Tutorials!

Phew! Had a whole day of tutorials today - actually the only day when I have tutorial clashes this year. But involved traipsing around Edinburgh on the bus all day...

Second MST121 tutorial - the maffs one - there seem to be lot of those! And first S260 tutorial - much fun. I do find going to tutorials worthwhile - makes it all come alive - and you get to meet other students. We've got four field trips for geology this year - can't wait!

Anticlines and synclines

More terminology today - sheesh! Been wrestling with anticlines and synclines... and I'm not sure if I'm winning or not. Basically, if you think of a wave, anticlines are the crest of the wave, and synclines are the trough.
So when you see anticlines exposed at the surface, after erosion, the oldest rock bed will be in the centre, at the apex of the fold, with beds of younger rock dipping away from the apex. Like in this lovely little diagram - if yellow is the youngest rock and blue the oldest.

With synclines, the opposite happens - the youngest rocks will be at the apex of the fold, moving outwards towards older beds, and the beds will dip inwards, towards the centre of the fold. Yellow is still the youngest rock and blue the oldest.

Sounds so simple when you say it like that, doesn't it?

Strike and dip

Getting steeped in all those arcane geological terms (are you impressed??). Actually, the first block of S260 is really very interesting. I've always loved geological maps, but never really been sure what I'm actually looking at!! This block focuses on interpreting geological maps, and relating them to topological maps.

Geology certainly has its fair share of terminology, but quite a lot of it 'does what it says on the tin' - if you know what I mean. Strike and dip for example. Strike is all about the direction the 'edge' of a particular bed of rock heads off in, in relation to the beds around it; while dip is about at what angle, and in what direction a particular bed of rock dips away from the horizontal. And strike is always at 90 degree to dip - so if a bed of rock obviously dips down to the north, then the strike will be east to west. Easy, huh? Well, probably not, in reality... but it's a start :O)

Symbiosis

Finished chapter one of the first Ecology book: 'Interactions'. All about symbiosis - what a lovely word that is :O) So, what we're looking at here in block one is the different kinds of interaction between species at an individual level. Symbiosis implies some degree of interdependence, but even this can be on a number of levels. In pure symbiotic relationships, neither partner can survive without the other. Like lichen (these are in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh) - a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an alga - the alga provides carbohydrates through photosynthesis, and the fungus provides protection, and maybe some nutrients too. Although even in this kind of relationship, the algae have been known to live independently, but the fungi can't...

Then there's parasites - this isn't a win-win situation generally - one member of the partnership loses out - either through disease (in the case of pathogens) or losing nutrients (like mistletoe). Then there's the more mutualistic relationships, where there's not necessarily a reliance on the other partner for nourishment, but for other things. Like fish that live in amongst sea anemones for protection - or plants that rely on insects for pollinaton...

All very interesting - onto competition, predation and herbivory in Chapter 2...

What happened to January?

Seems to be February already - how did that happen then?? Spring will be springing before we know it.... not that we've had a decent winter... boo :-( Although it is pretty baltic here at the moment.

That doesn't seem to have bothered Edinburgh's latest exotic residents though - I think the BBC must have had a pretty slow news day yesterday this side of the border - apparantly, parakeets are taking over Edinburgh...