willpower, marshmallows, and the rest of my life

So Todd and Libby were going skiing yesterday and I was faced with a dilemma.  Do what I really wanted to do (a day skiing with good friends) or do what I really should do (study for my WFR class).  I ended up studying, which is good for me in the long run but pretty darn difficult right now.   

After finishing up my studies, I downloaded the latest radiolab podcast.  (I *love* radiolab, by the way.)  I listened to "Mischel's Marshmallows," which talked about a Columbia psych prof's experiments with children and willpower.  Basically, giving a kid the choice between one marshmallow now or lots of marshmallows later, then leaving them alone with the one and seeing how long they can hold out.  delayed gratification... some can hold out, some give in right away, most could make it about 7 minutes.  Anyways, he checked back in with a bunch of these kids later in life and found that those who could hold out longer for the marshmallows when they were kids did better later in life (better grades, higher SAT scores, stuff like that).  

No one really knows if this willpower is hardwired, due to parenting/experience, or some combination.  But geez, I don't think I could hold out very long for a marshmallow.  In fact, after listening to this I baked brownies for Jon and couldn't even wait until the flour was added to taste them.  That's way less than seven minutes.  Does this mean I'm screwed?  Maybe passing on skiing balances this out...  wish me luck.

Redoubt finally erupted!

According to today's Anchorage Daily News article, Alaskan volcanos don't have the pretty, fluid lava that Hawaiian volcanos do.  Instead, our volcanos have a more sticky magma that will ooze out a little before hardening.  Pressure keeps building beneath this newly hard surface until *BLAM* the whole top gets blown off! 

Apparently this is called "pyroclastic."  I first heard this word a few years ago when I was out in the Pribilofs.  I was checking out some very cool, very shiny rocks that were scattered across the island.  A geologist on the project told me these were pyroclastic rocks, meaning that when the volcano (the island) had last blown, bits of magma shot through the air hardened to form these rocks. 

We also played in some lava tubes on that trip, I'll have to find a picture to post.  Things like this make me want to be a geologist.  Ok, really right now I want to be a vulcanologist.

Here are some pics from the Alaska Volcano Observatory (photo credits: Cyrus Read, AVO/USGS).  Check out their site for more pics and status updates:  http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php

Summit crater showing rapidly melting glacier and enlarged "ice piston" feature.

Flood waters generated in the summit crater of Redoubt descending down through an ice gorge on Drift Glacier.

Sue and Jon do science

I've been collecting CO2 flux measurements at my thesis site each month throughout the winter.  Since this is Jon's off-season for landscaping, he offered to take a break from his hectic climbing/skiing/netflix-watching schedule to be my winter assistant.  Little did he know, once all of the brain-taxing study design is done and the field techniques are dialed, good science is synonymous with repetitive motion.  Like in climbing, efficiency and good systems are key.  I knew he'd be a natural...

So yesterday we drove out to the Kenai to see what was going on in the world of soil respiration.  Believe it or not, there's still some going on!  We have tubing running from the tip of this probe to an instrument that measures CO2.  We can plunk this in each plot (the same places I've been measuring since May '08) and measure the CO2 at the bottom of the snow pack.  Then we measure the CO2 at the top of the snow pack, how thick the snow is, and the snowpack density.

If you assume that the CO2 diffuses equally through the snowpack, you can calculate the rate of CO2 flux (umol CO2 m-2 s-1) coming from soil bacterial respiration.  Neat, eh?  There's no photosynthesis going on this time of year, so no plants are taking up CO2 but soil microbes are still giving off CO2.  It's important to understand winter CO2 flux to really understand what's going on - some areas may be strong CO2 sinks in the summer, but lose so much over the winter that they're a CO2 source over the course of the year.

Thanks to Jon for all the field help...  you measured the heck outta that flux.

Mexico Family Vacation

Just back from a quick little family vacation in Mexico!  Judy, Jon's mom, thought it would be nice if we all met up someplace warm this spring, and man was she right!  We met up with Jon's parents (Judy and Pete) and his brother Nick  in Zihuatanejo for a week (thank you AK Air mileage program for the tickets).

To sum up the trip: sunshine, ceviche, cerveza, surfing, and a cuban cigar...