RGS Internship - Day 1 and 2

For my first two days, I worked with a Cambridge graduate (Sarah) who was doing a Doctor's thesis (studentship) on expeditions supported by the Royal Geographical Society. I was in charge of transcribing the expeditions and surveys that were received by the Society from the year 1970 and 1971.

My task was to input the expedition name, date, nomenclature and compile a detailed note file on each application, including the name of the leader, the duration, mission (e.g. Glaciology, meteorology  ornithology (which I now know is the study of birds), ecology and even medical geography) and also state whether the expedition was granted loans or equipment by the RGS.

It was interesting to read about all the proposed expeditions, albeit entering them into a database was a bit repetitive. The most interesting things I learned were about some of the topics themselves - for example, one expedition investigated tree-lines, a concept that I have not heard of before. The term 'tree line' meant the natural borders where trees of one kind stop growing and spreading.

Other interesting research topics include medical geography and the research of disease, how they spread and how the geography of the land affects the disease. I clearly remember several investigations that aimed to study specific bacteria or pathogens in Africa or Asia. I want to look into this area in more detail - medical geography is an entire field in itself!

Most expeditions were to Norway or Iceland - not surprising as there's most natural landscapes present in Iceland. Volcanoes mean one can study lava flows or the formation of particular rocks. Rivers means a study of the hydrology and Hjolstrom's Curve. Glaciers also means one can look at the frozen land and "cold deserts".

Sarah was looking at the expeditions with women in - specifically which ones included women and where did these go. I had to put a star next to the expeditions featuring a female, and often it was hard to detect just from the archives - I had to read between the lines to find a "wife" or a "female" student, or detect a female name. I asked Sarah what she thought the trend would be and she said that we should find a rise in female numbers as the feminist movement (both 1 and 2) gained power during the 1960s and 1970s. It seemed that around 1/4 of expeditions had women in them, sometimes less.

Time for me to ask more questions - Why look at women but not look at men - is there something fundamentally missing from all women studies / gender studies ? Is looking at the records even accurate because it's so hard to tell whether there's a female involved ? What exactly does women tell you about society's values then and the human geography concepts it shows?

Is Geography a patriarchal subject ?

Pre- RGS Internship

I wonder what the RGS will be like - I am going to be doing administrative work for the society and tomorrow there will be briefing at 10:00am at the society. I'm quite nervous at the moment, and desperately trying to stop worrying about what everyone there will be like.

I just want to learn the most possible. And I will.

Soil Composition and infiltration rates

When a drop of water falls from the sky, it can either fall down to the ground or get intercepted by vegetation and other non-natural materials. If it gets intercepted by, lets say, a leaf, the drop of water can either get taken up by animals / plants, get evaporated back into the air or can flow downwards by drip flow or stem flow.

If it doesn't get intercepted, it will hit the ground. If it hits an impermeable surface, the same things can happen to it as it would if it lands on a leaf. 

But if it falls to the soil, the water drop will most likely be infiltrated into the ground. As it goes below the water table, it percolates the rock layer below the soil. But what are the situations where the droplet DOES NOT infiltrate the ground ? 

1. Saturated ground - this means the soil's air spaces between particles, which is what makes it porous and "permeable", is filled up with water from the rain. Every space is taken up, so no more water can enter and fill spaces. 
2. Infiltration rate is slower than the rate of rainfall - Infiltration rate is the speed at which water permeates the ground and enters the air spaces in the material. This rate is largely dependent on the type of soil in that area.

The diagram shows how soils can be categorized according to what type of composition they have. Soils are made from clay, sand and silt, which can be found in different degrees in each type of landscapes.

• Clay (slowest infiltration rate) - this type of particle is the smallest of the 3, usually 1/2000th mm thick. They have small air spaces and less spaced out air gaps; particles are very close together so water will infiltrate slower. There's also strong electrical bonds between each particle which adds to it's cohesion. 
• Silt (Medium infiltration rate) - 1/2000 - 1/200th mm thick, medium density, medium porosity. 
• Sand (High infiltration rate) - Sand has the fastest infiltration rate out of all 3 materials. The particles are often larger, 1/20 - 1mm thick and are large, round and spaced out. 

Hence, if the soil is mostly clay, and there is great rainfall plus a steep gradient, then most of the water will become surface overland flow, instead of being infiltrated into the ground. Gradient matters, as if the gradient is high, gravity pulls the rain downwards faster than if it was a gentle, shallow gradient.

How to Date Rocks

How do Geographers date rocks ? Give them flowers!

Jokes aside, the way Geologists date rocks is not too complicated. It all stemmed from Albert Einstein's theory that radioactivity is the energy for which chemical energy is emitted from any substance, rock or soil over time (energy change).

1. Collect a sample - if you have a large rock segment, cut a piece out or gather some smaller rocks from the environment. This will mean one can easily transport the rock to the rock laboratory. 
2. Using specialised equipment in the rock laboratory, the rock sample can be crushed and made into a power form, which has the consistency of sugar. 
3. The main thing that determines how old the rock is, is it's mineral contents. How much minerals is embedded in the rock tells us how old it is because of Einstein's theory of radioactivity. 
4. Scientists have to determine the amount of Lead and Uranium in the sample. Uranium radioactively converts into Lead over time as it decays and reaches "half life". To do that, a mass spectrometer must be used to separate out the large Uranium particles and the small, tiny Lead particles that the former disintegrates into. 
5. We know the rate of decay for Uranium (the total time). Therefore, the amount of uranium to lead can be proportioned (in a ratio) and this can tell us how old the rock is. 

Dating rocks is all about proportion of Uranium to Lead particles in the sample. Rocks form as sand and soils deposit layer by layer, over many millions of years. If any pebbles are deposited over it, they get buried on top of more layers of sand, silt and soil until gradually all we see is the top layer of young grass growing on a hill.

If asked to determine how old a rock is just by looking - this is what you could do:

1. Spot any fossils embedded in the rock. These tell you which time era the rock was formed in, and if you're good at paleontology, then the rest is quite simple. 
2. Categorize the rock type - is it sedimentary, igneous rock or metamorphic rock ? This can tell you generally the age of the rock and how it is formed.