Riverside Cemetery and the River Clams

At Riverside cemetery, over 150 headstones were discovered of people that died in 1918, most likely due to the Spanish Flu outbreak in that year. 
A life table was constructed by Dr. Rood using the data collected at the cemetery from this year.

Basically, the graphs show that the older you were, the less time you had to live after contracting this awful flu.

The Asiatic clam is the type native to this part of Georgia and were dug up as part of this lab as well.

Hitchiti Experimental Forest

 

 

Me hugging a tree!

We walked down a 2-3 mile trail in the forest and discovered many different plants including Wild Ginger, which is an awesome name, and saw the damage to the trees that the Southern Pine Beetle has done.  Apparently when one tree has been affected, usually the other trees in the same area will be cut down because they will most likely get attacked as well.  It was a beautiful walk where we saw different environments that the plants and animals live in.  Like rock that had moss on it and different kind of bugs that would be seen in the more forested parts of the area.  The water at the very end of the trail was beautiful and getting lost for a few moments wasn't bad either!

Bear Day!

During the Bear Day poster session I learned about a poster by Kasie Knapper about Detection of Bio-Available Metals in Kaolin Samples coupled with Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (that's the abbreviated version).


It was basically a study of chemistry with Kaolin

Many graphs were used, basically line graphs and one bar graph, in order to show the flow of information obtained after testing.

To test she got a sample slurry to digest the acid, spun it, and took the liquid, heat it with a plasma torch which heats the metals to where the ions are concentrated.

The top layer was then taken and inspected for results.

This poster described her independent study for chemistry with the element Kaolin.  An ICP instrument was used to test the samples.  A large amount of samples were used in order to obtain an accurate result.  They had to find the error for each calculation to get this average.  


These results were shown using line graphs and also a bar graph was used to show the relative equality of the samples consistency.  A stock solution was used for consistency with testing and the intensity correlates to the concentration of the solution K (Kaolin).   However, no clear correlation was found of solution K concentration to the pH.  

Ocmulgee National Monument Lab

We had a beautiful day of strolling around and identifying trees and learning about the Ocmulgee National Monument for lab on Tuesday, April 12, 2011!

(The cross country team runs there half of our practices!!!)

We saw a turtle in a huge ditch that eroded away which was showing its soil history and tons of clay it had to offer.  This showed us the history of the land and layers in the soil, most likely from hundreds of years back.  Overall it was a beautiful day to walk around and see the history all around us left behind by Native Americans native to this area in Georgia.

Vicious turtle that we bothered

Dr. Rood playing with dirt in the ditch

View of Macon from top of Great Temple Mound

On the land of Ocmulgee National Monument, two Civil War battles were fought and the park plans on commemorating these battles in 2014.  It's our own little piece of history in Macon that makes us proud =)

Burgess Shale

The Burgess Shale is located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia and was formed in the Middle Cambrian era (about 505 years ago).  The fossils found here are very famous.

Birds-Eye View- Burgess Shale

Here is a Great Burgess Shale Animation Video!
It shows all these creates animations of all of the creatures below in action!

Anomalocaris

Opabinia

Waptia

Hallucigenia

Marella

Wiwaxia

Campus Lab

 Soil Erosion Problem areas:

Trees:

Plants:

 Animals:

Squirrel

Squirrel

Cockroach

Rocks:

Granite

Coal

Limestone

Slate

Water: Raindrops

Raindrops cover our planet and the most iconic picture of a raindrop is like this guy:

But this is not how raindrops are actually shaped more like hamburger buns.

It is "like a tug-of-war between two forces: the surface tension of the water and the pressure of the air pushing up against the bottom of the drop as it falls. 
When the drop is small, surface tension wins and pulls the drop into a spherical shape. With increasing size, the fall velocity increases and the pressure on the bottom increases causing the raindrop to flatten and even develop a depression.
 Finally, when the radius exceeds about 4 mm or so, the depression grows almost explosively to form a bag with an annular ring of water and then it breaks up into smaller drops."

Extremophiles Lab

We studied amazing extremophiles that live in incredible environments that not many humans today get to see in person, some are examples below:

• Thermophiles: thrives at extremely high temperatures between 45 and 80 degrees Celcius, among the earliest bacteria.
• Acidophiles: thrives under highly acidic conditions where the pH is at 2.0 or below.
• Halophiles: thrives in environments with very high concentrations of salt.

One organism called ARMAN, an acidophile, that lives in mines such as the Iron Mountain Mine in California where they were first discovered.

Archaeal Richmond Mine Acidophilic Nanoorganisms

Iron Mountain Mine

Geology Lab

Types of Rocks:

• Igneous: rock formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. (usually dark color)
• Examples: Basalt, Granite, Diorite, Pumice 
• Granite 

Granite

• Diorite

Diorite

• Metamorphic: the transformation of an existing rock type (protolith).
• Examples: Coal, Gneiss
• Coal

Coal

• Gneiss

Gneiss

• Sedimentary: type of rock that is formed by sedimentation of material on the Earth's surface and within bodies of water.
• Examples: Obsidian, Slate, Dolomite, Aragonite, Coquina, Limestone
• Coquina

Coquina

• Obsidian



Obsidian 

• Minerals: 
• Examples: Amethyst, Quartz, Feldspar, Hornblende, Halite, Flint