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usgs open house
Jun. 5th, 2006 11:44 pmYesterday I went to the open house at the Menlo Park USGS (us geological survey). Apparently this was the 8th one, and they've been doing them every 3 years, but it was my first time.
The coolest item I brought home is a poster of the south bay watershed! Large nicely drawn picture, facing South, so the water can run down the poster! It has the mountains and creeks and freeways and drinking water and wastewater plants marked.
Most interesting new thing I learned about is that they are using the ratios of Carbon 12 to Carbon 13 and Nitrogen 14 to Nitrogen 15 to figure out what people or animals eat/ate. Whether some group of people ate corn for example. I'm waiting to see what the ratios in my finger nails are.
Mass spectrometry really is getting to be a lab common-place these days, I guess, 10 years ago it was only heading that way.
The thing I'd never done before was pan for gold. It takes patience! No you couldn't keep the gold, but it was a thrill to see it. Just tiny flakes. If you were going to keep it, you'd need a little vial and a pair of tweezers would probably help.
The flash from the past was the groundwater hydrology demonstrations, soon followed by mentions of MTBE, and seeing chromatograms of diesel, gas, and tars. She was talking a bit about the changing patterns as the stuff ages. Uh, yes of course it does, that's why it was so annoying that they'd make us write stuff like <78,000 ppb * does not match standard diesel pattern.... no not the _fresh_ pattern of the standards, doesn't mean it's not diesel. Well haven't been in that field for 10 years now.
Which reminds me of another surprising little factoid I learned - most of the tarballs on beaches come from natural vents under the ocean, not from spills. She had some underwater film of one. Pretty amazing looking.
And of course there was plenty about earthquakes and volcanos! If you get a chance go to the next one in 3 years.
There were people of all ages there, but expect kids under about 6 or 7 to melt down (or wear you into a meltdown) long before you get through the whole thing. The kid who acted scared when he heard the word 'protozoa' was pretty funny.
The coolest item I brought home is a poster of the south bay watershed! Large nicely drawn picture, facing South, so the water can run down the poster! It has the mountains and creeks and freeways and drinking water and wastewater plants marked.
Most interesting new thing I learned about is that they are using the ratios of Carbon 12 to Carbon 13 and Nitrogen 14 to Nitrogen 15 to figure out what people or animals eat/ate. Whether some group of people ate corn for example. I'm waiting to see what the ratios in my finger nails are.
Mass spectrometry really is getting to be a lab common-place these days, I guess, 10 years ago it was only heading that way.
The thing I'd never done before was pan for gold. It takes patience! No you couldn't keep the gold, but it was a thrill to see it. Just tiny flakes. If you were going to keep it, you'd need a little vial and a pair of tweezers would probably help.
The flash from the past was the groundwater hydrology demonstrations, soon followed by mentions of MTBE, and seeing chromatograms of diesel, gas, and tars. She was talking a bit about the changing patterns as the stuff ages. Uh, yes of course it does, that's why it was so annoying that they'd make us write stuff like <78,000 ppb * does not match standard diesel pattern.... no not the _fresh_ pattern of the standards, doesn't mean it's not diesel. Well haven't been in that field for 10 years now.
Which reminds me of another surprising little factoid I learned - most of the tarballs on beaches come from natural vents under the ocean, not from spills. She had some underwater film of one. Pretty amazing looking.
And of course there was plenty about earthquakes and volcanos! If you get a chance go to the next one in 3 years.
There were people of all ages there, but expect kids under about 6 or 7 to melt down (or wear you into a meltdown) long before you get through the whole thing. The kid who acted scared when he heard the word 'protozoa' was pretty funny.
