpouBRddsy5GQU5XH2fhrwCLcBGAs/s1600/springfield.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="1012" height="498" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kkh6JFTdUSY/WnZxzlv580I/AAAAAAAAA1g/T2mtpezryHUxpouBRddsy5GQU5XH2fhrwCLcBGAs/s640/springfield.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The location where the KECK group stayed at over the summer.</td></tr>
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But overall, it was a successful trip, it was and still is one
of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. We stayed at a variety of places
across the island and had the luxury of waking up to views like these.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Which makes it that much easier to spend the whole day
collecting sand. In total, we wrangled almost 400lbs of wet sediment from 20+
different rivers and streams across the island. We are hoping to use the
gammaspec in the lab to understand how these water systems are sourcing material
across the island. Now that we have two sets of data, we are also trying to
understand what a massive storm like Hurricane Maria does to erosion in general on the island. This
specific question will be one of the primary focuses of my honors project. I
think another big portion will be a comparative analysis of before-and-after’s for
the locations we sampled. As I showed in those initial pictures, so much has changed.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Since we’ve been back Ely and I have had the enormous task
of preparing the samples to be analyzed. That means moving every particle of
sand from the bag we packed it in into another bag to be autoclaved (a fancy
way of sterilizing it) and then dried again. Luckily, we don’t need to dry all
of it, just enough for us to keep here, and we can ship the rest of the wet
stuff to Melinda at the University of Vermont. We also had some issues with
sample collection in the field that we figured we could take care in the lab,
so there’s been a fair amount of sieving going on in the Oberlin College Geology
department. It was such a fun activity to do for 3 straight days in Dominica
that I’m glad we get to do it here too!!! In all honesty, it wasn’t bad; it’s a
pretty monotonous task but it goes by fairly quickly. Now that we’ve got what we need all of the samples
have been repacked and will soon be en route to Vermont. The last thing to do
is tidy up the lab before everyone else arrives and sees the mess Ely and I
have made of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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As the data is time locked behind 24-hr run cycles through our
gamma-spectrometer it’ll be somewhat slow going at first, but I hope to see
some initial results within the next couple weeks. I’d like to try and post
updates to this blog more consistently in the coming two semesters, as a way to
track my progress as well as keeping me on track, with Amanda’s approval of course.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ve also been working with Jason Williams and his STEM
based initiative, Get With the Program, more and more recently, but as this
post is already so long I’ll post some updates for that in a little while.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Until next time,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Marcus<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u1IKgNdDo_g/WnZyPD72H4I/AAAAAAAAA1s/VvruBGNL4X0HrFThGVrVUNRFunS3y-lnQCLcBGAs/s1600/river.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1063" height="514" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u1IKgNdDo_g/WnZyPD72H4I/AAAAAAAAA1s/VvruBGNL4X0HrFThGVrVUNRFunS3y-lnQCLcBGAs/s640/river.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also just a fun picture of the trail to one of our bed-n-breakfast locations. We had to cross a knee-deep river by headlamp light in the pitch black. It wasn't too dangerous or anything, there was a safety rope if we needed it.</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-50849141480610602572018-02-03T05:46:00.003-08:002018-02-03T05:46:30.063-08:00Winter Term Recap<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Hi, This is Ely,</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-866c5195-5be7-875d-1879-e1e03bcac8fe" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I wrote on the blog earlier this fall, talking about the beginning of my journey as a research assistant in the geomorph lab. I’ve been working with Marcus on his Dominica KECK research project. Over the summer, Marcus was able to travel to Dominica in order to collect river sediment samples. Since the start of fall, I’ve been helping Marcus with running these samples in HARBIN and the XRD. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">After Hurricane Maria hit the Caribbean, Amanda noticed that we had the rare opportunity to collect post-hurricane sediment samples from the same locations that they were collected in the summer, before the hurricane. We set a date to head back to the island during winter-term.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Before leaving for Dominica, I spent time looking into software that would better allow us to identify the composition of our samples from the data the XRD provided. Up until now, we’ve been trying to do this using d-spacing charts and sifting through extensive lists of elements and minerals hoping for a match. However, the software we are using should supposedly do this for us in a matter of seconds. The programs we are using are Match! 3 and MAUD. Match! 3 is what we use to identify likely minerals within our samples. It looks through an index of thousands of known minerals and their XRD data sets, trying to fit each one to ours. One issue is that our samples are mixtures of many different minerals, and Match! 3 tries to fit a single mineral to our entire XRD data set. We can combat this by taking many minerals off of Match! 3’s candidate list, as well as data for minerals that make sense with the geological history of Dominica. We throw all of these into MAUD, which makes a custom diffractogram using Rietfveld refinement. It’s really a process of trial and error, adding in likely minerals, and removing them if MAUD can fit them onto our sample data.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="263" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/VlPUpmv0AXMWcVz-TGP_LS1h87N9IHyQ_I_6_7LpRaIL3_aYInekHxImenPsANy5VW_S6jUyobQjjrL0W9os7n5V3wC1Fy2--wS0oUKcXyBy82xldPOyQIwASvQlf8ZOmL01qEqD" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="406" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div dir="ltr" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using Match! 3 to analyse DM-6.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In order to take a break from working in the lab, Monica Dix (a fellow lab mate) and I toured the perimeter of Lake Erie. We headed east to Detroit, the through Windsor, ON, and drove all the way to Niagara Falls before heading back to Oberlin. Along the way, we tried stopping at as many tourist spots as we could, including a Lake Erie history museum in Detroit, lighthouses, the Great Lakes history museum in Cleveland, and of course, Niagara falls. This was a great road trip, as I was able to see parts of the lake that I never had before, and despite it being winter, the views were spectacular. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><img height="241" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/cpig_ta0gk8gDDXWPxKF_VVeIT_gBM3CQiE_-VXLmjaBMICN1tUnb8ZKSyQR2s4nw3f3o6r3fM3uVTehc2nBsyPjXmDf8bXmPt5y8jm2jI8I5v_A9d7YZZJPFEbffE4t9iiZMiNh" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /><img height="298" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/wqvhlFsKSg1CPEOUdU8vVKOoIUDMkERx3TJp9yytgXIrPJm4vBbR-w7eo2OzfFH5QKRl_cHq2tf-PUjnMnw1OS7_yrdFzmUnTyznGMuN5SoDYh_TntvwPI4fnyJcx4fJ_rQ_88pR" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="303" /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Before too long, it was time to leave for Dominica. Amanda, Marcus and I were joined by Malinda Quock from UVM. Day 1 on the island consisted mainly of flying in from Barbados and searching for our Airbnb. The home we were staying at had a beautiful view of Dominica’s capital, Roseau. After settling in, we were able to get in one sample site.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="300" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-iBWK_3xk8DSAZumqsqy0LiqmUCwNm9Ec_TecJNj0M90p26sApscft6BCbukAioB7N67jzmeYXNwfCRqyEQ8SEH3JO9tBZ9kIWWLQwvC4yO5uJl2CGsODvj5RBDuwXDo8rSRVJVa" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View over Roseau,</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="346" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/4Usg831HOXM1_p7y9c1KGVOUAh26OYl-zFDh439tbS7x05putuV_HwM5ETnTAa9bVcsGLqMwGnKIzoY6bHKNqnv3HsvkiEoYbMWFrr2zlCAGeOGehYJk6HFhCCdlG4TtpJ0gI0b-" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> A mother-son pair of dogs that hung out on the property we were staying at,</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="262" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/m09u8mrjW5iM0MfsDnobY8YWS1MVWdEMKNAXzgvJFC8Dr_bYWnBM94-S8l9h4RhYN_QGSlBAjhlB98FTqkklOgPUMnYE7IadPMuKP_K9y10EXDhEp_WmYSyRENwGVA855BQNST_O" style="border: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="350" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Image 3: the view from our first sample site</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The following days were spent rushing from sample to sample trying to get as many in as possible before sunset. Marcus and Amanda provided interesting commentary for each site, remembering what they looked like during the summer, prior to the damage inflicted by the hurricane. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Caption: One of our sites was clogged by woody debris most likely as the result of Hurricane Maria.</span></div>
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<img height="249" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/ecH4BT5fQJnM5LWulf00YeNLvY3G7_U-E4UsYbi4vqPQtVNSUsTkkC-gZIYSynQrhxQ_MCFQgyPg2kFSUm2XEngogGhnhuWUJ4CeHV4XY4qlFsqv77VnYU56AyjMee1bFkkXFa30" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="331" /><img height="320" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/kKHfYxEu5NQqjYJHMg1nTzaWNj3SsdfED2F66zKUx2nqQbTPXikrkog0E9vofBFaO3w3Wc6ICsWaXXmMQPW6cVcFIU2qdOW0NVufgFePbE_Ie8XA3nimR-sMoQoFm15g90Z9n4Z7" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="239" /></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><br /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Caption: One of our more beautiful sites was Trafalgar Falls</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">When heading back home, we had to connect to Fort Lauderdale through Barbados, which meant a day full of crystalline beaches. Our Airbnb host, John, was very hospitable while we stayed with him and gave us a tour of Barbados. We had some delicious coconuts, and I swam in an ocean for the first time. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><img height="226" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5AiiZXkneMP7IOSIKRKe72pEod0mpyzXDv51z0cOF775LzOkSr4LoXRDO3sOD3cLEOl33SgNXbKI_4YJDx_M4zvffphJE4ZG9XLIHAWA3uvKw2D_yolRhyj4lxM3YBym6WGZ3PuX" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /><img height="235" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/VkH73iaA8Earc8YVM4zFuWPP1bxll7slzLAUxcUwJhV2MnUnwr3r9LlUg7uaw-sQRwugmqu5kYpYEDIGDVsDnujVG6EkoAaDxfMxbqyXfXH4lpIGLC1Z3LHsFxGqdTK2claakmzk" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Now that we’re back on campus, Marcus and I have been sorting and sieving the samples we didn’t quite get to while out in the field. We are preparing some for leaching, and some will be shipped to Malinda at UVM. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">As for the future, I will unfortunately be unable to continue working with Marcus as he begins working on his honors project. I will instead be working with Josh XRDing China samples Amanda had collected a few years ago. I hope to increase my abilities in understanding how to interpret XRD data, as I am dead set on become fluent when it comes using XRD-analysis software. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I am truly grateful for the opportunity to go to the Caribbean and assist Marcus with his KECK research. I look forward to what adventures will open up for me in the future. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Thanks for reading!</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Ely</span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-79327788975534895972018-01-16T08:24:00.001-08:002018-01-16T08:24:13.921-08:00Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr Day with the Sciences<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
While
classes may have been canceled yesterday to honor the life and work of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr, 29 students from the Oberlin area were keeping their
minds sharp at a workshop hosted by <i><a href="http://www.gwtp.us/#about">Get With the Program</a></i>. This organization,
founded by Obie alum Jason Williams, engages elementary school kids in fun STEM
themed events regularly. The programs
goal is to get kids involved with STEM concepts early, encouraging their
excitement and curiosity about these subjects before they can become scary or
overwhelming. Each event has a different focus; in the fall there was a petting
zoo teaching the kids to about zoology and the classification of farm animals, yesterday
the kids were able to learn about Crypto-currencies and the next event in February
will be focused on neuroscience! <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D6OgkWp2UzQ/Wl4lK-9uAII/AAAAAAAAAzc/yRNGJfrXWasM_XdE99RgvE76sVcLPO7tQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/GWTP.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D6OgkWp2UzQ/Wl4lK-9uAII/AAAAAAAAAzc/yRNGJfrXWasM_XdE99RgvE76sVcLPO7tQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/GWTP.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from the petting-zoo in early Septemeber</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The
day started at 9:45AM, with the first hour and half or so being focused on
getting to know each other. Most of the kids had come to some events before,
but were also new faces and introductions to be made! After some intense rounds
of heads-up seven-up and a Simon says-charades combination game, we had our
first introduction to crypto-currencies. The “<i>watered down”</i> explanation of computers solving complex math
problems to encode and decode keys, which then have to be checked against a
decentralized nodal-network still mostly goes over my head. After that we introduced
them to one more: STEMCoins. Every student was handed their own paper-wallet
with a unique QR-code inside, letting us add those coins to a student’s balance
if they answered questions or helped others throughout the day. I’m not sure
how much these 3<sup>rd</sup> graders fully understood, but they loved getting
to do their own code-breaking. We showed them the “Pigpen” cypher, where every
letter is turned into a combination of lines and dots, and had them decode a
series of messages on the board. It was a great way to get them thinking, and
they were so excited to create their own encrypted messages.<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hYOyKwdhDJk/Wl4lVnClhKI/AAAAAAAAAzk/sY-xqL0mDjMoU9vTz4HOCWbHhGd57wm3ACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/orange%2Bteam.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hYOyKwdhDJk/Wl4lVnClhKI/AAAAAAAAAzk/sY-xqL0mDjMoU9vTz4HOCWbHhGd57wm3ACK4BGAYYCw/s400/orange%2Bteam.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Investigating what might be in the beakers!</td></tr>
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After
that we had a lunch break at the lovely Stevenson dining hall before starting
the second part of the day. Freshly fueled with healthy dose of pizza and ice
cream, the kids began their adventures around the science center. All the kids
were broken into four groups and two of them began a scavenger hunt while the other
two competed in a relay race. The teams
that completed each event the fastest were awarded the most STEM coins. The pairs of teams then swapped roles after each finished, allowing everyone to participate in all of the activities. At the
end of the day we scanned in everyone’s QR code one more time and opened up the
STEM-Store, a place for them to spend their hard earned coins. Prizes included
extremely fashionable slap-on wristbands, XL T-shirts, and some wacky LED
Sunglasses. Overall, it was a pretty fun day, and a great way to get children
thinking about math and science in a fun and engaging way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Marcus</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XOzQ5ttYe-A/Wl4lkFs63yI/AAAAAAAAAz0/BnR0WQcH3PQxgIw9HY81v9_dajANNAvIgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/STEM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XOzQ5ttYe-A/Wl4lkFs63yI/AAAAAAAAAz0/BnR0WQcH3PQxgIw9HY81v9_dajANNAvIgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/STEM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proudly showing off the folders that they decorated to remember the day</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AqKGRm2kNlM/Wl4liBNrb6I/AAAAAAAAAzs/gu_DqQPbwaMpZCqlJ8h9s0CDQ8ELOC9ggCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/orange%2Bteam1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AqKGRm2kNlM/Wl4liBNrb6I/AAAAAAAAAzs/gu_DqQPbwaMpZCqlJ8h9s0CDQ8ELOC9ggCK4BGAYYCw/s320/orange%2Bteam1.png" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orange team celebrating their victory</td></tr>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-23885807009573982572017-12-17T12:04:00.001-08:002017-12-17T12:04:13.839-08:00Hi, this is Jackson.<br />
<br />
This is my first time working in the Geomorph lab, and I've been looking into some problems on the software side of things. The first thing I fixed was a problem with the way the software did calculations for lead. The calculations originally were modified to compensate for a problem that we have since found another solution for, so I had to find and remove that section of the code. The person who originally wrote the code is no longer part of the lab, but his comments were helpful in learning how the code worked. There were also a number of samples that threw errors when calculating. Some of these only had errors in the batch calculations.<br />
<br />
There did not seem to be a pattern the errors, which meant that there had to be more than one cause. I found that some of them had a problem with the names. The batch search matched names by only looking at the first two parts separated by hyphens and underscores. This lead to problems in two situations. When the name had no hyphens or underscores, it would throw an error due to trying to call the second element in an array that had only one. I inserted a quick if statement to make it work with an array with length one, fixing the problem.<br />
<br />
The problem had another side, which is that when the name had only one part, and then a date, the first part of the date would be added as part of the name. This was, unfortunately, a problem I could not solve, as some of the names were supposed to have numbers as the second part, so simply making it so that it would drop a part if it was just the number would cause those ones to fail instead. As such, it is just increases the importance of naming the files with the proper system, which always involves at least two parts of the name.<br />
<br />
Currently I am working on altering the program so that it can avoid redoing calculations on samples it has already done calculations on, but I am having some trouble with understanding the section of the code I'd need to use to change this, so I will be studying SQL databases some more, and trying to figure out the other causes of errors. This was my first experience working with code somebody else had written and data, outside of classes, which was a challenge, but gave me a window into a more practical and professional way of coding.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-77360065004064599322017-11-19T18:40:00.001-08:002017-11-19T18:41:58.968-08:00Monica and Josh dive into Oberlin's Plum Creek!<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hello Geomorph lovers - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Monica here!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4CaUs29TZ4M/WhI9AQRG0pI/AAAAAAAAAOA/jicnJJUo1lcuMtL2dlgWYPubD3tokHrdgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Photo%2BOct%2B23%252C%2B7%2B05%2B33%2BPM%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4CaUs29TZ4M/WhI9AQRG0pI/AAAAAAAAAOA/jicnJJUo1lcuMtL2dlgWYPubD3tokHrdgCK4BGAYYCw/s200/Photo%2BOct%2B23%252C%2B7%2B05%2B33%2BPM%2Bcopy.jpg" width="200" /></a>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've had such a blast working with Josh on the Plum Creek Project. While we may not have posted about it a lot, I've been sampling 4 locations twice each month since the 1st of May this past Spring. It's been a total blast, and despite Harbin (our esteemed Gamma counter) being on the fritz, I was able to muster up enough data to present a couple ideas about what could be happening to both scientists in the field and my enthusiastic Oberlin colleagues at GSA this Fall.</span><br />
<br />
For all of y'all, essentially I am focusing on completing both a spatial and temporal analysis of Plum Creek, investigating the geomorphology of the creek over the course of the year for inconsistencies, patterns, etc. I've done quite a bit of work on the basic 4-spots, twice a month analysis, so Josh has taken to helping me with that, but also thinking about analysis side projects to help flesh out/clarify my data. Before we move to check in with him - here's some fin pics he took of my overtopping my boots in the field. We've had a rainy fall, which means that sometimes you have to get that barely above freezing creek water in your boots, but it's all for the sake of research.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MG5cpwub2Fk/WhI_5yOXiQI/AAAAAAAAAOM/ZLgXEvgO7pMUYqBp9kvdHwdnx5UNOdZKACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MG5cpwub2Fk/WhI_5yOXiQI/AAAAAAAAAOM/ZLgXEvgO7pMUYqBp9kvdHwdnx5UNOdZKACK4BGAYYCw/s200/unnamed.jpg" width="112" /></a></div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Wa1IOGR5Cnk/WhI_96l85tI/AAAAAAAAAOU/7O73vzFWrC4FaKef1bg093R-v8LHqcCEwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/unnamed-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Wa1IOGR5Cnk/WhI_96l85tI/AAAAAAAAAOU/7O73vzFWrC4FaKef1bg093R-v8LHqcCEwCK4BGAYYCw/s200/unnamed-1.jpg" width="112" /></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J5jCRuOrB7s/WhJAC4JX4uI/AAAAAAAAAOc/Pzvas8nKVTA-ZO7SG7Jr04Dbku5LKL8DQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/unnamed-2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J5jCRuOrB7s/WhJAC4JX4uI/AAAAAAAAAOc/Pzvas8nKVTA-ZO7SG7Jr04Dbku5LKL8DQCK4BGAYYCw/s200/unnamed-2.jpg" width="112" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Josh here!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My first semester working in the geomorph lab has been a lot of fun. I've been working closely with Monica on her sediment transport work, and learning a lot about both the underlying geology and the practical aspects of working in a lab. As a physics major, I don't get to go out to do thing very often, and its cool to drive around plum creek collecting samples. I also get to fill the sample analyzer with liquid nitrogen, and dry down samples to prepare them for analysis. In addition, I spent some time trying to learn how to successfully analyze XRD data on different clays, and hopefully I can have Marcus or Ely catch me up on what they've been doing. Something I've really enjoyed has been engaging with all of the relevant literature, as a lot more of the content of the papers is relevant when actually doing research, as opposed to being in a classroom. Even with just this narrow slice of one branch of geology, there is so much out there, and so much to be gained using the techniques. Two thing I want to focus on next semester are continuing to read papers and simply absorb more knowledge and finding my own small project to take ownership of. All in all, the work has been engaging and satisfying, and I look forward to continuing with everything.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Josh's finest photograph of our high-tech sieving equipment:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SToh6nFs1lw/WhJAngzE4vI/AAAAAAAAAOo/8m0L4zRkKow__6EaZzH69NkYG18XafJYwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/unnamed-3.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SToh6nFs1lw/WhJAngzE4vI/AAAAAAAAAOo/8m0L4zRkKow__6EaZzH69NkYG18XafJYwCK4BGAYYCw/s320/unnamed-3.jpg" width="180" /></a></span></span>Monica Dixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02354581538973213280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-81334371894673496492017-11-06T18:00:00.001-08:002017-11-06T18:00:25.251-08:00Mid Semester Updates!<b id="docs-internal-guid-cd5b2cad-9430-b743-d41c-db71721a29d8" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marcus here,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been working with Ely to investigate Dominica, an Island in the Caribbean. Over the summer I was fortunate enough to take part in the KECK research project (which you can find posts of if you search through the blog a bit) and this semester has been an extension of that. While I was here in July and August I spent a lot of time in the Geochemistry lab preparing the samples we collected for gamma-spectroscopy. It's a process i’ve talked about before, but essentially we want to create two samples from the original, one with just the coatings of the grain and another with everything else. In this lab we are just concerned with the coatings! This semester has been a little less exciting than previous ones in the lab as we’ve had to overcome a lot of technical and mechanical difficulties.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first hurdle we had to overcome was a malfunction gamma-spectrometer. Over the summer something fell out of alignment and upon returning to Oberlin in July, we found out that we had been running samples through it but not getting any real results. We tried finding make-shift solutions for this problem several times, but ultimately it seems that the only solution was to send it back and have the manufacturer's repair it. In the meantime, Amanda suggested that we find other ways of collecting data. So we went across the street to the physics department and learned how to use the XRD, or at least tried. An XRD, or x-ray diffractometer, works by shooting x-rays at a solid substance and figuring out how much the refract before returning to another meter. This is useful for figuring out the mineralogy of things as each mineral has a unique structure which diffract rays differently. Ely and I spent several days perfecting our technique on around 20 samples, but hit a small roadblock in understanding what the values we obtained meant. There was software on the computer which identifies possible candidates, but it's hard to narrow down one from a list of hundreds. There have been lots of conversations with our Mineralogy professor as well as Amanda in how to best choose the right mineral we’re looking at.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The slide for XRD analysis, prepared with Kaolin. We were suppose to make the surface as flat as possible, but we quickly found out that trying to do that was an extremely tedious process!</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, thats kind of where we’re at now--making do with what we’ve got. In the absence of substantial real data Ely and I have been reading a lot of papers to make sense of the diffractograms (thanks for the specificity, Zeb) to try and figure out what exactly is in our samples, but its been a struggle. Amanda suggested that we see if any of the samples we ran through the gamma-spectrometer had meaningful data, and it turns out we have 6 or 7 that did run successfully. I think our plans for the rest of the semester are to continue parsing out the XRD information, even if it's just loose connections / verifications of assumptions and try to analyze the few samples that did make it through Harbin. I still see a lot of paper reading in our future!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">XRD output of one of the samples we ran! This pattern was pretty characteristic of most of the samples we saw and it is turning out to also be very tricky to work with!</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This fall has been my first semester in Amanda’s Geomorph lab, and I’ve had a blast learning the ropes from the rest of the lab group, especially from my partner, Marcus. I have joined Marcus in helping him further his Dominica KECK research project. My semester started with some general training on how to perform some of the tasks Marcus and I are responsible for. These items include operating our gamma-spectrometer, HARBIN; leaching soil samples, and operating the X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD). For a portion of the semester, we ran samples in the XRD, and since then have been trying to decipher the data it produces, which should allow us to understand the composition of the Dominica soil samples. In addition, we leached several samples in order to prepare them for Mae Kate, a recent Obie graduate. She is currently using the samples for her research at University of Vermont. As of right now, Marcus and I are hoping to return to Dominica during winter term to collect more samples, as we believe they could provide great insight as to the before and after effects of a large tropical storm, such as Hurricane Maria, which hit Dominica head-on. I have really enjoyed my time in Amanda’s lab and being able to work alongside a mentor such as Marcus. I have truly learned a lot about the scientific methods used in a lab that is not part of an organized classroom setting, something I have never experienced before. </span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-36927822958139585142017-06-29T18:51:00.003-07:002017-06-29T18:53:11.834-07:00Lab day number 4!<span id="docs-internal-guid-a6136ae0-f6a8-ebe2-4541-d14d90c28cb4" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today was a long day for Team Geomorph. We started out by doing some GIS/photoshop/abstract-writing, then Kira and I moved on to weighing out our samples and adding hydrochloric acid to them.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Geologists (Kira, above, and Haley, top) hard at work</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We took advantage of a delicious free lunch in the lobby after we put the samples in a sonic bath (to keep them mixed while the acid leaches off the coatings of the grains), then went back to work on the computers. At one point, we had to turn off the heat in the sonic bath since the bottles were starting to deform and smell weird, but after that we were back to work drying out the fine-grained samples! We centrifuged them to get out some of the water, then scoop out the mushy muddy clay and put it in dishes to go in the oven to finish drying out.</span></div>
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<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8smwAhDEUp6QkxLLUIwQWU5cnM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Here's a video of us pouring samples into centrifuge tubes!</a> </div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh me oh my… “hard rock” people were all over the place today. We received our last batch of</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">rock buckets/samples yesterday (and just in time). Those of us that needed to finish powdering</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">rock samples were able to do so. Jessie and Sarah were able to weigh out the powders to prep</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">them for their acid baths. I also got the rest of my thin sections (Thank you Bill!!!!!) and get to</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">start doing my point counts tomorrow (1000 points on 11 slides… huzzah!).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Half of my thin sections (I’m really excited about the one with the giant enclave).</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Now that all the rock cutting and powdering machine work is finished we get to spend our time</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">glued to petrographic microscopes and thumbing through different scientific papers that relate to</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">our projects (happy happy joy joy).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Twinned plagioclase crystals 👿 ...check out that cleavage👿</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Everyone has the option to take the day off tomorrow but a few of us are planning on going to</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the lab and taking advantage of having fewer people to try and work around in our small</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">basement lab. There is also a change that the SEM machine will be repaired tomorrow (fingers</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">crossed)!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">~Haley and Katie</span></div>
Haley Talbot-Wendlandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14369681646809753442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-41636956000055814742017-06-28T18:15:00.001-07:002017-06-28T18:15:16.265-07:00Union Day 3 With the SEM broken, the petrologists found other ways to occupy their time. Some powdered their rocks to be analyzed for chemical compositions. Some took pictures of their thin sections or did a point count to find which minerals were in their samples. Some read papers about what they're working on. At the end of the day, the rest of our samples from Dominica were delivered, so we have six more buckets (over 200 pounds!) of rocks to prepare to be analyzed over the next few days.<br />
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Team Geomorph didn't have a super exciting day either! The past two days have been spent plugging away on the computer, either completing GIS information, photoshopping the clouds out of satalliete imagery or plotting the landslides on the island. We've been eagerly waiting for our samples to arrive from Dominica, so when we got word from Holli that they were in it was a nice change of pace. There are a handful of things we want to do with the actual samples, while on Union's campus we want to begin the leaching process. In order to start that we need our samples to be dry, so at the end of the day Kira, Haley, Cole and I found some washing glasses which could withstand the awesome heat of the oven. Two samples that were fairly dry to begin with took less than an hour to achieve the nice sandy texture we were looking for, so that was a nice surprise and an even better way to end the day with. Well, kind of end the day with, there were four samples that we didn't have enough room for in the oven, so Haley and I went back at 8 to move around dishes that were done with the still damp ones.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The culmination of two days of HARD work</td></tr>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-31416020086165961422017-06-28T06:02:00.000-07:002017-06-28T06:02:10.120-07:00First Day of Lab Work at Union<br />
The Keck students begun their first day of lab research at Union College, waking up at 9am to get a tour of the campus and lab facilities that they will be working in for the next two weeks. Students were introduced to the GIS systems, the isotope lab, water table, rock saws, the scanning electron microscope (SEM), rock crusher, Ion Chromatography Systems, lasers, and other wicked instruments.<br />
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The water team quickly began to prep all of their samples while the other groups split up. Team geomorph spent the beginning of the day working on their GIS mapping, but were cut short by a rogue professor that took over their lab.<br />
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Team Hard Rock spent their day cutting out thin sections of their samples using a rock saw:<br />
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They also studied some pre-made thin sections, and learning how to make photomicrographs.<br />
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All teams came together later in the afternoon for a safety briefing, and then at the end of the day some students went on an adventure to Walmart to stock up on supplies. It rained and hailed on their journey there:<br />
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Video Error.... Sorry Folks there was a great hail video.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01316566386024277321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4070329763357553540.post-41571280310911342472017-06-27T18:02:00.001-07:002017-06-27T18:02:22.271-07:0015th DayLab work continues at Union from morning till night for the intrepid Keck crew.<br />
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Today the dwarves of the petrology team, in the depths of their underground workshop, cut slices of rocks and powdered rocks to determine whole rock chemistry.</div>
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The water team spent the morning preparing and running samples to determine the amount of dissolved inorganic carbon in their water samples.<br />
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Syringing 6 mL of water sample to a test tube.</div>
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Geomorphologists could be found glued to computer screens in the GIS lab. Marcus perused high and low on the composite satellite image of Dominica made by Haley in search of landslides. </div>
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After a delicious lunch of mac and cheese and pulled-pork sandwiches, courtesy of Union College summer research presenters, some students had the afternoon off. Mazi took this opportunity to get a haircut, others wandered the town in successful search of cheap hot dogs. </div>
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Finally, Dexter and Jackie wrote a blog of their exploits. </div>
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jackie buskophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17653537745032252876noreply@blogger.com0