Richard: May 2011 Archives

Late yesterday afternoon, I completed the panoramas and they are now online, here.
The new Bird Point 'O' on the new trail through spring 3's original forest has also been added to the online map (click image to see the interactive map).

And here is this morning's view from the Mariposa cabin:

Partly as reconnaissance for a possible project next year, yesterday we climbed down into "Spring 3". This orange mud hole is where a group of students on the first year, put the final nail in the coffin for the hot spring hypothesis but had quite an adventure getting out. It is just as slippy and steep today.

Anyway, We found ash layers (weathered to white clays) in the main orange clay sequence:

First the blog notes: We've had some problems with uploading blog images, but I believe I have the problem fixed - I'll tell everyone at breakfast.

Friends, family, etc are welcome (even encouraged) to post comments to the various blog entries. The best way to do this is to select the "anonymous" option. do this by selecting the "comments" link on the blog entry and then "comment anonymously". Ignore the "Sign in" link unless you have an account already (eg. past students). Originally we had it so you had to register with the site, but there were a number of practical problems with this. The anonymous option is easier and does not attract the spam that I thought it would.

This area of Costa Rica is in something of a drought, relatively speaking. Yes it is still the rainforest but they've only had one big rain all spring. Lake Arenal is by far the lowest I've seen it, the white-water rafting companies are becoming a little concerned, and the springs on the property are all very quiet (similar to the very first year when there was far less vegetation).

So as we're in a "drought", we had a lot of rain last night. As Tico rain goes, it wasn't that heavy but it did go on a while, and we still had some showers this morning. It looks to be starting to clear up, the sun is trying to come out, and I can see a rather hazy volcano.

Arenal is also quiet ("repose" I believe the volcanologists call it). Activity has been limited to fumerole activity from the main crater for six months now.

So all quiet on the Arenal front - but plenty of thunder and heavy tin-roof rain to keep people awake during the night.

The BBC have a slideshow of high resolution "3d" (ie. very high depth of field) photographs of ants that are being created as a part of a global ant catalogue by the California Academy of Sciences. Included is a Costa Rican leaf-cutter which we shall probably see next week:
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/12880498

With the 2011 field season imminent, I've been reviewing the website and adding some updates. A 2011 map has been created - currently this is identical to 2010 except the HOBO points have been removed - we'll have new HOBO points to put on the map. The main map has been moved over from "Bing Maps" to "Google Maps". Google have finally fixed some bugs that finally make their software usable for our needs, and Bing Maps have some problems in their latest version.

I've also added "2011" to the years listed in the panoramic photo viewer. Of course at the moment we don't have any panoramic photos for 2011, so the various photo links still compare 2010 to 2008.

I will be making a number of other minor changes to the site over the next few days.

See y'all on Tuesday for the Volcano Lecture!