Deep in the Sea

The movie Deep Sea, Deep Secret is about a team of people from the Woods Hole Marine Biological lab exploring Deep Sea hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. The are holes in the crust of the earth where magma seeps up and causes hot streams of mineral rich smoke to bubble up in to the cold deep sea water. It is a condition that almost no organisms could survive, but somehow a few species have found a way to live near these vents.

The people of Woods Hole Marine Biological lab are well known for their marine biology work and for making annual trips to deep sea hydrothermal vents. There is so much work involved in setting up everything needed to make these dangerous trips that not every institute can do. Holger Jannasch is a research at the lab that has made major contributions with deep sea hydrothermal vent research. His team was the first to make a trip to collect sample from these vents in the Alvin, one of a very small number of submersibles that is able to reach the depth necessary to study the vents.

The researchers from the lab found a deep sea hydrothermal vent that was in the process of forming that they called 9 north. The vents are formed when the magma rising to the surface almost instantaneously cool and form chimney like structures. This was an important find because it allowed the researchers to see how these vents are form and where the organisms that live there come from.
At the vents there are small white crabs that live all over the place. They feed on tube worms, small fish, and even each other. They are also the toughest organisms at the vents because they are able to live outside of the ocean as well, the only one outside of the vents able to do so. 

Life Expectancy

In 1918 the Spanish flu was killing hundreds of thousands of people, especially in the younger age groups. You people would go off to war, contract the Spanish flu, and then infect their peers when they returned. Many people died at a very young age at this time. This is a life expectancy table for a few people who are buried in a Macon cemetery who died in 1918.

 Life Expectancy Table for 1918

Cohort (x)	Raw Counts (Dx)	% in Cohort (dx)	Survivorship (lx)	Death % (Qx)
0-9.9	1	10	1	0.1
10-19.9	0	0	0.9	0
20-29.9	1	10	0.9	0.111
30-39.9	3	30	0.8	0.375
40-49.9	4	40	0.5	0.8
50-59.9	0	0	0.1	0
60-69.9	1	1	0.1	0.1
70-79.9	0	0	0	0
80+	0	0	0	1

 Most of the people who were found to have died at this time died in their thirties and forties. With a larger sample size it is possible that the life expectancy may be more bleak because so few numbers can cause skewed results. But when compared to a small sample of people buried in the same cemetery who died between 1960 and 1980.

Life Expectancy Table in 1960-1980

Cohort (x)	Raw Counts (Dx)	% in Cohort (dx)	Survivorship (lx)	Death % (Qx)
0-9.9	0	0	1	0
10-19.9	0	0	1	0
20-29.9	1	10	1	0.1
30-39.9	0	0	0.9	0
40-49.9	0	0	0.9	0
50-59.9	1	10	0.9	0.111
60-69.9	0	0	0.8	0
70-79.9	1	10	0.8	0.125
80-89.9	5	50	0.7	0.714
90+	2	20	0.2	1

People who died during this time period seemed to die more in their eighties, which is a forty to fifty year difference when compared to the 1918 group. Once again this is a small sample size so the results may not be completely accurate, but the difference is drastic enough that there is an obvious difference without counting for error.

Up on Mount Fuji

For this week's lab assignment we had to create a topographical map of any place in the world. It is basically a map showing the different elevations of the place. I chose to do Mount Fuji because I want to go to Japan one day and it was one of the first mountains that came to mind when thinking about where to do this map. Anyways I started with creating a map around the mountain at around 8,000ft. Then I continued to make rings for 9k, 10k, 11k, and 12k so that it is possible to see the elevation change all the way up to around the highest points of the mountain.

Red-8k, Orange-9k, Purple-10k, Blue-11k, and Green 12k

Following the Sun

Throughout the year our exposure to the sun gradually changes over time. All over the world the amount of sun each place receives differs from time to time because of the angled rotation and orbit of the Earth. For us in Georgia the amount of sun we get during the summer is longer than the amount of sun that we see during the winter. While the difference is a few more or less hours of sunlight each day the difference in other places are more extreme.
For this class we had to go out on day and using a vertical standing object calculate the movement of the sun throughout the day. The object acted almost like a sundial, except instead of measuring the time we were measuring the direction and height of the sun (by measuring the shadow of the object). For me the object was a narrow stick about three feet long that I stuck in the ground until it stood about two feet out of the ground. I measure the shadow three times on March 25; at 10:18am, 11:55am, and 2:54pm. I would have taken another measure or two, but someone decided that my stick was a nuisance and took it down. I have graphed it out on circular graph paper, but due to technical difficulties I have not been able to scan it or recreate it to upload. I will work on getting that up soon.
In the meantime if you want to see what I am talking about you can go over to www.suncalc.net to play around. The yellow shaded area is how much the sun can be seen by people at that point throughout the year. The orange line in the area is what the people there see as the trajectory of the sun during that day. Anyways try moving the cursor around to different areas of the world and changing the date to see how people all over the world see the sun move throughout the year.

Ocmulgee Rock Formations

This is a picture of part of the Ocmulgee river with the rock formations marked with the red lines. These rock formations are similar to each other in that they are all leaning in a similar direction, going from lower on the left side to higher on the right side.

The Oclmulgee Flood of 1994

In February of 1994 there was a massive flood in Macon that was caused by the city's levee creating a bottleneck for the increasing water of the Olcmulgee river. The excess water would normally spill over into flood lands around the Macon area, but because of the levee being on both sides the water had nowhere to safely go. The water rose to 35.4 feet and caused over $116 million of damage statewide.

The Macon water sanitation plant was flooded and the pipes were clogged with clay. This lead to a new plant needing to be built and left Macon residents without clean water for a number of days. The levee eventually broke and the water was able to flow away from the river. Recent news video here.
One solution to this problem would be to put the road that is supported by the levee on a bridge that would allow water to spill into the area away and reduce the amount of flooding that occurs during periods of lots of rain.

The Perfect Storm

The fearless sword-fishing-boat captain Billy Tyne feeling pressured to bring in a large haul of fish left from Gloucester, Massachusetts with a group of five other men. They head to their normal fishing area, but without any real luck. The captain, refusing to go back to shore without a large catch, decides to head to the Flemish Cap where he believes they will find all the fish they can catch. Once they make it to the cap they begin catching so many fish that they cannot hold any more in the ship. While they are catching all their fish three storms begin to merge together blocking their way back with over forty foot high swells and gale force winds. About the time that the crew fills their boat with fish the ice maker goes out leaving them with two choices: wait out the storm where they are and lose the catch or to brave the storm and make a large sum if they make it back. The crew decides that they will try to make it through the storm and find themselves over their head. The group then decides that they will try to head to safety and live to fish another day and attempt to turn around. They manage to do so, but just when they think that they are in the clear the clouds once again block out the sun and a giant swell tips the boat, killing the whole crew. The family and friends of the crew are left back at home to deal with the loss of the men.


During the events happening with the crew there is a side story about a small boat with three passengers that was caught in the 'perfect' storm. They called for help from the coast guard and were saved by a rescue team. The rescue team were then called in to help the men in the fishing boat, but after failing to get fuel and the helicopter being sunk they ended up having to fight for their lives to make their way onto a coast guard boat. All, but one man from the rescue team made it back to the boat alive.