Blast from the Past: Iguanodon Poem

Iguanodon skeleton. Picture taken from Wikipedia here.

I have decided to introduce a new, semi-regular feature to this blog, at least for the next little while. "Blast from the Past" will feature past items from my life: pictures, geology-themed childhood sketches, old school essays, etc.

I am currently in the process of packing up my apartment so that I can move to Wyoming this summer and then to South Africa later in the year. I have been sorting through some boxes of high school and college notes and letters and have been finding some interesting tidbits from years ago.  I think some of these tidbits are worth sharing on this blog as they are records of my budding and developing interest in science, travel, and other topics-- or simply because they are entertaining. 

For the first "Blast from the Past," let me share with you a poem I wrote for a high school English class. We could chose any topic we wanted for the poem and I chose... dinosaurs. I guess in English class I was daydreaming about geology. Enjoy!

Sexism in Science

I just wanted to write a short post to recommend that you all go and read this post by my friend Bug Girl about her experiences with sexism in entomology. I am proud to call Bug Girl my friend. Bug Girl is a fellow Skepchick, and I've known her for a long time through skeptical circles. Bug Girl was very supportive and encouraging of me when I was studying science back in undergrad, and she continues to be an inspiration for me.

I wish I could say that I have never encountered sexism in my own academic experiences, but unfortunately I have. I do not remember encountering any sexism (at least, nothing too blatant) during my undergrad days at Dartmouth. However, I have encountered sexism at MIT a number of times, ranging from subtle to blatant. Actually, some of the sexism I encountered at MIT contributed to my decision to leave my first advisor after passing my PhD qualifying exam. There were many factors that influenced my decision, and one of them was that I did not feel that the environment at MIT was particularly encouraging for young female scientists. And I was not the only young woman to leave my lab group. Two of us left at about the same time, actually. I still bitterly remember one particular comment, said to me after I mentioned that I was tired after a long shift on a summer research cruise. A male lab technician (not my first advisor, fortunately) from MIT said to me, "You know, if science is too difficult, it's not too late to become a housewife." He laughed and said he was joking, but the comment stung nevertheless.

Recently, I recounted the story of the housewife comment to my current advisor, who is a woman. She was a graduate student back in the 1970s, and I'm sure she encountered much worse sexism than that during graduate school. Shaking her head, she said to me, "You know, I thought we'd moved past comments like that." I think that says it all. Please, let us move past this sexism. 

Things are improving, and fortunately I have never encountered the level of sexism that Bug Girl encountered. I am very impressed at how she managed to persevere in spite of all the blatant sexism. There is still a long way to go to combat sexism in science, but at least progress is being made.

Mystery Rock

Mystery Rock, Photo 1.

A few weeks ago a blog reader named Bob wrote me to ask if I could help identify a "mystery rock" in his backyard. Bob sent me several photos of the rock and wrote:

Hi Evelyn,

I'm reasonably sure I'm wasting your valuable time with these "silly"
rock pictures, but I've been searching the web for similar pictures or
descriptions with no real satisfaction.

I am a computer tech by trade and know nothing about rocks.

I found this one unique looking rock on my property in Bergen County NJ.
It was one of I'm sure tens of thousands in a large rock wall that is at
least more than 75 years old. (It could be much older.)
I have seen none else that look like this one so far.

To keep this email short, here is my question:
Should I be more curious about this rock or just place it in a garden
bed for decoration?
 
Thank you very much for humoring me on this.
Bob.

Well, as a geologist I like nothing better than puzzling over an interesting rock-- so, Bob, you're not wasting my time at all!

A Quick Note: Lulu Book

I want to give you a quick update on the status of the book "Conversations with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan" which I plan to self-publish on Lulu. I am still working on putting this book together, albeit in my very limited free time. Now that I'm back from my South Africa trip, I'm working 10-12 hour lab days to finish up the labwork for my PhD thesis. The good news is that the interviews are all transcribed now (thanks to my volunteers; if I haven't sent you a rock yet I'll do so in the next few weeks), so I just need to finish editing and compiling them.

My plan is to have the book available on Lulu around the first week of June. I want to include a few pictures of my father and I in the "extra" chapter. I was compiling some photographs, and I realized that my dad and I have not taken a picture together since my college graduation back in 2006! I'd like to include a recent picture of my dad and I. Fortunately (maybe unfortunately for him), my dad is visiting me on June 1st to help me move out of my apartment, so we'll do our best to take some photos then to include in the book. You should expect the book on Lulu shortly thereafter. The interviews will of course be out-of-date, but there is still plenty of good information and explanation in these interviews, much of which will still be relevant even three months after the nuclear disaster began. Also, our interviews tell a story, in a way, of the first month of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

As a reminder to everyone, the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is far from over. There has been so much damage to the Fukushima reactors 1-3 and the spent fuel pools at reactors 1-4 that restoration of normal cooling systems will still take months. Meanwhile, the situation at Fukushima remains precarious.

The "Peace in Africa" in Port

The M/V Peace in Africa is an enormous mining vessel that mines alluvial diamonds off the coast of Namibia (and which used to mine off the coast of South Africa as well). The ship dredges up large amounts of diamond-bearing sediment, which is processed on the ship to concentrate the diamonds. The ship is owned and operated by De Beers.

The M/V Peace in Africa spends most of its time out at sea. However, when I was in Cape Town just over a week ago, I was lucky enough to catch sight of the M/V Peace in Africa in port. The M/V Peace in Africa is an extraordinary, very unique mining ship and is an impressive feat of engineering design and ship manufacture. I was excited to catch a glimpse of her, if only from a distance.

Here are a few pictures of the M/V Peace in Africa viewed from Signal Hill: 

Port from Signal Hill, Cape Town, South Africa, May 2011.

Label showing location of M/V Peace in Africa.

The Maltese Cross

I'm back to working long days in lab, and I miss being outdoors in South Africa. So, to make myself happy after a long 12-hour lab day, I thought I'd post some more pictures from my recent trip to the Cederberg Mountains in South Africa.

The day after we visited the Sevilla Rock Art Trail, my fiance and I hiked up to a rock feature known as "The Maltese Cross."  Hiking up to the cross is a relatively easy, ~1/2 day hike if you're in good hiking shape. For various reasons (too much time in lab for me and too much time at sea for my fiance), we are not currently in top hiking form. So, we decided to allocate a full day to the Maltese Cross hike. We also needed a full day because we were staying in a little cabin near the town of Citrusdal. The cabin where we were staying is actually very close to the cross as the bird flies, but there is no road or path leading directly from Citrusdal to the cross. So, we had to drive north-- about halfway to Clanwilliam-- and take a small, pothole-riddled dirt road through the town of Algeria and then down to the little village (just a wine farm, really) of Dwarsrivier. The drive from Citrusdal to Dwarsrivier takes about 1.5 hours-- including about an hour on the dirt road-- each way.

Driving from Algeria to Dwarsrivier is very scary, particularly when you are driving an old, rusty 1994 VW CitiGolf. Note that the car actually has the word "Citi" in it. This is a city car, not a Cederberg car. However, my fiance's trusty CitiGolf-- named Hubert-- has made many a trip along the dirt roads of the Cederberg. As you might expect, Hubert always comes back from the Cederberg with an injury. On this trip a rock badly cracked one of his front lights. A month or so ago when my fiance was in the Cederberg, a tire blew out in a dramatic fashion. Last September we snapped the muffler in two. As you can imagine, driving along a dirt road in Hubert is somewhat nerve-wracking and destructive (to poor Hubert), which is why we are now looking into buying a proper 4-by-4 vehicle.

My fiance's "field" CitiGolf at the farm in Dwarsrivier, South Africa, May 2011.

Sevilla Rock Art Trail

Jumping man with spear, Sevilla Rock Trail, South Africa, May 2011.

Last week my fiance and I spent a few days in the Cederberg Mountains, a couple of hours drive north of Cape Town, South Africa. One day we drove from our cabin in Citrusdal to the town of Clanwilliam and then a little farther up the R364 to a little place called "Traveller's Rest." After buying permits, obtaining a map and guidebook, and eating a tasty lunch (only 25 rand, just under $4 US at the current exchange rate) at the Khoisan Kitchen, we set out on a self-guided hike along the Sevilla Rock Art Trail. 

Delicious lunch at the Khoisan Kitchen, South Africa, May 2011.

The trail is only 4km long, and the hiking is flat and easy. However, we spent an entire afternoon slowly walking along the trail and marveling at hundreds of rock art paintings. These paintings were made by the San people hundreds to thousands of years ago. In South Africa "San" is now the favored, politcally correct term used for the bushmen people.