/sci/ - Science & Math

currently finishing up a project on using subseafloor fluid pressure to observe long-term uplift at sedimented mid-ocean ridges. beginning a project on verifying modeled regional hydrothermal circulation in sedimented ridges this year.

>>4180795
no fieldwork? wow, sucks bro. mind if i ask where you're at school? the place where i did my master's had field trips like twice a quarter, with a 2 month field camp required for graduation. also, if you wanted to do petroleum, no offense, but you should have enrolled in a school that has a link to industry. the school i work at now has exxon recruiters in all the time and the grad students help with a field course for chevron employees about modern carbonate environments.

as or the math bit, i minored in math....but my undergrad geo coursework didn't use much beyond calculus. once i hit grad school though, shit was EVERYWHERE. like i said, i use it all the time, and if you want to do any modeling work, you'll use an asston of complex math.

geology really is fucking awesome, but i admit that some of the intro coursework can get pretty boring. i just taught a mineralogy course, so i can empathize, lol. the fact that we know SO little about the planet we live on is just mindboggling....we discover new stuff all the time. i'd be so bored if i just sat in an office and wrote code for programs all day, but that's just me.

this thread.....ALL OF MY RAGE

there's a fuckton of math in geology btw....ever heard of geophysics? and moving plates on a sphere? and experimental modeling....i use fourier transforms regularly.

how could anyone be bored by this? you get to work outside in cool field locations and drink beer.

oh wait, forgot this is assburger central, where everyone wants to hibernate in their rooms for life. have fun with that while i enjoy the hell out of my job where i get to travel, dive to the bottom of the ocean, and figure out how the planet works.

jesus fuck there's a lot of dumb in here. real geophysicist with a phd here.

the shadow zone is due to the LIQUID iron/nickel outer core, and has nothing to do with the mantle. in any case, the mantle is solid, but behaves ductile-ly over LONG timescales. an earlier anon was correct in that earthquake shear waves do NOT pass through liquids, thus creating the shadow zone and validating the presence of a liquid outer core within the earth.

geology.

you get to be outdoors, drink beer, and go to tons of amazing locations for fieldwork.

CS you sit in a room and stare at a screen for the rest of your life. no thanks.

way more jobs in geophysics....especially if you're willing to work for big oil. but still tons of jobs. geology has a 0% unemployment rate.

>>4068950
uh, you do realize that we can get right up next to them, right? we do all the time in the sub. the gradient between venting fluids and the bottomwater is compressed to less than 10cm. avg bottom temp around vents only goes up maybe a few tenths of a degree, unless you put your temp probe into a chimney. so long as you're not sticking the portholes (which are plastic) into venting fluid, you can safely be right up next to a high-temp chimney. how else do you think we get samples?

>that feel
i know that one OP....now start obsessively checking your h-index once you get referenced by someone!

OP when i was 5 i wanted to be a doctor. later an egyptologist, then a paleontologist. at 11 i found marine geology and didn'tt look back.

living the dream man....been to the bottom of the ocean and it fucking rules.

>>4026695
dude, how many total PIs are doing work in space (not counting telescopes/satellites...ACTUAL work IN SPACE that you do on the ISS)? 10? 20?

in ONE field season, there may be 30-40 different grants that use NDSF vehicles. each of those grants has probably 3-4 investigators. so just in one field season, you've got 90-120 PIs gathering data. that's 90-120 papers AT LEAST. for most of our datasets we can get multiple papers from one set of data because we're collecting so much.

proportionally, for our 3 million dollar program, we're generating A LOT of work. imagine what we could do with a bit more funding!

>>4026623
i'm not really sure on the exact number.....i know there have only been like 20 something odd pilots....definitely more scientists/laypeople have dived than have been to space. PIs bring out grad students and lots of new divers every cruise....we try to make sure everyone gets to go once (on our cruises anyways). with ~100 dives per year, that can generate a large number of divers.

as for depth....lots of work happens at the mid-ocean ridge crest, so maybe 1500m down. my work is on the ridge flank, so it's a bit deeper (2500+m). we have a few installations deeper (near 4500m down) that i haven't been to yet in the sub. i'd say many fewer people have been on the deep dives....simply because most of the funded work has been focused at the (relatively) shallow MOR.

yeah, once the second stage of the upgrade happens and we get a TRUE 6500m sub then we'll be able to go to so many more places.....funding will dictate where we go though.

>>4026597
here's one of the aforementioned octopi, viewed from the starboard viewport.

>>4026524
agreed. i like space too, don't get me wrong.....just the disproportional funding between space and ocean science bothers me. i'll reiterate for the haters....the entire US deep submergence program is run on 3 million dollars a year. and combined, all the people working with NDSF (national deep submergence facility, runs JASON, Alvin, and Sentry) generate FAR more science than is generated by the ISS.

>>4026608
this is probably the only interesting thread right now on /sci/...god forbid we discuss SCIENCE. *eyeroll*

>>4026208
>>4026193
i've never felt scared in the ocean...even the first time i dived in Alvin. there's an amazing period of about 20 minutes after you sink through the photic zone when you see bioluminescent critters floating past the windows, giving a 'warp speed' effect.....you'll see a big blobby thing and think "wow, WTF was that?!"...but if the pilot were to turn on the outer lights, you wouldn't see squat since they're all see-through gelatinous things.

on the soft sediment bottom, 2000m+ down, you see minimal macrofauna. the occasional brittle star or sea cucumber....maybe a rattail fish hanging around, attracted by the light. octopi love our seafloor observatories, and there's a little family around each one generally, using them for shelter in an otherwise featureless environment. they're curious, and we've 'shaken hands' with them before (touch their arm gently with the manipulator and they reach out to grab on like a baby grabs its parent's finger innately).

it's really a magical experience....i can't imagine being scared, even though the pressure is 2 tons per square inch outside. it's like time moves more slowly down there. once we were doing an experiment where we had to turn off ALL the external lights and as much inside as we could (testing a long-distance optical device). it was so dark, and SO clear that we could still see the light from the emitter after moving 500 meters away from it. just amazing.

>>4019367
this is one of my favorite photos of alvin....we have so few of it working on the seafloor.

in thanks, have a shot from inside alvin while working on one of my group's observatories on the seafloor, 2660m down.

>>4019009
argh, NE pacific...sorry for my bad typing

>>4018961
if it's in their own EEZ, they can knock themselves out. and i never said we'd ask nicely. i don't think most people realize how vicious the science community can be when faced with losing their research areas. if they come over into the NW pacific and start messing with shit where i work...heads will roll.

but it's china...i'll believe it when i see it. they've been 'in development' on a deep diving sub for maybe the last 5 years....haven't seen ANYthing come of that. i think one thing people don't quite get is the sheer expense of doing deep sea work, PLUS the necessary refining (it;s not like there's lumps of raw metals...they're bound up in complex minerals that will be a pain to break down). i'm still not convinced that for deep sea mining, the benefit outweighs the cost.

>>4018924
that should be 30 years ago, not 40....typo.

let's clear up a few things here.
>>4018907
>Because two corporations are already, right now, mining deep sea mineral deposits with excavation robots.
if you mean the group in Palau...they're still surveying and have NOT started processing (met a guy who works for them)

>Because five nations have announced plans for nationalized efforts to compete for those deposits.
>Because 800 billion in rare earth metals have been discovered in the pacific ocean alone.
you do not want to get me going on this. there has been a concerted effort in the hydrothermal community to protect our study sites (with the MMS). already in the gulf of mexico, cold seep communities are protected from potential nearby drilling/prospecting. countries may SAY they wan to exploit vent deposits, but the scientific community won't let it happen. no way in hell. we only discovered these things 40 years ago...we're not letting people rape them before we even understand them.

>>4018868
>less than one third of NASA's budget
as a side note to this, the ENTIRE US deep submergence program is run on 3 million dollars. yup, including salaries. that's LESS than the cost of ONE shuttle launch.

grr 4chan ate my reply
>>4018553
FYI, aliens of the deep is regarded as total shit in the hydrothermal community....so much BADLY edited together vents that are in different oceans....in the same sequence. and i went to grad school with >>4018699 this chick.

in ACTUAL research submersible news, DSV alvin is set to return to service in late 2012....i'm trying to get on the science shakedown cruise.

i think what bothers me most about branson/cameron's projects is that the science was just an addon....not integrated. they're not equipped to take samples or do anything beyond observe (which, while important, is not really that much in the greater picture). from talking with branson's pilot, they lacked a detailed ops plan and a lot of other things you need in order to effectively do deep sea science. really, all i can see thier endeavours resulting in is a 10 second piece at the end of the news. exploration (outer or inner space) is just not regarded highly any more, sadly....and since we've been to the challenger deep before it's not as WOW for joe public.

>I recommend it be removed from publication consideration by JGR

mfw JGR is one of the MOST DIFFICULT peer-reviewed journals to get published in...this dood is an idiot.

>>3940593
>tend to absorb massive quantities of lead, uranium and mercury—so no, they aren't edible.

this doesn't mean that they EAT heavy metals or uranium.....they're just bio-accumulating it just like a fish or any other sea life does. it's eating other stuff in the sediment and the bad stuff gets picked up as well...and accumulates in the organism's tissues. (ie. why people always tell you not to eat a lot of tuna....they also bio-accumulate heavy metals)

these things don't consume uranium...man, non-comprehension pisses me off.

friends with bob ballard
met lynn margulis and dorian sagan
work with/know a number of pretty famous oceanographers....not that the general public would know who they are though.

>>3888975
the test prep courses don't teach you material that will be on the SAT, they just give you techniques to get past the ETS's asshattery with trick answers. seriously, it's more about how to take the test than what's on it.

personally, i took an SAT class waaaaaaay back when (SAT was only out of 1600 then). raised my score 240 points because i wasn't falling into the traps ETS laid out.

investment: maybe $800. reward: $20,000 per year for the university I attended (3/4 tuition). good deal IMO