Meteor Crater adventures

Hola (I was kind of close to Mexico)!

So going back to some geology: in October I had the opportunity to attend the Meteor Crater Field Training and Research Program led by Lunar and Planetary Institute scientist Dr. David Kring. It was a program aimed at planetary geology graduate students. Our group of 24 consisted of students from lots of different universities, and different countries. Two guys hailed from Germany, two students from Austria, one from England, and one from Canada. Of the 18 students from the US, the universities represented were pretty prestigious: MIT, Harvard, Washington U. in St. Louis, University of Arizona, Arizona State, Purdue, Case Western, University of Texas - Austin, University of Colorado - Boulder, and, of course, University of Tennessee! There were two of us from UT, and I felt like that made our department and university look really good to be rubbing shoulders with the Ivy leaguers :) Most of the students (ok, all but me and Matt) were studying some aspect of impact crater formation, either on Earth or other bodies. I was mainly there to skip school (with a good excuse), find a real meteorite, and to get the behind-the-scenes tour of the crater with an expert. I definitely learned a lot about impact cratering - like how much I still don't know! I also learned about how COLD and WINDY Arizona can be in October!!

For starters, here's a picture of me on the crater rim:



Something that I had known before going and had even taught in Geology 104 lab (introduction to the planets) was that a defining feature of a crater is its uplifted rim. However, I hadn't given the word "uplifted" much thought until going there. Northern Arizona is pretty flat, and when you're driving up to the crater, it's definitely noticeably higher than the surrounding area!

The crater is actually "small" by impact crater standards; it's less than a mile across. It's also really young geologically - only about 50,000 years old!! For comparison, the Chesapeake Bay impact structure is 35 million years old and much much larger. Meteor Crater, however, is much better preserved than pretty much any other crater on Earth, making it ideal for study. It was first "discovered" in the late 19th century and was purchased by a fellow named Barringer. Barringer was into mineral exploration/resources and was primarily a businessman, having only an undergraduate degree in geology. He was essentially the first person to call the site a meteorite crater (others, including the head of the US Geologic Survey at the time, thought it was a volcanic feature) so he suspected that the meteorite that produced it may lie at least in pieces in the crater walls or under the crater floor. Basically, he thought he was going to make tons of money from unearthing an enormous iron meteorite. The crater became his obsession for basically the rest of his life. He made amazingly detailed and astute observations. In fact, many of his hypotheses still hold up even now with all kinds of new ways to collect information from the site. Just goes to show that you can learn a lot just by hanging out somewhere and walking around!

There were, however, some key aspects of crater formation that he didn't grasp. He thought the entire meteorite would be buried, intact, underneath the crater floor. He also thought the meteorite would be roughly the size of the hole. Wrong. Meteors that form craters are only a fraction of the size of the craters they form. The crater is formed from pressure and shock waves resulting from the fast-moving meteor crashing into the surface. Usually, the meteorite is either vaporized (if it's small) or broken into many tiny pieces and scattered. So while lots of meteorite fragments have been recovered from the site over the past 100 or so years, no enormous iron blob has been unearthed! But other than that, he pretty much got the story right. Yay for amateur scientists being awesome! Also, the Barringer family still owns the crater. It's actually not a national park/site, which is pretty amazing.

Some things about Meteor Crater that make it unique:
1) It's roughly square-shaped with rounded corners. Most craters on any planet are circular. This is due to the pre-existing perpendicular joints in the rock. When the impact occured, those weaknesses already existed in the rock, so the walls formed along relatively straight lines.
2) After impact, a lake formed in it. This is thought to be not uncommon in very ancient (4.5 - 3.75 billion year old) Martian craters.
3) A few areas around the rim are higher due to huge chunks of rock being shoved into the crater walls as they were forming. Weird.
4) Astronauts train there!
5) All the rubble/old mining equipment has been left the way it was after mining efforts ceased, so it's completely historically accurate.
6) It was a filming location for the 1980's movie, Starman. We watched it one night... I would not necessarily recommend.

Apollo-era astronauts did a lot of training at Meteor Crater. On the crater floor (off-limits to tourists, but we got to go down), there is an American flag set up with a wooden astronaut cut-out next to it. Here's a picture of me and the astronaut:



Apparently rovers are trained there, too! Here's a Canadian Space Agency group testing a rover:



We spent the first two days basically hiking around and through the crater, which was pretty cool. Dr. Kring told us that taking samples from the crater was prohibited for tourists. Scientists were permitted to take samples that had already fallen to the crater floor to use for research, but each piece must be documented and registered. Any meteorite chunks that are found have to be left alone if they're still in the crater wall. They can be collected by meteorite scientists after they've weathered out, but Dr. Kring said that usually they would get lost in the material that had been rained down the slopes during the rainy season. He did show us a nice sample still stuck in the wall. We weren't even allowed to sit less than 5 feet away from it! Here he is pointing it out to us (it's the dark blob in the pinkish rock to his left):



Even though we weren't allowed to collect our own meteorites, we still ended up with samples anyway! A professor from Arizona State drove up and talked to us about meteorites and gave us goody bags with teeny meteorites from Meteor Crater in them!

We camped in tents at the Meteor Crater RV Park. Our fellow RV park residents were pretty colorful characters. We were the only group in tents, with the exception of a group of three hunters. They were pretty old and woke up at 4 AM every morning. Good campfire entertainment. Here's a picture of our tents lit up at night:



Our main project while there was to contribute to a research project Dr. Kring was heading up. We did all the data collection for the project and took lots of good pictures for the paper that will result. Admittedly, I didn't understand a ton of what we "discovered" but I did contribute by making very detailed rock descriptions!

At the end of the day, I learned a lot. I networked with my planetary peers, which is never a bad thing. I also learned though, that if you're going to Arizona in October, bring LOTS OF WARM CLOTHES and an alpine-grade sleeping bag. Consider yourselves warned! Sadly, we missed the Grand Canyon (not enough time!) but the trip definitely whet my appetite to explore the southwest!

Vaya con Dios!
Sarah

Istanbul, not Constantinople

Merhaba!

Sorry to leave you all in suspense! I did leave Turkey and have been back in the US since my trip over the summer :) This will be my last post about Turkey (unless the photo sizes are too large, then there may be multiple parts to this message!).

This post has nothing to do with geology, but shows that under the auspices of doing geology, one can do some awesome sight-seeing!

Our group, after field camp, informally spent a few days sight-seeing in Istanbul. What an amazing city. I definitely don't think I can do the city justice here, but hoepfully these pictures and totally incomplete descriptions will lead you all to Wikipedia some of these amazing historic sites we visited.

First off, if you haven't heard the song, "Istanbul, not Constantinople" you need to.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vankaSlfSr0 (original Four Lads version with nice pictures)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeQ-wjDH4F4 (more jazzed up version, and with accordian!!)
Pick one and watch before proceeding. Unless you live in Turkey, in which case your government has blocked YouTube. Not joking!!!

Ok, so now that you've educated yourself on the abridged history of this fascinating city (it was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul) let's look at some good examples to show these two identities still visible in this city!

Istanbul is geographically split by the Bosphorus Strait, which flows into the Sea of Marmara, which then flows into the Aegean. So on the east side of the Bosphorus, the city is considered part of Asia. The west side of the Bosphorus is European. Taking afternoon cruises up/down/across the Bosphorus is a popular tourist activity and is definitely on my list of things to do NEXT TIME! We were out of money so we opted for swimming in the Bosphorus instead :)

Here is a view of the Bosphorus from the roof of our hostel:



We spent basically all of our time on the western shore in a neighborhood called Sultanahmet, which is where the major historic sites are. The two most impressive and well-known structures are the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya (Turkish spelling) aka the Hagia Sophia (Greek spelling). The Blue Mosque is an active mosque that tourists can walk through for free. It got its name for all the blue decor inside. It was required that visitors cover their arms, legs, and shoulders - even the men had to wear skirts provided at the door if they were wearing shorts. Surprisingly, women were not asked to cover their heads, but seeing as how I had brought my scarf that day anyway, I thought I'd take the more "modest" route. The Blue Mosque has a slightly scandalous history: it was originally designed to have 6 minarets. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but the only other mosque in the world (at that time at least) with 6 minarets was at Mecca. Religious leaders advised that completing construction with this design would effectively be giving Mecca the middle finger (not something most devout Muslims would want to do). The Sultan was a rebel though and decided to go with it anyway! It was completed in the early 1600's, making it one of the youngest historic sites in the city.

It was hard to capture the Blue Mosque in pictures, especially the inside because it's so incredibly massive, but here is my best effort (may be modified later if Andrea has any that are better):



I think one thing that really struck me about the art in religious buildings in Turkey vs. in the US is that even in the most impressive Christian churches in the US, the art is restricted to stained glass windows, some statues, and possibly some stuff up at the altar. In Turkey though, no square inch of usable wall space is spared for decoration it seems!

The Aya Sofya has a longer and more complex history. "Aya Sofya" means "divine wisdom" in Turkish which I think is an awesome title for a church! Yes, the Aya Sofya was actually built as a Christian church during the time when Istanbul was Constantinople, during the Byzantine era. Prior to going to Turkey I knew nothing about the Byzantines and sadly, I still know basically nothing! But perhaps a Christmas gift in the form of some sort of light-weight reading on the subject would help! ;) Anyway, according to Wikipedia, Byzas, a Greek king, founded the city in 667 BC. It was later sacked by the Romans and the famous emperor Constantine rebuilt the city in 330 AD, making it the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. He ordered a large church built in his new city, the Aya Sofya. The Aya Sofya was completed in the mid-300's and was the largest cathedral in the world until 1520. The building seen today is version #3 (completed in the 500's) as the first two were destroyed. After the Ottomans seized Constantinople in 1453, the Aya Sofya was converted into a mosque. 4 minarets were constructed and many mosaics and paintings were destroyed at least in part. Islamic art does not allow faces of living things to be portrayed (only God can create living things) so many of the mosaics in the Aya Sofya were damaged during that time to make them "acceptable." Additions were made to the inside of the building, including large black medallions with gold Arabic script. In the 1930's, the Turkish government took control of the building and secularized it, making it into the museum it is today, however, no restorative work has been done. Interested readers should check out this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aya_Sofya

This building was really cool, inside, and outside. I think this picture is a good representation of the clash of Islam and Christianity. The painting on the dome is Mary holding Jesus, with two basically destroyed angels (one on each side). The black and gold medallions flanking the painting were added by the Ottomans.



Another pretty ancient place we toured was a Roman cistern. It is underground and was built as a water filtration system. It has had to undergo lots of upkeep, just in the past few decades, there have been major excavations and restoration efforts by the Istanbul Metropolitan Museum. The roof is supported by rows of columns, which, like many other buildings in Turkey, appear to have been nabbed from older buildings due to their mismatching nature. The most intriguing aspect of the columns though are the bases of two columns in the very rear of the cistern. The bases of those two columns are large carved heads of Medusa. One is upright, one is rotated sideways. The positioning of the heads has been hypothesized by some as symbolic and relating to Roman mythology in some way, while others believe it to be just more evidence of random pieces of architecture getting re-used.

This is a picture I took while walking through. The water is pumped from time to time to keep it quite low, probably only a foot deep. Before the 1990's, tourists rode through on row boats. Now there are walkways that wind through.



Something I don't have pictures of but was definitely a notable spot: the Grand Bazaar. Pretty much anything you could imagine buying can be bought here. And for very competitive prices. I got fairly good at bargaining and got some things for more than 50% off! It's the type of place though that's so crowded and sprawling and has such a sense of "you have to buy stuff here!" that I found that I had to be really focused and strategic while there because it would be very easy to spend all your money at the first group of stalls.

So that's the abridged tour of Istanbul (not Constantinople)! I would definitely recommend checking out some of these places online for better pictures and more info. They're all really really cool!

Unless I get a slew of really amazing pictures from others on the trip, this is the end of the Turkey portion of my geologic adventures, 2010.

Tesekkur ederim (thank you [for reading]).

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

Sixteen Tons (Cayirhan pt. 2)

Merhaba!

This is part two (sort of) of the previous post:

While we did our economic geology focus in Sivrihisar, investigating the economic viability of a particular type of granite, we could have just as easily written about the economic potential of rocks surrounding the town of Cayirhan. There are two significantly large coal seams just outside the town. We were lucky enough to actually visit the mine there, not only to see the facilities, but also to ride the cart down into the mine! The part of the mine we visited is not currently being mined, but all the equipment was down there, and the miners who escorted us turned on the giant rock-crushing wheel so we could see it in action! According to a paper presented at the 17th International Mining Congress (2001), the Cayirhan coal mine produces 4 million tons of coal annually.

To go on our tour, we had to dress the part: mining company t-shirt, heavy jumpsuits, plastic shin guards, steel-toed boots, hard hats with headlamps, and our toolbelt with our carbon monoxide converter strapped to it. Here is a picture of most of the girls in our gear:



Before going down into the mine, we were given a safety presentation where we were taught how to use the carbon monoxide converter. It's pretty scary, I'm not sure if the equipment is any more user-friendly in the US than in Turkey, but these were pretty nasty little machines. They are little boxes secured to your face by a band around the back of your head, and you bite down on the mouthpiece, making sure to wrap your lips around it to create a secure seal to keep the bad air out. However, it is not an oxygen tank; the way the machine works is that it converts the carbon monoxide to oxygen at the place where you are biting down. The chemical conversion heats up the mouthpiece, and can actually cause third degree burns on your lips. I think in that moment all of us took a minute to reflect on how lucky we were to not have to take that risk every day.

This picture was taken outside the coal mine after we emerged. I think I was trying to ask our Turkish guide a question in this picture (?). The ride in the carts was a looooong way in and out; I think we went about 700 meters under the surface. It felt like a slow version of the "Escape from Pompeii" Busch Gardens ride. It was dark and warm, but we did not emerge by splashing down a chute of water! I'm very glad that we didn't though, because the water we did see running alongside the track the carts rode on was bright orange. I'd seen pictures of water draining out of coal mines, but to see it in person, close enough to touch, was kind of unnerving.



This is a picture of coal mine drainage in a river in Pennsylvania. The water we saw was just as brightly colored as this example.



Overall, the mine trip was definitely eye-opening. It made me wonder how North American mines operate compared with the Cayirhan mine. I wonder in particular how miner safety/health is handled, and if it is very different. I also wonder if environmental issues are taken more seriously in North America. Based on the pictures I've seen from coal mine drainage in the Appalachians, it doesn't really look like it.

Sadly, no pictures from the final week of mapping, probably because the rocks were so hard to find! Next stop: Istanbul!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

PS - On the drive from Cayirhan, we stopped at a truck stop with a really nice park/playground. We found a pretty serious swing and had to stop and play on it! Kyle, Morgan, Kate, and I were pushing this side:

Desert Rose

Merhaba!



So this post is very obviously not being written from Turkey, so maybe is lacking in authenticity, but I figured that I should probably finish the narration of my geologic adventures there, no matter how belated! And I recently read an online article that encouraged graduate students to practice writing - in any form - as often as possible. One of the suggestions was keeping a blog, so that provided additional motivation to finish this story!

Our third week of field camp was spent in Sivrihisar. The following week was spent in Cayirhan, which was the most arid area we worked in. As you can see behind me in the picture below, the rocks here were really beautiful! One formation in particular, aptly named the "Cayirhan Formation," was especially pretty with its pink, cream, and aqua stripes, kind of like Aquafresh toothpaste! Most of the rock formations in this area are cream-white in color, which I thought looked very "clean." Our instructor warned us against sunlight reflecting off the white sand and rocks, warning that some of his colleagues had actually gotten sunburned inside their nostrils from very white sand in the Sahara Desert! Fortunately, that did not happen to anyone on our trip :) You may notice that the layers of rocks are surprisingly horizontal. This is because these rocks were formed in lakes during the Miocene epoch, 11 million years ago. Lakes, especially in the center, are very quiet environments so fine-grained sand and mud form very even, smooth layers as they settle out of the water.



This is what a waterfall looks like without water flowing down it. That is Andrea standing in the middle of the bend. This was just the very bottom of the canyon, it actually extended up much further!




Our "fundamental question" for this mapping area was to look for indicators of faults. There were three major faults within the area we mapped. They stuck out very noticeably from the rest of the landscape and formed very narrow ridges. This is a picture of our whole class sitting on a fault. The fault is the flat surface to our right.




Ok, I want to post more pictures from the Cayirhan week, but they won't all fit in this entry, so check out part 2!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

PS - We didn't find any desert roses, but we did see a desert praying mantis! He was sand-colored, so he blended right in!

Turkish weddings

Merhaba!

So this post is out of date for sure, but I was waiting for pictures from this event. I still only have one low-quality picture, but if I find any more, I'll add them later!

A few weeks ago, we were invited to a wedding in town. The bride is a relative of Nejla's. Weddings are a HUGE event here! Going to any average-size town, you're sure to find at least one bridal shop with completely over-the-top dresses; the types of dresses little girls DREAM of wearing: saturated in sequins with layers and layers of puffy organza. There are also wedding shows on TV in the afternoons - similar to TLC's "A wedding story" or other types of shows I guess. On the show, there are several couples who actually are wed on the set of the show. Crazy!

In our town, because it is small, the entire town was invited to the wedding, basically. Festivities went on all day long: during the day there was a processional of sorts, where the bride is driven to her new husband's family's home with all her things. This requires multiple cars, so the cars line up down the road from her family's house to his family's house, carrying all her clothes, etc., honking their horns super loudly. Even today, in rural areas, often times men stay in their parents' homes and the wife moves in with his whole family. I think there was probably a religious ceremony at the mosque (maybe?) but we were invited to the public ceremony at the town hall. The bride's dress was CRAZY - she looked just like Nia Vardalos in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." The groom looked equally crazy - his tuxedo jacket, on the part where the satin stripes usually are, he had a row of rhinestones. I believe there may have also been something pink involved. I've noticed that in the small towns we've been to, typically the color pink or purple is used to make things look fancier or prettier. So even some formal menswear can have touches of pink or purple - but not like a tie or dress shirt - that would be way too subtle! Definitely have to have some pink stripes on your tux jacket!

The first part of the wedding was the ring ceremony and the giving of gifts. The ring ceremony, having watched it on TV multiple times now and witnessed it, still confuses me. Each ring is tied to one end of a red ribbon, the rings are put on the bride and groom by the person marrying them, they do not put them on each other, and then the ribbon is cut. It seems like if they would do anything would the ribbon, it would be tied? After the ring ceremony, the couple stands in the front of the room and all the men in the room go through a line, giving the couple money. The bills are pinned onto the groom's tuxedo, so afterwards the man was barely visible underneath all the bills! He looked like a strange Christmas tree. Here's a shot of the bride and groom and the money-pinning line:



Shortly after the ceremony was dancing. There was a men's group dance where all the men were in a circle (again, similar to My Big Fat Greek Wedding!) with arms around each other's shoulders, moving back and forth around the circle. There was another dance done in two lines facing each other where, from what we all could tell, you basically just have a "partner" of the same sex standing across from you, and you do some sort of foot shuffle and hold your arms up, snapping your fingers to the music. Some of the men had very fancy footwork going on! Women were allowed to take part in this dance, but only little girls actually did. Our bus driver (a HILARIOUS DANCER) dragged all of us onto the dance floor, as did Nuri and Nejla's husband. There were several older women in the front of the room, and when we left the dance floor, the women were trying to get us back up there to keep dancing! We figured all the locals were probably getting a good laugh.

Outside the social hall, there was basically a small street fair. There were food vendors selling Turkish pizza and other snacks as well as children's toys. The food provided at the ceremony was several plates of assorted cookies for each table and boxes of sour cherry (visne) juice! We got a good laugh out of that. Here's a picture of a few of us at our table with our juice boxes:




It was a really fun experience. Everyone there seemed to be really enjoying themselves. It was also cool to recognize a good number of people in the room from the market.

Uh oh! Bus is here, time to go!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

Summiting Mt. Doom

Merhaba!

In an effort to not be TOO far behind on my blogging, here's a little bit about my week in Sivrihisar (not last week, but week before, that's how behind I am!). We traveled 4 hours by bus down windy mountain roads to this location to look at metamorphic and igneous rocks. We saw two granites, and mountains made out of marble. Because the marble was weathered though, it wasn't shiny or smooth or counter-top quality in appearance - it was lack-luster in a literal sense. It was easy to distinguish though based on the lack of vegetation growing on it. Because there was so little vegetation, it was easy to get great views from the ridges on which we were mapping, whereas at our local mapping spot you can't really see much through the trees. This is good for locating outcrops and finding yourself on a map, but it means lot of extra sun protection needed! One of the guys in our group is from the southwest and he made the comment that in our 4 hour drive it felt as if we'd gone from Italy to New Mexico.

The one area in the mapping area that did appear to be lush with vegetation (relatively) was the highest peak in the area. It looked like Mt. Olympus from the lower slopes because there always seemed to be a crown of fluffy white clouds hovering above it. Here's a shot from below:

My mapping partner, Marcus, and I decided on day 1 that we would get our map finished in time to spend an hour hiking to the top to check it out, which we did manage to do. Being not so poetically-minded, he named it "Mt. Doom" as a reference to Lord of the Rings. It was pretty strenuous, and like any mountainous area, it looked closer than it was for a long time, and when we got to the top it was hard to tell if we were actually at the highest point, but we're pretty sure we made it! Here I am at a point close to the top, protecting myself from every possible ray of sunlight even from other suns in other galaxies:

While in Sivrihisar, we did some cultural sight-seeing after dinner one night. Sivrihisar used to be an dominantly Armenian community several hundred years ago, and we visited an old Armenian church that it being restored. This is the church, pretty standard appearance:

These are some gargoyles that are on the side of the building:

Although the community was dominantly Armenian (therefore, Christian) until relatively recently, there have also been Muslim people living there for a long time - we went inside a 700-year old mosque! It was all wooden and had a very ancient feel to it. The entire floor was covered in very colorful rugs for prayer. There is a balcony of sorts that is curtained off where the women pray so that the men are not distracted by the women while in prayer. Something I thought was pretty neat architecturally were the columns supporting the ceiling indoors. The columns were wooden, but the tops of the columns were marble and had a variety of styles: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. We were told by our guide that when the mosque was built, these pieces had been taken from ruins of ancient Greek temples and buildings in the area and used to top the wooden columns. Just shows how many different groups of people have inhabited this area throughout history!

On the drive back from Sivrihisar we made a seemingly random roadside stop to check out some blueschist rocks. Blueschist is a VERY high pressure metamorphic rock and is VERY beautiful. Blueschist forms in subduction zones where one tectonic plate is dragged underneath another and the underlying plate experiences extremely high pressures. Studies done in this area show that these rocks formed at a depth of about 100 kilometers below the Earth's surface! The craziest part is that they've made it all the way back up to the surface where they're just sitting in this tranquil, wooded glen. Blueschist, because it forms deep in the earth, has a tendency to actually change to a different rock when exposed to surface conditions, so it's not easy to find in an unadulterated state.

That's pretty much all the excitement from week 3! Week 4 post coming soon!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

High Mountain Festival, Mudurnu

Merhaba!

Today all the North American residents of Taskesti, along with our camp mom and friend from down the road, traveled to the booming 5,000 person provincial capitol - Mudurnu for the High Mountain festival. Little did we know that this festival would actually be taking place, in part, on the top of a high mountain! We had lunch on top of the mountain, then drove back into town for some shopping.

Lunch consisted of a huge communal platter of rice, chickpeas, and some sort of meat with thin flatbread. The way you eat this is similar to the way you pick up dog poop if you live in a city - you tear off a piece of the bread, and grab a large pinch of food in the bread.

Here's a picture of me trying not to spill all my rice out and Nejla, our "mom."

After eating lunch we walked around the mountaintop for a while, checking out the stuff the vendors were selling, when we were surrounded by Turkish high-schoolers who all wanted to take pictures with us! I think I had my picture taken upwards of 10times with cute Turkish girls and their siblings! We left the mountaintop and drove down into town. Several of us went to the town museum where they have artifacts and pictures all from Mudurnu over the years. There was an exhibit on the manufacturing of silk, from worm to final product. They were actual live worms and silk moths there! Andrea and I touched the worms - they just felt like normal worms. The museum is in an 1860's courthouse, with a trendy coffee/tea shop on the first floor. We walked up to the town clock tower afterwards. The view from up near the clock tower was great, so we took a group picture!

We also stopped at this really nice, historic home-turned-hotel/restaurant for tea just before leaving.

Apparently a traditional part of the festival is amateur wrestling. We attended a wrestling match, and one of our guys actually participiated! He fought one guy and beat him fairly quickly, although he was quick to say afterwards that when signing up, he was asked "just for fun? or competitive?" and he had made sure to emphasize that he was playing "just for fun!"

Tomorrow morning we leave for Cayirhan until Thursday for more mapping. The road to Cayirhan is pretty much the same road we took to Sivrihisar. The road is fine now, but apparently back in the day when our instructor was working on his PhD thesis in this area, it was pretty scary. He told us this joke on the drive home on Thursday:
A Southern Baptist preacher dies and goes to heaven. He reaches the pearly gates and meets St. Peter. St. Peter welcomes him warmly, saying "Reverend, it's so good to see you here, we're very happy to have you, we'll have your accomodations ready in just a few - Mehmet! Mehmet! We're SO GLAD to see you! We've been waiting YEARS for you! Come on over here! Your room's all ready! Boy, are we glad to see you! We're so excited!" The preacher is getting upset here, wondering why some guy named Mehmet is getting this great treatment, so he asks "Hey, why is this Mehmet getting all this attention? I've spent my whole life serving the church, I've been a preacher for 40 years, I've lived my life as Christ's servant, why am I here waiting while Mehmet gets right in?" St. Peter responds "well Reverend, you did serve us your whole life, and we're grateful, but honestly, your sermons put most of your congregation to sleep every Sunday. Now Mehmet was a Turkish bus driver and drove the route from Ankara to Istanbul and back every night, and each night, for 40 years, 44 people prayed all night long!"

No worries though, our driver is THE BEST and the roads are nothing like they apparently used to be.

Time to go pack!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

Planetary geology convention in Taskesti

Merhaba!

This past weekend we were visited at the field station by a group of scientists from NASA Ames Research Facility. The group, which included a post-doc at NASA Ames, a professor from University of Illinois - Chicago and her husband and toddler, and an undergraduate field assistant from UIC, was in Taskesti investigating the pH of water from natural hot springs. The project is through NASA's Astrobiology Institute, and is basically looking for habitable extreme environments, such as would exist on Mars or icy satellites of outer planets (Europa, Titan, etc.). Specifically, the group was studying rocks from the Earth's mantle (olivine-rich) that were undergoing serpentinization, a process through which olivine-rich rocks interact with water and produce nitrogen, which is essential for life. This same reaction also produces hydrogen ions, which changes the pH of the water. The project is based on a correlation between pH of the water and microbial growth. The group is collecting water samples at sites on Earth where such rocks are exposed at the surface (it is fairly uncommon for mantle rocks to wind up on the surface) and are undergoing serpentinization, so they came to Taskesti to check out some natural hot springs in the area. The planetary application of the study is to look for these conditions on other bodies. One area on Mars, Nili Fossae, well known for its incised channels, has been a identified as a candidate site for these conditions, due to the detection of olivine by Mars Express (European Space Agency satellite).
Nili Fossae false-color image showing mineralogy:



It was pretty exciting to meet these folks and to have a lecture on planetary geology given by NASA scientists in a remote area of a foreign country. Even more crazy, the husband of the UIC professor, a planetary geologist at Ames, knows my advisor! Funny how things like that happen!

Time to work on my project report, more updates later today!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

Fashion and Islam in Turkey

Merhaba!

Sorry for the lack of blog updates of late, we traveled to Sivrihisar for a few days to do some mapping there (more on that later), but there were several notable cultural experiences over the weekend.

Last Friday was market day in Taskesti, as is every Friday. I was struck by how much impact Islam has on fashion here - it is most noticable at the market. The vendor with the most business is consistently the scarf vendor. The Taskesti women buy scarves the way average Western pre-teens and early teens buy inexpensive jewelry. He has cheap 2 lira scarves, silk scarves for 10-20 lira, and scarves with sequins and beads, which go for around 10 lira. He also sells colorful thread and beads that women sew along the edge of their scarves for some extra adornment. All the women in Taskesti over the age of about 10 cover their heads in public to preserve their modesty. The scarves though, range from very conservative (opaque and black) to crazy (neon colors, disco prints, see-through). Most women do choose to wear bright, colorful prints, and sew dangly beads or other dangly trims to the edges of their scarves. Another vendor - across from the scarf vendor - is the women's clothing vendor. He carries a few long, drab skirts, but he has racks and racks of very Western clothing that could be found in any department store in the US. I was wondering if any of these clothes were ever bought in town, so I started paying more attention to the young girls' clothing. I saw two girls (about 16 I think) shopping; they were both wearing short-sleeved, button-down plaid shirts over long sleeved, high-necked, black shirts. It seems that women here desire variety, color, and trendy clothes, just like Western women. These desires though, are tempered by the demand for female modesty in rural areas, so you see Dillards-style shirts over black turtlenecks and neon, sequined scarves covering every strand of hair.

In contrast, in Sivrihisar, which is a much larger town and closer to Ankara (Turkish capitol), women seem to have much more flexibility in their wardrobe. The old women in town still dressed very conservatively: long drab skirts, long sweaters, drab scarves; and spent all their time in or in front of their homes. We ate dinner in a restaurant in town the three nights we spent there, and each night we saw small groups of young women eating together, no male escorts, no scarves. One woman was actually wearing a lacy shirt that more closely resembled lingerie than street clothes!

Here are some pictures from the market:
Anna and I are drinking cay at the scarf vendor - all the vendors offer market-goers tea while they are examining the wares. It feels nice to have the silk scarves hanging from the awning caressing your cheek as you sip tea, however, you're also very much hoping that none dip into your cup! We're not sure, but we're pretty sure that there's a "you stain it, you buy it (for the three times the normal price)" deal. Note some of the crazy scarves in the picture!

This is a picture of the dry food in the food half of the market. The vendor was really excited to have a picture taken.

This is a picture of the street that goes downtown off the "main" road on market day. Note the parallel-parked tractors!

That's all for the market, more cultural experiences to blog about later!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

Geologic kitty guards the rocks!

Merhaba!

Today we were invited to have lunch at the home of an old lady in Yeniceseyhler. We ate flat bread with walnuts, rice rolled up in grape leaves, watermelon, tea, and some strange warm clear gelatin... we weren't really sure what that was. Three of us sat on a couch covered in rice bags; the rest of us sat on the grass in the front yard on rice bags - they're pretty much the same material as plastic tarps. Here's a picture of us eating:


This is a picture of the cute little glasses of tea we drink from and the pretty saucers the tea is served on:



It was really nice; the old lady's son, a man in his 30's, kept bopping around taking pictures of us between serving tea and passing plates of food. Our bus driver was also enjoying himself and walking around taking pictures between grabbing bites of food.

After lunch several mapping groups were walking along one side of a certain hill when we were encountered by a cute little kitty. Bill, one of the guys from UT on the trip, picked the cat up in his arms. The cat had probably never been loved on before, but she loved it when Bill held her and the rest of us came over to pet her head. Bill put the cat down so that we could work, and the cat walked around on the rocks we were looking at, probably in hopes of getting picked up again! Here's a picture of the kitty sittiing at the top of the rocks, watching us work:



This just in: I just drank garlic milk - a Polish remedy for sore throats. Not because I have one, but one of the guys has bad allergies, so Anna, a Polish-Canadian, made a big vat of it. It tastes like the liquid that the escargot are cooked in. I'm not sure if the escargot liquid is what I want to drink on a regular basis though...

Mom also wanted to know what the dogs are like here, so here's a picture of a particularly cute puppy in town. All the dogs are sweet, but sadly a lot of them have some sort of medical problem it seems. A lot of them limp, and of course none are neutered or spayed, so there are tons of strays running around town. It makes me want to work for the SPCA doing spay/neuter drives or bringing free veterinary care to rural areas.


Ok, time to shower while the water's still hot!

Salaam alaikum,
Sarah

Weekend recap

Merhaba!

After a very labor-intensive week of projects here in Taskesti, we were all looking forward to a relaxing trip to the Black Sea. Sadly though, our bus driver's grandfather died this past weekend, with the funeral being Sunday morning, thus we last-minute changed our plans and went on a closer, afternoon-length trip to Lake Abant. Lake Abant is a place I'd heard of before, but not actually known where it is. It's fairly close to Taskesti, about an hour's drive due to the mountain roads, but fairly close as the crow flies. It's a mix of ritzy, high-end stuff and gypsy village, basically. Lake Abant itself is beautiful, it's up in the mountains (great views on the drive up, lots of cars pulled off the road for pictures). Unfortunately, swimming in the lake is not permitted. I also noticed that there was no boating, sailing, jet-skiing, etc. on the lake, so I'm guessing that the lake is protected by a nature organization to keep it looking nice and being a good eco-community. We all wandered down to the lake and waded in up to our ankles to cool off a bit. Here's a picture of a few of us on our aquatic adventure:

We were all pretty hungry when we arrived, so we stopped at the restaurant on the pier for lunch (very $$$). The menu had some pretty amusing translations, Andrea and I split the "trout on pan" aka pan-fried trout. The flavor was pretty good, but the fish still had its head and fins. I had to cover up the head with a lettuce leaf so it would stop staring at me. Creepy! Here's a picture of our meal:

On the opposite side of the lake, there were tall, fancy buildings that we interpreted to be expensive hotels. Some of the girls walked around to that side and reported that there were a few very pricey shops. The other extreme though, was that on the side of the lake with the restaurant, it looked like a gypsy caravan had set up camp. Lots of Turks brought their entire families to the lake, packed cooking supplies, and were cooking their lunches in the shade of the trees several tens of feet back from the lakeshore. Very much a family atmosphere.

In Muslim culture, Friday is the holy day of the week, the equivalent of the Sabbath. All other Muslim countries have Sunday - Thursday as the work week, with Friday and Saturday as the weekend. While Turks celebrate the holy day on Friday, they work a Western work week, Monday - Friday. This is one of the many ways Ataturk Western-ized/secularized the country.

On the way home, we took an off-the-beaten-path road and stopped at a nearby fish farm. Several of my fellow campers tried their luck at catching fish with their bare hands. I don't think any of them were successful...

The past two days have been very busy! We're mapping the rocks in/around the neighboring village of Yeniceseyhler (ye-nitch-shay-ler), which requires lots of going up and down hillslopes over and over trying to nail down where the rock units change from one to another. We then have to map the locations of the various rock units on our topographic map along with the direction the rocks are dipping into the ground and trending across the landscape. We also have to determine our locations just using a compass and topographic map, so a lot of time is dedicated to just figuring out where we are!

Today my partner and I passed through the village while mapping. The village has a very cold chesmeh so we refilled our water bottles and ate lunch there. I initially did not sit sufficiently far from the edge and had a wet bottom. The school kids who ate lunch with us thought it was pretty funny. There are a lot of cherry and mulberry trees in town, and as we were walking through town, people were calling from their windows, inviting us to eat fruit from their trees. Kyle was trying to reach some tasty-looking cherries and was assisted by a tiny old man who hobbled over and handed Kyle his cane, motioning for him to use it to pull the branches down so I could reach the cherries. It was super cute! All the people in town are used to seeing students each summer, and are interested in watching us work (they probably find it bizarre - banging rocks with hammers), I caught an old woman looking at my map today!

Got to go, have another long day tomorrow!

Salaam alaikum,

Sarah

Week 1 update

Merhaba (Hello)!

Sorry for the huge delay with blogging, it took a few days to get the internet up and running out here, and then it took a while for me to figure out how to work around the internet settings to be able to access my blog.

As of a few minutes ago, I just finished with week 1 of field camp. The work consisted of a lot of hiking over hilltops, chasing elusive outcrops of mudstone and sanstone, trying to measure the total extent of the units. Strangely enough, Turkey has a similar history to Virginia, geologically. Most of modern Virginia was added on at various points throughout geologic time by island arcs (similar to Hawaii) being dragged onto the continent Laurentia (ancient North America). Being on the east coast, Virginia accumulated a lot of land mass through this process, including ocean floor bits, volcanic material, and any sediments that had collected on the sea floor near the islands. Turkey is also a hodge-podge of various pieces of volcanic arc systems. We examined some of those rocks this past week, and will map the area in detail next week. Some of these rocks are fairly rare - our instructor said maybe only 1 in 100 geologists has seen rocks of this composition: sandstone composed of volcanic rock fragments. If you're a geologist - we saw olivine sandstone. If you're a non-geologist - we saw peridot sandstone. Very cool.

Summary of trip so far:
On Sunday I flew to Istanbul via Turkish Airlines. If you are ever planning a flight and this airline is an option, take it! The plane was nice and the service and amenities were fantastic. We were served a full hot breakfast on PLATES with miniature teacups for our hot drink of choice (as opposed to the little styrofoam cups they usually give you). Every passenger is automatically given free headphones, and one guy in our group who flew overnight said that everyone is given a fleece blanket for the evening, not the cheapie polyester ones that stick to your clothes.

Upon arriving we took a bus to Taskesti, the small town of about 2,000 where our field station is. The bus is pretty intensely decked out - I notice new adornments every day. There's a Turkish flag hanging from the top of the windshield as well as a strip of fringe (matching fringe on rear windshield), and all sorts of pendants dangling from the rear-view. There's also some small decorative rugs in the aisle and the driver's seat is surrounded by multi-colored fake flowers. The horn plays a little tune when honked. To get an idea of the bus, listen to the Bud Light "Real men of genius" taxi cab driver jingle, it's pretty accurate. Traffic in Istanbul is horrible, especially crossing over to the Asian side when the lanes decrease from 8 to 3. A guy in a new Lincoln rear-ended us trying to squeeze over into a lane. We didn't feel a thing, but he's got a little hole in his bumper. Overall, the cars around the city looked like cars seen in the US: Volkswagon, Honda, Lincoln, Ford, etc. Out here in the country the cars are much older and less American in appearance. Many people ride tractors into town (kind of similar to the shore's farm equipment traffic)!

Our lodge is super luxurious... pretty much on par with old VSFA dorms and classrooms (for non-ESVA people, VSFA is the summer camp where I usually work... ANYTHING but luxurious!). My friend, Andrea, and I are roommates, we are actually in a 2-person room with attached bath, which is nice. We eat breakfast at the lodge, lunch outside, and dinner in town at a local restaurant. Our camp mom, Nejla, cooks for us, packs our lunches, and serves us tea (cay, pronounced "chai") in the afternoon while we're doing homework. She is very sweet but doesn't speak any English! I've made sure to learn enough to say thank you (Tesekkur ederim) and to say yes (evet) when offered something. Eating out in the evening is nice - it's covered by our tuition and supports the local economy. Also, all our food comes from local farmers.

The children here are adorable! There's about 5 little girls ages 6-12 who wait for us by the road on our way back from dinner. They practice their English on us (Hello! How are you? What's your name? Bye-bye!) and bring us cameillas every day. Andrea and I already have a huge flower collection. There's also some little boys who come over to swing in our swing and lie in the hammock. Their dogs also come over and lie under the tree in the shade.

Tuesday was our first day in "the field." Here's a picture from lunch: This is a watermelon being washed for dessert. We have watermelon at least once per day which I love! This area has a lot of natural springs, and where possible, the water is piped to a fountain (chesmeh), so people can use it. The water in most of them is safe for drinking - our camp director knows which ones! - and the water from them is amazing! So cold and delicious! It tastes so clean compared to the clorine-y water at camp.



Friday is market day in town. We went yesterday morning (you have to go before 11 AM, between 11 and 3 it is so crowded you can barely move). It's pretty neat, there's a lot of fruits and vegetables sold, as well as HUGE sacks of grains, dried beans, and spices. There's a lot of people selling clothing (especially women's), but you can find basically anything you need there. It's the Turkish equivalent to Jaxon's, basically. That being said, similarly to Jaxon's, there is probably not a lot there that you would want. Any of the food is good (dissimilar to Jaxon's where the candy has been there for 10 years), and there are some quality items, but there are lots of cheap plastic children's toys, cheap costume jewelry, and an excess of women's clothes that all look generally the same. It's expected to haggle with the venders for a deal when shopping. Ned would excel at this, I'm terrible at it, although I did get a beautiful 10 lira scarf for 9 Turkish lira! I brought my Turkey guidebook with me so I could try to bargain in Turkish. Key phrases are Ne kadar (how much?), on (ten, most things are around 10 lira), bes (5), sekiz (8, what they will usually give it to you for), dokuz (9, what I got it for... lame). At the market, there are young boys carrying around big trays of tea. They just hand it out for free! Tea is the national beverage of Turkey, and is grow along the Black Sea. It is served in small, handle-less, hourglass-shaped glasses, usually on a saucer with a tiny spoon and two lumps of sugar. The sugar, in my opinion, ruins the flavor, and most people drink it straight. Unlike most of Asia, where green tea is the norm, the tea is Turkey is incredibly strong black tea.

Tomorrow we are planning to go to the beach along the Black Sea. It's been super hot and we've been spending so much time sweating out in the field that we've been begging our instructors to take us swimming. If the weather holds up, that should be our adventure for tomorrow, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Salaam alaikum (peace be with you),
Sarah

First Post!

Hi all,

This is my first blog, so I apologize for the boring layout! As most of you know, I'm spending 5 weeks in Turkey this summer for geology field camp - boot camp for geologists, basically. This will constitute my first "geologic adventure," but I'm hoping for many more to blog about during my grad school career. My goal is to blog daily with pictures of the area and updates on what I'm learning and experiencing. I've shown here a poor map of Turkey. The A, B, and C are our three destinations. The yellow star on the left is Istanbul, the yellow star on the right is Ankara, the capitol.

That's all for now, I better get back to packing!

Sarah