long day!

I went in to uni this morning with clovis_t. I spent the first bit selecting a few samples to analyse with the microprobe on Friday. Then I wandered over to the 'probe lab to see if the digitizer was free. It was, so I preceded to pre-select spots on the samples, and take & print photos of them, to make Friday's task easier. Then I heard the guy in charge of the lab make an interesting noise, and I turned around to see him with the microprobe open, looking inside and an obviously cracked piece of glass. Oh, dear. Guess I'm not using the microprobe on Friday! They've got the replacement part on order, but it has to be shipped from France, installed, and then they need to analyse some standard samples to make certain that the results they are getting are the ones they are expecting. sigh.

Finishing up my point-selecting, I wandered back to my office, did a bit more work, then met the guy who helped me do some work on the Laser ICPMS analysing lead isotopes in some of my samples. Months after we did the work, he's finally helping me understand what we did so I can write it up.

After that there was time for a bit of food and a bit more work before heading to a public lecture/Geological Society of Australia Meeting, where the guest speaker, from Harvard, spoke on "Large base-level and glacioeustatic changes attending the 635 Ma snowball Earth" (roughly translated that means that he presented evidence from a large variety of sources and sub-disciplines of geology for a *major* ice-age wherin the whole planet was ice-covered. Apparently, so the models speculate, once the planet gets that ice-covered it reflects so much solar radiation that it just stays cold. Until the volcanoes spew forth enough CO2 into the atmosphere as to cause... Global Warming and get the ice to melt. When folk modeling climate on a global scale first came up with that idea, they thought it was theory only, that it had never happened. These days a number of geologists say that yes, it did, and indeed, it happened about the same time that single-celled life first came into being. (when asked he suggested that for the ice that was floating on sea water, cracks opened up, and in the brine that formed as they cracks froze over, primitive life formed. The man was a talented speaker, but I don't know enough about the sedimentary stuff upon which he was speaking to say if I'm convinced or not.

By the time I finally got home, around 8:30pm I was ready for bed. But I knew it was a bit early, so sat down to read my 1000, and got inspired, so here it is, nearly midnight, and I've only just stoped my uni work for the day...

long day!

I went in to uni this morning with clovis_t. I spent the first bit selecting a few samples to analyse with the microprobe on Friday. Then I wandered over to the 'probe lab to see if the digitizer was free. It was, so I preceded to pre-select spots on the samples, and take & print photos of them, to make Friday's task easier. Then I heard the guy in charge of the lab make an interesting noise, and I turned around to see him with the microprobe open, looking inside and an obviously cracked piece of glass. Oh, dear. Guess I'm not using the microprobe on Friday! They've got the replacement part on order, but it has to be shipped from France, installed, and then they need to analyse some standard samples to make certain that the results they are getting are the ones they are expecting. sigh.

Finishing up my point-selecting, I wandered back to my office, did a bit more work, then met the guy who helped me do some work on the Laser ICPMS analysing lead isotopes in some of my samples. Months after we did the work, he's finally helping me understand what we did so I can write it up.

After that there was time for a bit of food and a bit more work before heading to a public lecture/Geological Society of Australia Meeting, where the guest speaker, from Harvard, spoke on "Large base-level and glacioeustatic changes attending the 635 Ma snowball Earth" (roughly translated that means that he presented evidence from a large variety of sources and sub-disciplines of geology for a *major* ice-age wherin the whole planet was ice-covered. Apparently, so the models speculate, once the planet gets that ice-covered it reflects so much solar radiation that it just stays cold. Until the volcanoes spew forth enough CO2 into the atmosphere as to cause... Global Warming and get the ice to melt. When folk modeling climate on a global scale first came up with that idea, they thought it was theory only, that it had never happened. These days a number of geologists say that yes, it did, and indeed, it happened about the same time that single-celled life first came into being. (when asked he suggested that for the ice that was floating on sea water, cracks opened up, and in the brine that formed as they cracks froze over, primitive life formed. The man was a talented speaker, but I don't know enough about the sedimentary stuff upon which he was speaking to say if I'm convinced or not.

By the time I finally got home, around 8:30pm I was ready for bed. But I knew it was a bit early, so sat down to read my 1000, and got inspired, so here it is, nearly midnight, and I've only just stoped my uni work for the day...