Field Trip: Hoover Tower Hovers Above Stanford University

Hoover Tower Hovers above The Quad at Stanford University

We must study war,

And revolution to show,

That peace can work out

Completed in 1941, Hoover Tower is a research facility and library to study war, revolution and peace. You can climb up the tower, as I did this last week, to take  in fantastic ariel  views of Stanford Campus and the surrounding peninsula, for a few dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Tower

La Biblioteca de Redwood City/Redwood City Library

Constructed in 1921, the main branch of
Redwood City Library was once a firehouse

I remember when the Redwood City Main Library was the fire station. You still get that old slide-down-the-pole feeling when you wander in through the great big brass and glass doors.

I meet up with my IOS study buddy on the second floor once a week in one of the second floor study rooms. I often feel that the spacious, relaxed surroundings contribute to our study success. The second floor is dedicated to independent and small group study. Project Read has a lot of dedicated space on that floor. New readers of all ages are a special focus of programs at this beautiful library. I've noticed a lot of the middle school students developing their reading skills with graphic novels.

The library is a part of the county-wide Peninsula Libraries. I often log onto the county library web site, and search for books from all over the Peninsula, that I can then ask to be sent to a library within walking distance of my own home, for just 75 cents. I can also return materials from any library in the system to a local library.Wouldn't the development of the internet have been worth it, just to be able to do that?

Moving Off the Ophiolite Standard

The Galapagos
Click on the image above for  the lovely details
Source: Google Earth

Another of ma belle soeur's is Barbara (Bobbie) John. Bobbie is a research geologist who teaches at the University of Wyoming. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, she chatted with me about her upcoming cruise. We're not talking kicking back with a Mai Tai on the Lido Deck, and checking out the action in the deep end of the pool. At the end of this quarter, Bobbie's going to head off on a jaunt aboard the Joides Resolution to study the action a good ways down beneath the ocean waves.

Out there on the Cocos Plate, west of the Galapagos there's a V-shaped ridge known as Hess Deep. The Deep is a crack under the ocean. Once aboard the ship, Bobbie and the rest of the gang will be drilling a hole down into Hess Deep, and recovering the rock (which at that point will be known as drill core) that comes back up in the drill rod to see what they've found.

How far will y'all be a' drillin' Bobbie? 

OK...we're drill at approx 4872 m below sea level....so  roughly 15980 feet or nearly 1500 feet deeper than Mt Whitney is above sea level (if that helps).  This depth is likely not totally accurate as we have to find a drill site and then go for it...will keep you updated as we go. 

Adios.

Bobbie

And why bother?

Because the current model research scientists have of what lies below the ocean crust in the Cocos plate, is based on rocks transported far from their origin onto remote continents, by tectonic forces (plate tectonic uplift). Geologists refer to these ancient assembleges as ophiolites. Ain't that a beautiful name? 

On this trip, the folks on the Joides Resolution want to see the fresh stuff. They are planning to get a more accurate picture of what lies under the ocean right there, right now, in situ. 

Check Out Hess Deep
by Clicking on the Image above
A V-Shaped Crack in the Bathysphere
West of the Galapagos