Symposiums and stuff...

So this past week was the Keck Geology Consortium Symposium in Schenectady, New York: one hundred undergraduate geology majors with posters and powerpoints to present to each other and their advisors. I was really happy to see my research group from Colorado again. It had been about 8 months since we had seen each other. The reunion was nice.

The symposium was at Union College. They planned a field trip for us on Friday. We saw some 10cm garnets, stromatolites, The Great Unconformity, and some other outcrops of rock in the southeastern Adirondacks. Upstate New York is very "cute." All the houses are cute (and huge). There was still some snow on the ground in some places - it was still quite cold there. (Really makes me glad I didn't opt to go to Vermont for grad school! I just can't handle that much snow.) On Saturday there were two 3-hour oral presentation sessions and two 1-hour poster presentation sessions. The large majority of presentations had to do with petrology and mineralogy, which are two things I know nothing about (well, not yet anyway). I feel like my presentations went well. They finished the day off with a cocktail hour and a formal dinner. It was a good experience and I feel better prepared for AGU or GSA conferences in the future.

Nostalgia

Right now, I am feeling just that, nostalgia. A desire to go back in time, to go to where I once was. A need for a rewind button. Maybe it has something to do with the cool weather...

A chilly breeze reminds me of wandering around Queenstown and Christchurch aimlessly. Drinking tea reminds me of the night in Te Anau where my friend and I sat by a cozy fire and worked on our module assignments, sipping chai and sharing good conversation.

The clear fall sky reminds me of panoramas of wide open spaces fringed with mountains in Colorado. Watching picturesque sunsets with rainbows of color outside my window only remind me of the evenings spent in Colorado watching the sunset change from color to color. The nights spent braving the cold for the smallest bit of contact with the outside world.

I want so much to go back...

Pictures from Colorado

I have uploaded photos from Colorado.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kwarrell/KeckColorado2010#

Catching cool breezes

Most of my work is done now. I don't think I have any field work left (emphasis on think). I'm sure Dave or Will will come up with something. Actually, they just did. I have to go get seven more samples of stream sediment. Happily, it will all be shipped home for me. I do not have to take it all on the plane.

I think I made some sort of personal record. I finished Snow Flower and the Secret Fan in five days. Never have I finished a book in that time. I was certainly impressed with myself, mostly because I didn't believe it was possible. I've started The Joy Luck Club. I'm not certain that it will be as good as Snow Flower. That book was really good. It started off really sad and depressing, but then I really got into it. I recommend it to anyone, and have it if you'd like to borrow it.

We have five days left! It's certainly sad to think about. I do believe that I just might miss Gordon Gulch. I mean, I've spent seven hours there every day for the past two and a half weeks. And Colorado, oh Colorado. When the trip started, I was not impressed in the least with Colorado. Over the three weeks I've been here, it has slowly grown on me. The wild flowers, the weather, the hippies, the lifestyle. It almost evokes something similar to New Zealand (it just took longer for it to sink in). I don't know how exactly to describe it. I guess you'd have to travel to either of the two to understand what I mean...

Looking up at the clouds, to the west, everything is a pale steel blue, the clouds a tad darker than the sky. The blue darkens toward the east. Directly overhead, the clouds are a fleshy pink, soft and undefined. They fade into a tangerine color in the east, with well defined billows edged in a slightly brighter gold. On the horizon, silhouettes of the mountains, not so far away. Can you see it?

Almost done?

My project is probably 85% complete... maybe. At least the field portion of my project is... we'll have to see what Kurt wants me to do with it when I get back, which could be a lot or a little. In either case, it will be a whole lot less work than some of my colleagues will have to do.

It has rained almost every day this past week and is supposed to rain the next three days. It's really a downer on everyone's mood. Meanwhile, I've taught myself how to weave flowers out of grass while waiting for the rain to pass. Not very productive, but it is rather hard to map anything when any amount of dampness will ruin the paper.

I've started reading a new book entitled Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Very interesting, and I recommend reading it so far. I finished reading The Namesake. I started it in New Zealand and didn't have time until now to finish it. Not much else is new. We went to the Boulder Farmers' Market last Wednesday and are planning to go again this Wednesday. They have mango sticky rice, which I am eagerly looking forward to. The dining hall here is not too keen on ethnic food, and if they do serve it, it lacks some serious flavor.

the beginnings of a "thesis"

So for the past four days here, i have been doing roughly the same thing: surveying the stream in Gordon Gulch. So far, I have about 50 pages in my little notebook full of data points to graph, which will eventually end up being a map of the stream. Once i get this map, I then have to go survey both the north and south banks of the stream and draw out the terraces onto my map. Eventually, my project will end up being similar to this one, maybe a little less extensive:

http://www.azgs.az.gov/sanpedroriver2009.shtml

Obviously, these people had a lot more time and resources than I will, but it's roughly what I'd like to achieve. I (hopefully) only have one more day of surveying the stream, which means only one more day of wet shoes. I'll probably still have to fight the vegetation when I map the terraces, but that's okay. It's a whole lot easier than hiking up a mountain. I'll probably even end up coring trees, which means that I take out a small cylinder of the tree to count its rings to see how old it is. That way, we can know a minimum age for the terraces. We'll probably end up using radiocarbon dating to get a maximum age by dating some old logs that are buried in the terraces. I've probably been working the most out of everyone here, and probably still have the most to do. But that's okay with me. I'd rather work on my project than be someone else's assistant.

Colorado, day 1

So today we took a leisurely hike up a mountain range. A lot easier said than done. First, we had an hour long drive in the bed of a truck over gravelly and rocky roads. We had to cross over huge boulders and a rapid creek, and the whole time we were being watched by marmots, which are supposed to be really vicious. They look like prairie dogs to me. The whole thing was exhausting, and makes me realize how terribly out of shape I am. These things get better with time, right? Needless to say, I don't think I'll be picking a project in the area we visited today.