hgroves

Volcano in New Mexico

hgroves — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:08:41 +0000

When I was a child, summers were a time for vacation. When I was 12 years old I went on a road trip from Sacramento to Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon to New Mexico, then to Durango, Colorado. The New Mexico stop was a very interesting learning experience. Before this, I thought volcanoes were out in the Pacific Ocean, but I was wrong.

It’s know as the land of fire and ice. The Ice Cave and the Bandera Volcano are located in New Mexico. Bandera Volcano has not erupted in 10,000 years, but when it did erupt, it created an amazing landscape. The Ice Cave is located in a collapsed volcano tube. Both of the sights are beautiful.

Bandera Volcano is a cinder cone volcano. It has a small, cone shaped hill made of tephra. These types of volcanoes have moderately explosive volcanoes, which is one of many types of volcanic activity. The Bandera Volcano has a trial to hike up, which took my family about an hour, because of the beautiful sites. The trial gains 150 ft. in elevation.

The Ice Cave is an unusual experience in the middle of New Mexico. As my family and I walked down the steps into the cave platform, we noticed the temperature decreasing step by step. By the time we reached the bottom, it was said it was below 31 degrees. The ice was a beautiful twenty feet thick with Arctic algae, making it a greenish tint.

Ocean

hgroves — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:53:56 +0000

I lived in Monterey, California for my first year of college. It was a beautiful place to be. During my first year in college, I wanted to study marine biology. Living near the ocean was the perfect place to study this subject. I took an oceanography course, which gave an in depth understanding of the ocean. We learned about the cause of tides, which we had the opportunity to experience first hand.

We were able to experience the tidal changes by making field trips to the local beaches and comparing the tides. We observed the differences between teh spring and neap tides. The spring tide is the greater gravitational pull from the moon, while the neap tides are a weaker gravitational pull.

During the field trips, we also observed waves. Before the field trip, however, the professor lectured about the way a wave forms, which is the movement of wave energy from the great ocean depths to the shore lines of continents. In the deep water, the crest, top part of the wave, and the trough, the lower part of the wave, are relatively long apart. When the wave travels, it hits the bottom of the oceanic crust, but when it comes close to the shore, the length of the top of the water and crust is decreased, making the crest and trough shorter and eventually breaking on the beach. I had the chance to observe all of these things by the ocean field trips. And the information stays with me every time I visit.

Rocks and Memories

hgroves — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:57:52 +0000

Rocks fascinated me when I was younger. I enjoyed observing the various beauties the rock displayed. The material and the colors were all unique. I can now understand the assorted types of rock I enjoyed looking at when I was younger. Rocks from felsic and mafic igneous rock to sedimentary rock were part of my childhood memories.

Felsic rock, or the high density, light colored rock, was the type I most often saw. This rock is formed by the continental crust and has a high viscosity. During family vacations to the Pacific Ocean, I found the darker rocks in the gift shops. This rock is igneous from forming in the ocean. The dark, mafic, and less viscous rock was found in the basalt rocks I bought.

When I was a junior in high school, I worked with rocks for my ceramics course. The rock we carved was sandstone. We were given a block of the rock and carved with various instruments to get our desired shape. The sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock, which is course and mechanically transported rock material. Sedimentary, compared to new igneous rock, is recycled. The sandstone was useful in ceramics to carve away certain pieces while keeping others part of the mass of the rock.

The formation of serenity

hgroves — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:59:47 +0000

I visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona when I was about 12 years old. I was amazed how this big hole was so beautiful, but not interested at 12 in the way it was formed. After the current lecture about the rates of changing lithosphere (the Earth’s crust and uppermost mantle), I now understand, years later, how the Grand Canyon was formed. As many of the travelers to the natural wonder understand, the formation of the Grand Canyon was due to the Colorado River. Still flowing through the canyon, the river was much wider and stronger back when the canyon was first forming. Uniformitarianism explains that current terrain is the result of the same process continuing for long periods of time. The Colorado River, in this case, has been shaping the Grand Canyon for years.

After thinking about the Grand Canyon, I wondered about Yosemite’s valley floor. From previous knowledge, glaciers once engulfed the national forest. Perhaps the glaciers would explain the valley floor of Yosemite National Park, and explain the other natural beauties, such as the waterfalls and high rock formations. Again, if this were true, it would be considered uniformitarianism, not catastrophism, which explain that catastrophic events lead to a specific landscape or terrain.

Climate and Biomes

hgroves — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:23:39 +0000

I have taken note the past few days about the differences between the Mediterranean climate I currently live in and the Marine West Coast climate I lived in about a year ago. The Csa (Mediterranean) climate is located in the Sacramento area. Seventy percent of the precipitation for this area is in the winter months. There are hot summers, which we in Sacramento just experienced May through September, and mild winters, which we are about to experience. The Cfb (Marine West Coast) climate is found in Monterey, CA, where I spent my first few semesters of college. This climate is controlled by marine polar air masses. Cfb has mild winters and warm to cool summers.

Since living in the two climate types, I also have noted the biome differences. In the Cfb, the main biome includes the Temperate Rain Forest (TeR). This biome only occurs in the Pacific Northwest (which should be noted is not in Monterey, CA, but more north in the Washington area). I however, noticed while living in Monterey that the forests around Pacific Grove have the TeR characteristics of lush forests. When visiting many of the forests around Monterey, you can find many tall, flourishing trees. In the Sacramento region, the main biome is the Mediterranean Shrubland. The fertile soil allows for lows of agricultural activity. The native species are fire adapted due to the seasonal moisture deficits. However, when looking at Sacramento, one would not see the M. Shrubland. Sacramento’s slogan is the “City of Trees.” These trees are non-native, and require an abundance of water, that in some seasons (i.e. the dry summers) are not plentiful.

Clouds

hgroves — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:34:05 +0000

As explained during my last blog, summer is over, and the September equinox officially began September 22. Summer is typically described as hot and dry in the Northern California region. Fall, however, is a time in Sacramento where we can experience really hot days (i.e. the week of September 22^nd), fairly nice days (i.e. the week of October 4^th), and strange days, where clouds are seen and water (i.e. rain in the region) falls to the ground. Clouds are essentially the grouping of moisture droplets that are visible. The strange weather began a few days ago when I did notice the clouds forming in the atmosphere. Characteristics I observed included thin, wispy, and feathered clouds. Due to these distinctive features, I concluded I had been observing cirrus clouds.

I recently researched the weather report for Sacramento for the next week. It explains that on Tuesday, October 13, there is a chance we will see some precipitation. If this were true, we would be seeing in the atmosphere a “–nimbus” cloud. This suffix explains the cloud is spilling out its water. We would not know what type of cloud it would be. It could be stratiform, but is highly unlikely, since these are associated with storms. The vertical, puffy clouds are cumliform, while cirroform are the wispy clouds I described above. It is most likely in the near future, we will be seeing some stratiform clouds, since these are most likely seen in the December solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

Season Change

hgroves — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:57:12 +0000

It is approaching that time again. There will be a season change on the 22 of September. Gone is the time where the days are the longest of the year; gone are the days of the most insolation (for us in the Northern Hemisphere). The sun has been beating enough on the Northern Hemisphere’s Tropic of Cancer (the subsolar point during the June solstice), creating long and hot days and will be beating down on the Southern Hemisphere’s Tropic of Capricorn in the near future (the subsolar point for the December solstice). But this next season is the autumnal equinox. The term equinox gives away what happens during the March and September seasons. There is an equal number of hours of day and night for the Earth. Both hemispheres will have 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. The Seasonality is due to many phenomena. The sun’s altitude, or angle, the declination, the latitude, the revolution (around sun), rotation (axis), the axial tilt (23.5 degrees), and axial parallelism, the stability for the North Pole, are all pieces of the seasonality puzzle. With the autumnal equinox brings different weather, different wind patterns, and different day hours. But the larger change will not occur until December, where the Earth’s axis will allow the sun to radiate its energy upon it, and create cold, short days.