Lab #8: Limestone

Coming from Nashville, TN I know a lot about limestone

Limestone is a very common rock type found in Nashville, and when I took geology in the 6th grade, it was the first rock we talked about! They even have repair places for your limestone walls!!

Anyways, for those of you not from Nashville, limestone is a cool rock..."But what is it??" you may ask. I'll tell you!

Limestone is a sedimentary rock. It usually is composed of mostly calcite and aragonite (basically different forms of calcium carbonate-->CaCO3)

Like most sedimentary rocks, is also usually has tiny skeletal remains of sea creatures (and yes I am counting coral because it is under the sea)

These pictures are what limestone can look like:


 (this one's a quarry!)

 (this one has fossils in it!)

So! All in all, limestone is a really cool rock!

In summary-->limestone is a sedimentary rock composed of (usually) different forms of calcium carbonate and can have little fossils in it!

If you want to learn more about limestone check out this website!

Lab #7: Community Gardens

Community gardens...what are they? What benefit do they provide to society?

Well, I can tell you that community gardens are a great way to get a group of people living in the same neighborhood to all work together and provide food for themselves.

In essence, it's kind of like a mini-farm. Everyone is dependent on this community garden for certain things, and they all work towards the same goal: creating food to eat, or flowers to view.

As you can see from these images from Google...




Not only do community gardens provide a sense of unity to a previously overly individualistic community, they also provide an opportunity to teach.

The lessons that can be learned through community gardens include: learning how to grow food, how to tend to plants, and also gives people a sense of responsibility. These people are in charge of caring for and tending to the plants that will eventually be in their own homes, or shared among neighbors.

So, all in all, community gardens are the bomb.com and should definitely be used around the world.

If you want to know how to to start your own community garden, here is a helpful website to help get you started!

Lab #6: Shoebox Rock Lab

These are all of my rocks I found! I also made a shoebox because why not?

Spring Break Update

So for Spring Break 2k15 we're supposed to go out and find 8 rocks and identify them and label them. We can also make shoe box and take a photo and upload it up to our blogs, so I did!

The shoe box is currently in my dorm room so I don't have a photo prepared of that.

I have already found 3 rocks though! I also had found some other rocks back at college too--about 3--so I just need to find 2 more!

One rock is really shiny, one is powdery white, another is smooth and brown, and the ones I found at college I have already identified to be granite or diorite.

So those are my updates! Will post a picture of the complete lab report.

Have a great Spring Break!
Addie

Lab #5: Change In Elevation Over Distance Lab

For this lab, we were supposed to pick a city and measure up to 12 miles and make a graph and table of measurements of the change of elevation over the distance.

I picked Orlando, Florida and this is my Google Earth image of where I chose to measure (the line is in yellow)

This is chart of data I took from those 12 miles off the yellow 

This is the graph I made from the table above

How I created all this:

• First, I created a line in Orlando, FL and made it yellow using the line tool in Google Earth
• Next, I measured out 12 miles on the line and recorded their elevation (in feet) and recorded that data into a chart
• Next, I made a table in Excel using the data from my table and created a scatter plot graph 
• Finally, I took a screenshot of both the table and graph, and saved the Google Earth image and uploaded all of it to here. 

Lab #4: Hydrothermal Vents

Hydrothermal Vents:

• What are they?-->Hydrothermal vents are underwater geysers on the ocean floor that release hot water and minerals.

• How do they work?-->The vents form along the bottom of the ocean and often occur on the mid-oceanic ridge; rock that lies near the surface of the bottom of the ocean heats up ocean water which seeps into the ground and then goes on to come back out later. (More)

• What are their physical structures?-->Hydrothermal vents are chimney-like structures that can be several stories high.

Many animals live in the area surrounding the hydrothermal vents

If you want to learn more about hydrothermal vents, Bill Nye and National Geographic have interesting videos on YouTube.  

Lab #3: Minerals

1)  

• This is a picture of potassium feldspar, or orthoclase
• It is a part of the feldspar family
• It's chemical formula is KAlSi3O8
• It's silicate structure is a three-dimensional network 
• It's cleavage is at two planes at 90 degrees

2)  

• This is a picture of muscovite
• It is a part of the mica family
• It's chemical formula is Kal2(asSi3O10)(OH)2
• It's silicate structure is sheets
• It's cleavage is one plane