Sunday, I stayed in camp -- Lindsey and I worked out in our little work out room! We're so spoiled... This treadmill I was on let you plug in your ipod and it would play music at you. It also had a fan... There's a dvd player in the room too. The stair machine Lindsey was on let you play little games like black jack and tetris!
Saturday night we played music! The older guy in the video is a famous biologist, Terry Chapin.
Yes I know the song is irksome, but it was still fun to get everyone singing!
Fluuuute -- okay I haven't played in a year and before that I hadn't played in about 7... so forgive the sound!
My computer crapped out on me on Saturday when I attempted to post this:
Today I spent most of the day in lab. Well, the day is only half done. Really just a third done... Okay okay. I spent the morning in lab. My one goal today was to unearth the inner workings of a contraption called a "photosynthetron." Perhaps on The Minute I'll have Jason re-enact his dramatic interpretation of a photosynthetron. I digress... this is a device that lets you adjust the intensity of light shining on a very small water sample... well on 20 small water samples. So, we can measure primary production in each little vial at different light levels. This gives us a "photosynthesis - irradiance curve" that ultimately can be used to determine photosynthesis levels in the lake by just looking at the light level.
In other news, I've been listening to a mix cd all day and have decided that "flowers never bend in the rainfall" is a wonderful song.
Last night Toolik experienced a *crazy* rainstorm. I was woken up at quarter of 5 and several times thereafter to sounds of rain POUNDING on my weatherport. It felt like the walls (which, admittedly are tarp) were going to cave in. They were certainly waving wildly. The door was clanking... it was quite an event. Today is definitely a lazy catch up day for all involved.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. I promised pictures from the Sunday hike and it is now Thursday. Tsk Tsk:
Boots... My boots! Kate and Jeff relaxing once we got to the almost top: Floooowers: (That was me in a cave!)
Here's a minute from the Sunday hike:
Monday was pretty slow. We stayed in and worked in lab. I took a trip over to lab 4 and filmed Nick doing something with plants. Kevin Griffin of Colombia, and Doni the Queen of Toolik make an appearance:
Tuesday & Wednesday I went on a Stream Survey. Tuesday was a little cold and cloudy, but Wednesday started off downright miserable! Rain, no water in the soils to suck (frustrating!), etc. It was just a downer of a day. It turned up by the end. The cooks had made some awesome bread which I ate. A lot of.
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Lastly, in other news, our Arctic Thriller video has over 8000 views! Neat-o.
... woo-ah-woah... wish it were Sunday... woo-ah-woah. 'Cuz that's my funday... etc.
Yesterday (Sunday) I went on a hike with Jeff, Kate and Shannon. It was lovely. We went on the hike that leads to the cave, or as Shannon the caver said, grotto. The hike up was *very* steep, and the hike down was *very* steep. There was an itty bitty ridge that we were on for a little bit at the top, but mostly it was steep going. Up and down... Today my legs hurt!
When we got to the cave, er.. grotto, we saw the remnants of when Jason & Ben left their garlic bears there! Two weeks ago, Jason and Ben and a few other folks went on this hike, and took some gummy bears with them. Unbeknown to them, the gummy bears had been sitting in a container that previously contained GARLIC! So, as they were hiking along and popping gummy bears they realized they didn't taste quite right. Well, they soon figured out that they had transformed into GARLIC bears. Yuck. So they left them in the cave for any little animals or hikers that might like a not-so-tasty treat. We found them. They were still there...
I will post pictures from the hike another time (when I get back onto my laptop).
Today is a data day. I'm looking at data from last summer and trying to analyze it a bit. Woo!
In other news, one of the reporters posted our thriller video to her blog...
The journalists kept a blog themselves while they were up here. Here it is.
Hello parents out there... This is not just a hello to my parents (although, hi Mom & Dad!) -- this is a hello to all the parents of Toolik folk here...and all other parents that I know read this blog. I know you do! I have heard from a number of your children here saying "Do you have a blog? I think my Mom reads it religiously..." or "My parents love The Minute..." So. To you parents who don't know me (and to those who do) I say, WELCOME! And feel free to post comments! And requests! And questions about Toolik!
Happy Fourth of July. I'll post about THAT later, after we have our party this evening.
I just wanted to throw up a Minute and a bonus video:
The minute from yesterday was kind of boring. Apologies:
But, Jason gave me his video of the stealth sik sik that caused Jen to freak out, fall over a tussock, and sprain her ankle... You'd be pretty scared too if you were faced with this particular dreaded Imnavait Sik Sik:
In one last note, John sent me his thoughts on the Palin announcement this week. I thought they were pretty amusing, so I've decided to share them with you all:
"we just watched sarah palin's announcement. oh wow oh wow. i am incredibly proud of her for maintaining absolute political consistency and ending her public career with the same gusto that it began....the most unintelligible gibberish. it is truly remarkable that somebody can maintain such a ridiculous syntax of loose word associations and still be a part of a public political stage. maybe one day she will learn what a "sentence" is, but i think that would ruin some core part of her being. i think i prefer it as it is now: a political freak of nature, like the elephant man running for police commissioner."
Exploding Lakes & Toolik's Michael Jackson Tribute
Tuesday we had some crazy lightning storm for a few minutes that knocked out our internet... again. But the event produced two beautiful rainbows! Tuesday nights at Toolik we have a "Talking Shop" -- someone in camp gives a talk. This can be on their current work, or work they've done in the past. This past Tuesday, George (my adviser) gave a talk on the Exploding Lakes of Africa. The story is, Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun are in Cameroon. In August, 1986, conveniently just after George took some Ph.D. data on both... Lake Nyos exploded. This "explosion" killed 1700 people. Two years earlier, Lake Monoun had exploded, killing about 30 people.
You may be asking, what is an exploding lake? Why did people die? Will it happen again? And, what is being done about it?
These lakes are deep lakes in Africa which are highly stratified. This means they have a top layer of water that is very warm, and much less dense than a bottom layer of water that is only mostly warm. It takes quite a lot of energy to bring that deep water to the surface. These lakes "never" mixed, and their bottom waters stayed put. Until 1984 and 1986... But, why would turnover of a lake, a process that happens in *most* lakes worldwide, kill people? Well, if there's something in that bottom water that might come out of solution when it hits the surface and be toxic to humans, then ... it could kill people!
These lakes are fed by groundwater soda springs. Volcanic magma deep deep in the earth rises and falls depending on geologic stuff I don't know much about. In this process, toxic gases are released from that magma, things like hydrogen sulfide, and carbon monoxide... most of these chemicals are "scrubbed" out of the gas creeping to the surface by the bedrock. But carbon dioxide simply dissolves in the ground water. This CO2 rich groundwater feeds the lake bottom. The bottom water was filled with carbon dioxide! A lot of carbon dioxide. Enough carbon dioxide to fill 100 Michigan Stadiums. If you pulled a "liter" of water from the bottom waters, and brought it to the surface, you'd only have 400 mililiters left! Because the dissolved gas comes out of solution, the water 'shinks.'
Okay. So, there was a big fight about what caused the explosion. Volcanologists said it was a volcano, but George and colleagues said, no no! It's the groundwater streams! Several lines of evidence support this... namely: there are no volcanos around! And the bottom waters of the lake have similar chemical and isotopic composition as nearby soda springs that just open up into the ground. Lastly, people reported smelling gunpowder or rotten eggs, and feeling warm. Generally this makes you think of sulfur, but there was no sulfur in the water or in the plants or in the exhumed bodies. George came across some old air force literature where they were testing elevated CO2 levels on fighter pilots... pilots reported feeling warm and smelling rotten eggs. BINGO!
Why did people die? And why didn't they die before? The water sitting on top of this CO2-rich bottom water acts like a top on a soda bottle, or the top of a beer can. When you twist open a soda, bubbles suddenly emerge! The bottles are pressurized, so as you open the top, you release that pressure and there is no force to keep the CO2 bubbles dissolved. Something must have acted to bring the bottom water up high enough such that the weight of water on top was not enough to keep bubbles in solution. Some event, maybe a huge wind event or a landslide, brought some of the bottom water up towards the surface just enough so that the bubbles started to come out. Once this starts... it causes a HUGE burst of water. Seriously. I can't find the images, but George's pictures show the whole rockface just etched away, vegetation everywhere in the water, and general chaos!
CO2 is denser than air. When the CO2 evaded from the lake, it traveled through the valleys and killed many people and cattle. Bad.
Will it happen again? There have been a number of efforts to remediate the situation in Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun. The main plan was to install pipes that just slowly degas the lake. It's working on these lakes. Slowly but surely. One pipe, twelve inches wide, spews a 50 meter high fountain, self-propelled by the force of the bubbles coming out. With that they could supply a lot of power! But there's nothing really around to be able to harness that power. Too bad.
Now, the story for these two lakes is good. But, the world has another problem. Lake Kivu, is much larger, has a much greater stock of CO2 and moreover, has a lot of methane stored in its bottom waters. It is bordered by a number of countries (and so any remediation is international and consequently a pain). And over a million people live in the valleys that would be affected if it exploded. Little pipes are not going to cut it.
Lake Kivu has the World's 5th largest natural stock of methane... and that can be harvested: the saving grace for these people. So, a power company has come in and built a factory that takes bottom water, extracts the methane, and lets the CO2 pass to the atmosphere, and then they can use that methane for power generation. This could be a very profitable effort. And since other countries border the lake, the good ol' free market would help make sure many compete for the gas in the bottom of the lake... Still, the power plant isn't fully operational yet, and there's only one. Le bummer.
Anyways: here is George's opening slide... and The Minute for Tuesday night.
On Wednesday, we went to Imnavait. We were followed by a reporter who has worked for Al-Jazeera, but was hanging out with us and other scientists at Toolik to jump-start an idea she has for a children's show. She wants to write and produce a show about science for kids. And here she is introducing herself :)
Later that day, a Sik Sik (ground squirrel) scared Jen and she fell over a tussock and she sprained her ankle... This squirrel was hiding behind a battery... I'm going to get a video of it from Jason, but for now you'll just have to imagine. A tussock is a sort of lump in the ground that is very hard to walk on and around. This leads me to my next videos, which are two trial runs for our Thriller dance. Now, I think Jen may have PLANNED to sprain her ankle... she suggested at our Michael Jackson tribute party that we all learn the dance and the reporters can video it and put it on youtube... (clearly a brilliant plan). And then she suspiciously sprains her ankle the DAY of the dance? Come on... coincidence? I think she PLANTED the sik sik there! Just kidding.
So, that was taken with my camera, and here is the fancy shmance version the journalist (our own Kelly from Imnavait) took with her high-def camera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1gnvKZFCq0.
You'd think I'd have had enough of making a fool of myself with the Thriller dance, but no. We did it again while we were waiting for our helicopter to finish fueling at Galbraith after our big lake survey on Thursday:
Here's a video from the heli:
And lastly, just some pictures from that big lakes survey:
