I don't actually have a real job this summer, other than babysitting. That means I have plenty of time to engage in relaxing activities like tutoring in Calculus, studying for the GRE, and getting serious about my grad school search! My heart is still set on Arizona but I've decided to also look at New Mexico, Nevada, and MAYBE California... although the thought of dealing with 18-lane highways on a regular basis is really scary. Marie and Linda, how do you do it? Really? Do you fear for your life every time you leave your driveway?
Another part of my heart tells me I'd be just as happy going to school here in the South, even though all our rocks are covered up by those dang plants.
I'll leave you with a few pictures from the Costa Rica geology field trip...
This was taken at Puerto Limon, on the Caribbean coast. I'm standing on the top of a coral reef that was uplifted by about 5 feet after a Mag. 7 earthquake in 1991. It exposed the top of the coral and now you can walk out on it... pretty awesome!
This is one of the craters at Volcan Poas. At the bottom of the crater is Laguna Caliente, with a pH close to zero! That's why there aren't any plants growing within the crater. To give you an idea of scale, this crater is about 1.5 km across and 300 m deep.
Here's Poas again, from the airplane. You can see both of the craters in this picture. As you can see, the lake in the other crater is much friendlier, with a higher pH and lots of vegetation growing around it.
This is our friend Lenny, the three-toed sloth. He stayed in one of our cabins on the Caribbean coast and didn't move the whole time we were there! Did you know that a sloth's fur is covered in cyanobacteria? I think the bacteria is a skin irritant to predators of the sloth. It's their only defense. Two of my favorite organisms living happily together -- I love it!
We passed this cow on the way up to Monteverde. Check out her mule-ish ears.
3 comments:
I'm so glad to see you again! I love reading your blog.
p.s. You'll never see any 18-lane hwys. anywhere near San Francisco--that's not to say that I don't fear for my life every time I leave my driveway.
Sounds like you've been leading an exciting life these past few months. Costa Rica looks like it was a lot of fun.
If you get a chance, you should head out to this neck of the woods.
Driving in California is scary. If you're on the freeway, you just have to be super aggressive. If you're on the 1, you have wind and cyclists and surfers crossing the road. If you're on any of the other roads that I drive, you have large mammals and sharp turns and landslides. But it's worth it. It's fun. California's great. But so are NM and AZ... and if you come out here too, I might not leave.
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