Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Happy Earth Day!

I'm excited to announce I've been admitted to the Masters of Geology program at Southern Methodist University!  I plan to research the resiliency of ecosystems and how past disturbances impact biodiversity, and hope to focus on events from the past ten thousand years.  I'm mulling over ideas for a thesis project, so any suggestions are welcome.   I'll be learning a lot about Earth over the next two years!

Kitty cat from the good ol' days

A really fun exploration event has live camera coverage from the ROV aboard the Okeanos Explorer.  A few days ago, they were exploring shipwrecks 4,000 feet deep.  So deep, they haven't seen light in 200 years, so it was a thrill seeing the live feed from the ROV's camera.  They discovered the ship's sextant and a clock frozen in time, and an engineer for the ROV speculated on the implications.

Life on an eternally dark shipwreck


Also to celebrate Earth Day, Kepler has found a cousin for earth, now called Kepler-186f.  The planet is about the same size as Earth, but the star is smaller and dimmer.

Exciting real-estate opportunities abound!