Aug. 25th, 2008

kareina: (Default)
I just got the official e-mail, my scholarship extension has been approved, and I've got funding through 12 December. It is amazing the relief/joy this news brings me, even though I've got all kinds of safety-nets in place had they chosen to say "no".

([livejournal.com profile] clovis_t's parents say we can moved back in with them if we need to, and we've been saving money with the intent to travel after we finish our degrees, so in a pinch could live on that instead, but travel would be more fun.)

Now "all" I've got to do is complete the thesis and get to work on writing paper(s) for publication based upon my research, find a post-doc or teaching position scheduled to start mid to late 2009 and do a bit of travel/visiting friends all over the world in between finishing up here and arriving there...
kareina: (Default)
I just got the official e-mail, my scholarship extension has been approved, and I've got funding through 12 December. It is amazing the relief/joy this news brings me, even though I've got all kinds of safety-nets in place had they chosen to say "no".

([livejournal.com profile] clovis_t's parents say we can moved back in with them if we need to, and we've been saving money with the intent to travel after we finish our degrees, so in a pinch could live on that instead, but travel would be more fun.)

Now "all" I've got to do is complete the thesis and get to work on writing paper(s) for publication based upon my research, find a post-doc or teaching position scheduled to start mid to late 2009 and do a bit of travel/visiting friends all over the world in between finishing up here and arriving there...
kareina: (BSE garnet)
This morning, whilst reading my "1000 words a day of Geologic literature" (61 days in a row this count, which is my third best # of days in a row so far) I noticed that some researchers have 2 types of monazite grains in their samples which have *very* different appearance from one another. One type (the older of the two--monazites, being rich in uranium, thorium and lead are used for calculations of age since formation) they interpreted as "detrital", or having grown in another rock some place else, been eroded out of that rock, transported by running water, and deposited again with some mud and/or sand, which then got compacted into a new rock. The other type (considerably younger in age) they interpreted as having grown in their samples during metamorphism. My samples also have (at least) two generations of monazite in them, which could be due to two distinct periods of metamorphism in these rocks (which is what I suspect), or could be because the older ones are detrital (less likely for my samples). When considering this question one thing to do is to look at them all and ask "do these look the same, or are there obvious differences? If there are differences, is there a pattern to the differences (e.g. only old one have feature X and only young ones have feature Y)? Therefore I decided I'd best look, and started with one of the samples which has an abundant amount of the older monazite grains. Since I was looking at all, I decided that it would make sense to compile them into a figure, since I'd need to do that eventually, no matter if I was going to say "they all look the same" or, "they clearly look different". Compiling the photos, labelling them with their ages, and arranging them in the same groups of ages I'd already assigned them when I wrote about this sample earlier in the week took three and half hours of my day! Expandthe photo of the monazite grains (back-scatter electron image) )

Describing what I see in this photo added only 146 new words to the thesis, but those words are backed up with a pretty picture! Alas, tomorrow we need to get up early, so rather than starting doing this again for the next sample, I need to go do yoga and get some sleep...
kareina: (BSE garnet)
This morning, whilst reading my "1000 words a day of Geologic literature" (61 days in a row this count, which is my third best # of days in a row so far) I noticed that some researchers have 2 types of monazite grains in their samples which have *very* different appearance from one another. One type (the older of the two--monazites, being rich in uranium, thorium and lead are used for calculations of age since formation) they interpreted as "detrital", or having grown in another rock some place else, been eroded out of that rock, transported by running water, and deposited again with some mud and/or sand, which then got compacted into a new rock. The other type (considerably younger in age) they interpreted as having grown in their samples during metamorphism. My samples also have (at least) two generations of monazite in them, which could be due to two distinct periods of metamorphism in these rocks (which is what I suspect), or could be because the older ones are detrital (less likely for my samples). When considering this question one thing to do is to look at them all and ask "do these look the same, or are there obvious differences? If there are differences, is there a pattern to the differences (e.g. only old one have feature X and only young ones have feature Y)? Therefore I decided I'd best look, and started with one of the samples which has an abundant amount of the older monazite grains. Since I was looking at all, I decided that it would make sense to compile them into a figure, since I'd need to do that eventually, no matter if I was going to say "they all look the same" or, "they clearly look different". Compiling the photos, labelling them with their ages, and arranging them in the same groups of ages I'd already assigned them when I wrote about this sample earlier in the week took three and half hours of my day! Expandthe photo of the monazite grains (back-scatter electron image) )

Describing what I see in this photo added only 146 new words to the thesis, but those words are backed up with a pretty picture! Alas, tomorrow we need to get up early, so rather than starting doing this again for the next sample, I need to go do yoga and get some sleep...

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