{"id":413,"date":"2016-09-08T13:21:38","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T13:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjcmeess.wpengine.com\/?p=413"},"modified":"2016-09-08T13:21:38","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T13:21:38","slug":"highlights-of-the-first-third","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/highlights-of-the-first-third\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights of the first third"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time for me to write a post, since the students are immersed in writing a paper and preparing for a final in Climate Change and Glacial Geology. Yes, it is very early September and they are faced with a paper and a final.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been on the road for over 3.5 weeks, which puts us 1\/3rd<\/sup> of the way through the ESS.\u00a0 Quite soon, we will finish here (Crawford Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire) and head to Popham Beach, where Prof. Greg Teegarden will start leading the students though Marine Ecology.\u00a0 But before we wrap up here, let me point out some highlights.<\/p>\n

Blueberry fields near Cherryfield, Maine grow on deltas that accumulated in a frigid sea when relative sea level was briefly 60 m higher than today about 15,000 years ago as glaciers receded. Joe O\u2019Reilly joined me and Andrew atop an enormous boulder carried to this site by icebergs.<\/p>\n

\"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0246.\"<\/a>
DCIM100GOPROGOPR0246.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

West Quoddy Head lighthouse is the easternmost point in the US. Everyone seemed amused thinking that there were 320 million Americans to the west of us, and zero to the east!<\/p>\n

\"img_9787\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to appreciate just how fast the tide can come in. At Fundy National Park <\/a>in New Brunswick, we studied\u00a0the 1 km long Point Wolfe\u00a0inlet.\u00a0 We were in the flat, middle part of the section when the tide caught up with us.\u00a0 The water was creeping over the land nearly at walking speed.\u00a0 Stand still to take a measurement, and the water would rise above our ankles.\u00a0 Crossing the \u201clittle\u201d intertidal stream on the incoming tide got Emma Mills \u201919 in water up to her chest.<\/p>\n

At Joggins Fossil Cliffs<\/a> in Nova Scotia (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), we walked along beach cliffs (at low tide!) for about 5 km and through about 5 million years of ancient, really ancient history. These rocks have yielded the oldest reptile fossil in the world at about 310 million years (forgive me if my memory is off by a few million). We were there to look at how climatic and environmental conditions can be reconstructed; these rocks accumulated in a tropical swamp with nearby mountains generating a rich supply of river sediment. \u00a0Danielle Martin \u201919 found a block with fossilized mud cracks and the toe\/claw imprints of a crocodile-sized amphibian; this block was so special the guides added it to the permanent collection in the site\u2019s museum.<\/p>\n

\"fossil<\/a><\/p>\n

In Halifax, the city\u2019s signature historical feature, the Citadel, is built atop a drumlin. The drumlin was formed by glacial ice moving and molding sand and gravel debris into an oval mound.\u00a0 Several of us enjoyed a nice hour of Frisbee tossing on this late Ice Age feature.<\/p>\n

The moonless night sky in the northwoods east of Greenville was absolutely beautiful. Sorry, no nighttime photos, but I’ll include a morning photo.\u00a0 And nighttime photos wouldn\u2019t do it justice anyways.\u00a0 The sky (as viewed from boats on the still lake) had so many stars that it felt four-dimensional \u2013 I felt the immensity of it as we looked deeper into space to more distant and fainter stars.\u00a0 Some students saw the Milky Way for the first time in their lives.\u00a0 Defintely a highlight.<\/p>\n

\"lake-pano\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Prof. Emily Lesher led us through an investigation of the chemistry and landscape associated with acid mine drainage. Strictly speaking, this material was part of the Field Methods course, but by now the students are used to switching back and forth between different course content.\u00a0 Personally, I really enjoyed seeing students engage with new material and another professor.\u00a0 Many of them will be in Prof. Lesher\u2019s Environmental Chemistry class in the spring, when this real-world example will surely come up.<\/p>\n

\"img_1001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"img_1121\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We drove up Mount Washington yesterday in order to get a view of several cirques created by alpine glaciers, most notably Tuckerman\u2019s Ravine, Huntington\u2019s Ravine, and the Great Gulf. A short walk to the lip of Huntington\u2019s headwall led to more than one reassessment of what \u201csteep\u201d looks like.\u00a0 While there in the Alpine Garden, we enjoyed a late summer snack of wild blueberries and mountain cranberries.\u00a0 Some of us, including Jess Selva \u201917 and Tyler Allen \u201918, hiked over 4000 vertical feet from Mount Washington\u2019s summit down over the headwall of Tuckerman\u2019s Ravine and out to Pinkham Notch; legs were a bit stiff today!<\/p>\n

\"img_1396\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"img_1408\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"img_1421\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve endured just over 2000 miles of driving so far. It\u2019s a really long way from Portland to Halifax.\u00a0 Fortunately, the longest distance to be covered in the remaining 6 weeks will be done on a schooner!<\/p>\n

– Prof. Johan Erikson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time for me to write a post, since the students are immersed in writing a paper and preparing for a final in Climate Change and Glacial Geology. Yes, it is very early September and they are faced with a paper and a final.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been on the road for over 3.5 weeks, which puts … Continue reading Highlights of the first third<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-field-sites","category-scientists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/ess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}