Getting the hang of it

Post date: Jul 6, 2013 5:16:16 PM

The first two weeks of the program had been super interesting, amazing, and at some point also confusing. It is interesting how you can tell the age and taxa of a particular genus or species by analyzing the rock formations of where it is located. For example, we learned that the age of the rock formation at the New Brighton Beach is 1.8-5.3 Ma and that it is called the Purissima formation. I never really payed attention to the marine animals that lives not so deep in the ocean but now that Noel taught us about them I'm much aware of what they are and how fascinating they are. The purple urchins that we saw in Pebble Beach was quite the highlight of the trip. Everyone saw the aristotle's lantern of the urchin of which our fellow intern mates discussed during our mini-group presentations.

Another awesome part of the first two weeks are the Wednesday get-together where we learn about different fields of Environmental Science from after-grad, professors, and/or scientists. My favorite was learning about the importance of phytoplanktons. However, the first few days of data collection was quite confusing but luckily I got the hang of it. :)