Daniel's Blog

First Blog

Just a few days ago, I started my research here at the Stanford School of Earth Sciences. I worked with by supervisor, Caitlin, to work on a project involving foraminifera. This project involved finding the sizes of two specific species of these foraminifera in sediment cores from Antarctica (namely E. exigua and C. porrectus) and comparing their sizes depending on the depth of the sediment core. As the sediment gets deeper, less oxygen will be present. The project’s goal is to find whether or not oxygen has a correlation with foraminifer size in the Antarctic region.

During the mornings, I pick the required species of foraminifera from a set of about ten thousand specimens taken from the Antarctic region. I used a wet paintbrush to separate the species and put the desired ones into a new plate. On the new plate, each specimen had a square of its own, while with the old plates, the specimens of one species were all contained within one square. Glue was used to prevent the foraminifera from moving. To measure the size of the foraminifera, I used an advanced microscope and computer software. The microscope was connected to the computer, and I ran the program NIS Elements. I then used measurement tools on the program to record the length and width of each foraminifer, and inserted this information into an Excel spreadsheet. In the end, I will graph this information using the programming language R and try to detect a correlation.

In the future, I hope to investigate more species of foraminifera and search for a stronger correlation. I also hope to understand more about the biological explanation behind this phenomenon, if there is any.

Second Blog

In the past few weeks, I have learned and seen a lot at the Stanford Earth Sciences Internship. Just last Wednesday, I went on a trip to the coast of California to study the underlying rock record of the land. First, we climbed the Windy Hill Open Space Preserve and used a compass to determine our position with a method known as triangulation. We then went to San Gregorio State Beach. There, we studied a yellow rock formation similar to sandstone, and learned that it had been formed from lava rising to the surface and solidifying. We went to Pigeon Point and Ano Nuevo Beach, where we studied conglomerate rock and fossilized marine organisms, respectively. We also learned about the population of elephant seals at an island near Ano Nuevo. The trip was altogether very interesting and informative.

This Monday and Tuesday, I also went on a camping trip with the History of Life interns to Pinnacles National Park. We went on a hike to look at certain rock formations and discern how they got there. The hike was very arduous, but it was a good exercise both mentally and physically. The next day, we went to another region near Greenfield, California to examine rocks and dig for crab fossils. All in all, the two field trips were great experiences, and I greatly enjoyed them.

Third Blog

My second year of the Stanford Earth Sciences Internship is, unfortunately, over. I met many different people along the way, all of whom were very nice and intelligent. I will miss everyone that I met, but I take comfort in the fact that I will most likely see them again at the AGU meeting.

This last Monday, the general interns went on a tour of the farm. We looked at all the different types of edible plants being grown there. My friend Jared and I also assisted in feeding the chickens and cleaning out the coop. We also ate pizza and learned about a description of the soil used in farming, based on the content of sand, silt, and clay.

During this week, I also finished working on my AGU project, which involved finding the relationship between foraminiferal size and oxygen concentration in certain sediment cores in Antarctica. I discovered that there was a significant positive correlation for one species, a significant negative correlation for another species, and no correlation at all for a third one. I will present my findings at the AGU meeting in December.

On the last day of our internship, we presented our final projects. The first ones to present were the General Program interns, including me. A multitude of different topics were discussed, including Jared’s continued project from last year on determining slip rates near faults by beryllium dating. After this, we went over to the Geocorner to view the History of Life posters. My favorite poster was by Sid and Aditya, who investigated the size difference of ostracods before and after mass extinction events. They concluded that in most cases, there was no statistically significant size difference. Another good poster was by Sam and Chris, who investigated essentially the same trend as I did for my project: they studied the relationship between ostracod size and oxygen concentration. All of the presentations were extremely intriguing and showed just how much we helped contribute to the study of earth science related fields this summer.

This internship was very interesting and informative, and a very good opportunity to perform some scientific research. Not only did I learn, however, but I also met tons of new people and made friends. I certainly hope to come back for a third year.