Mars

I've been reading up on Mars lately (which has nothing to do with sediment cores ... but is terribly interesting). I've been trying to get enough background to give a simple talk about magnetism on a planetary scale and remanent magnetism and all that. I've found out some pretty cool stuff!
One of the initial papers is Connerney et al. in Science, "Magnetic lineation in the ancient crust of Mars." Then there's a really detailed paper on the "Magnetic field of Mars: Summary of results form the aerobraking and mapping orbits" (Acuna et al. 2001). That one has some really nice graphics of the remanent magnetism of the crust.
Both papers state that:

The observations show that the majority of the crustal magnetic sources lie
south of the dichotomy boundary on the ancient, densely cratered terrain of the
highlands and extend ~60 degrees south of this boundary. It is inferred
that the formation of the dichotomy boundary must postdate the cessation of
dynamo action because of the clear magnetic differentiation between the terrains
on either side of the boundary. The absence of detectable crustal
magnetization north of the dichotomy boundary in spite of a widespread record of
active volcanism and magmatic flows suggests that dynamo action had ceased at
this stage of thermal evolution and crustal differentiation (Acuna et al. 2001).

So there's a difference between the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars, really apparent when you look at the pictures. I've also been looking at a couple of other papers, one about the "Influence of early plate tectonics on the thermal evolution and magnetic field of Mars" (Nimmo and Stevenson 2000). This paper is in the Journal of Geophysical Research v. 105. They assert that:

Recent magnetic studies of Mars suggest that (1) it possessed a periodically reversing magnetic field for the first ~ 500 Myr of its existence and (2)plate tectonics may have been operating during this time ... if plate
tectonics, or some other process causing high surface heat flux, was
occurring on early Mars, it is likely to have caused convection in the core
and hence generated a magnetic field. Conversely, a reduction in
surface heat flux would probably have caused the core to stop convecting an
shut off the magnetic field. There is thus an important link between
surface processes and core magnetism, which may also be relevant to planets
such as Earth and Venus.

Anyway, this is interesting because it talks about a link between plate tectonics and core convection. The paper presents good models for heat loss.

Well...

It's been a while, but I have been busy. Not a good excuse, I know. Half the time I don't know what to write anyway.
I've been working on schoolwork and research. For my "Bioclimatography" class we always have a lot of reading to do. We're reading Song of the Dodo by David Quammen. And we're reading Biogeography by MacDonald. It seems like everybody out there loves David Quammen, but I'm not a huge fan. He's ok, but not THAT great...
I'm also taking a soil and water chemistry class, which is awesome! We got to go over to ICAL where they do all sorts of neat analyses. We got to see and learn all about the SEM, XRD and XPS. Fun!
So otherwise I've been working on my sediment cores. They have to be sampled. I've been pulling macrofossils and pollen samples. I'm almost done with one core, then I have to start on my short-core samples. Then I'll probably start processing pollen samples. This is what I'm going to be doing all summer too. Not much fieldwork for me.

This is a sediment core... Not mine, but they all pretty much look the same. This is what I've been working on for the past couple of weeks.  

I don't post enough

Yeah, I know, I am a lazy blogger. I should write something every day. My problem might have been that I started my blog right before Christmas break, and so I wasn't at school with the internet for a while. Now that I'm getting back into the swing of school I think I should be able to keep up better. Hopefully.

The most interesting thing I've done lately is fieldwork in Jackson Hole. We went down there last Monday-Wednesday to get some cores. We ended up with two. I guess that is good. I don't like coring, nor do I like the whole rest of my project. Eh.

On a note that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, last night we watched the old movie Failsafe. Man, that movie is really freaky. Danny and I were saying how it ranks right up there in freakiness with the original Mad Max movie. The scene with the shoe is a lot like the scene with the phone melting. Creepy. There are just some movies that you should see once, but no more.

REFERENCES!

Yeah, so it has been a long time since I've posted, and that's the worst thing anyone can do in a blog, I know. I'm sorry.

I'm working on cataloging and organizing my references. In my proposal I have two full pages of references!!! Most people at my stage have 7 or 8, maybe 10 references that they've read and include in thier proposal. Sheesh! Talk about overkill. You'd think I was writing an NSF proposal or something!

I've been looking through the papers I've read (which includes MORE than just my proposal references). I've got 45 papers. I don't have a favorite. Some were really boring. Anyway, now I'm trying to separate them into categories for easier reference. Fun!

We are going to get one or two cores a week from today, down in Grand Teton National Park. It'll be way cold, and I'm not looking forward to that. It'll be nice to be able to get started on something other than writing my proposal. Especially since it is done.

Christmas break

The last day of finals was Friday, so now I'm done with school for the semester. I got an A in my plant systematics class! Whew!
Now I've got to think of stuff to do over break. I have work to do for my thesis proposal, and I also have a bunch of reading to do, but nothing that's going to take up all my time. I love free time!
We're trying to figure out how to unlock a bunch of stuff in Super Smash Brothers Melee. Yeah, we're a bit behind. But we just got a gamecube on Thanksgiving!

Nothing to say

I'm waiting to go proctor a final and I don't really have anything to say. But I should write anyway. In Bozeman right now it is raining! It's December and it's raining! Pfff.

I just finished buying Danny presents this morning. Now we've each got a bunch of cool presents! I have no idea what I'm getting, and he has no idea what he's getting. We're going to open our presents on Christmas eve this year. Fun!

Well, like I said, not much to say today.

Kent Condie!

I went to school at New Mexico Tech. I took "Evolution of the Earth" from Kent Condie. Kent Condie is a great geologist and a great teacher. He's one of the most fun professors I've been in the field with. And he writes good books.

For "Evolution" we used Plate Tectonics. Now he's written a new book called Earth as an Evolving Planetary System. It's like a new edition of Plate Tectonics, but it's got a bunch of new stuff, so he's calling it something different. I want to buy this book, but it hasn't been released yet! I can hardly wait!!!

Oh, I just reminded myself of my old boss, Andy Campbell. I worked for him for over two years in the Stable Isotope Geochemistry Lab. Aww. That website is the one I made, and nobody there knows how to program html anymore so it'll probably never change. How funny. I miss Andy.

Today's news

SO much is going on today already and it's only 10:30 in the morning! I found out I've got an A in plant systematics!!! That is the best news of the day by far. I got the second highest grade on the final. Whew!

My advisor got back from New Zealand on Friday, and today was the first day I saw her. She shared a bunch of cool stories about New Zealand and how they study pollen. And she got me a Bungy Baa chocolate bar! Real milk chocolate! Yummy. I guess bungy jumping is a big thing in New Zealand.

The other day I found out that you can track Santa on Christmas eve (if you are so inclined). The government uses NORAD sattellites to track Rudolph's nose. Really. So when you're sitting at home bored at 10 on Christmas eve you can get online and see when Santa's gonna get to your house. Haven't you always wondered? ...

Another plant systematics test

I just finished the second and final key exam in plant systematics. That's it for the class! Soon our grades will be posted. Keep your fingers crossed!
I'm finally getting better after my week-long sickness. I had a wicked cold and it turns out I got an ear infection too! I had to take azithromycin. Now my ear is better though, and my cough is slowly going away. It's taking forever though. Anyway, enough said.
My husband said I should comment on the news, but I haven't heard any news today so I have nothing to say. How's that?

Thanksgiving vacation

My husband and I went to Omaha for Thanksgiving. Danny's mom still lives there, and his sister was also visiting. The trip was super fun. We ate a yummy dinner on Thursday. Friday I got to go to the Omaha zoo and check out the cool animals! The desert dome is pretty neat, but the jungle was the coolest "exhibit". A gorilla got mad at me for staring at him. That was kind of scary.
We also got to hang out with some of Danny's old friends, and we got a Gamecube (finally!). I got sick on Friday night though, so the trip back wasn't so great. Flying while having sinus problems really sucks.
AND I registered for classes this morning. Next semester it looks like I've only got class on Tuesday and Thursday. I have a 10 am class, a 2 pm lab on Thursday and a 3pm class on Tuesday. And I'm going to be on an RA for Cathy, so no labs to teach! Weird.

YAY for plant systematics

I just finished the first "key" exam in plant systematics. wow what a test. I was in there for 3 hours, but most of the class is still there! We had 12 unknown plant specimens that we had to key out to family, genus and species. After having done not so good on the site ID quizzes so far in this class, I am proud to say that I think I did pretty well on this test. I am dynamite with the key! It's beautiful when things just seem to fall into place and you're looking at a flower with a blue corolla and it says, "blue corolla" in the key. Keying is fun.

A few pictures of home

Below are a few pictures, mostly of our new furniture. They show our house too a bit. The things they don't show are the fireplace, our washer and dryer, and our kitchen. Those are the exciting things.

These are our bookshelves and our plants! They need as much sun as possible. So many books... 

Here is another view of our living room. It has a nice window, and we have lots of seating! Outisde is our grill, which is now covered in snow. 

And here is our new-ish loveseat that we bought at the beginning of November. It's comfy. It takes up a lot of space in our living room, but it's nice anyway. 

So here is our bed. You can't really see the frame, but it's not much, just wood. There's my alligator too... 

what is the difference?

So I know there is a difference between a pappus of scales and a pappus of capillary bristles. But on some species it is really hard to tell! On Monday I have a test in my plant systematics class. I'm not too worried about it, except for the Asteraceae. It is hard for me to tell if the receptacle is naked or chaffy, and if the pappus is scaly or bristly! I hope we don't get many different kinds of Asteraceae.
Plant systematics makes me dream about obscure plant words and names (like Solidago missouriensis or Sonchus uliginosis). Repeating these thing over and over again does not really facilitate memorization of what the plants actually look like. You just know some funny words.
Here is our class website, where Dr. Lavin posts pictures of all of the plants we've so far studied. Gorgeous!

culture

So I was just thinking this morning about the cultural differences between Montana and New Mexico. To me, they are striking. At least this part of Montana is more uptight than New Mexico. There is a huge "outdoor" culture here that pervades almost everything, and it doesn't exist to a large extent in New Mexico. There are other differences too, way too many to get in to.
So what bothers me about this? I don't feel right here in Montana. It definitely has to do with the culture, both the academic and social culture. It'll take some getting used to, but I got used to New Mexico eventually.

Wednesday Afternoon

This is my first ever blog. Whoa.
I've gotta get used to this.
I promise this will get more exciting as time goes on.