Community Gardens

Community Gardens

Community gardens are great for communities to provide fresh produce or even plants. They tend to be publicly functional in terms of ownership, access and management, and tend to be typically owned by local governments or nonprofit organizations. The picture above is the community garden that is located in Macon, Georgia. 

Although Community gardens can be a great thing, starters of these gardens have to make sure that they are picking an area of land that has good soil. Before you start a community garden you should test your soil  and do a basic soil analysis.

• Two important Soil Characteristics:
• Soil pH
•  Is a measurement on a scale from acid (low 
• pH) to alkaline (high pH). Most soils are on the acid 
• side of the pH spectrum. Good soils for crop produc­
• tion are often moderately acid.
• Available nutrient levels
•  In the soil determine how good crop growth will be. Testing for phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg) helps determine the need for soil amendments (phosphate, and lime or dolomite) and the right fertilizer formulations for the crop to be grown. 

Interesting Video on Community Gardens

The K-T Boundary

THE K-T BOUNDARY

The K-T Boundary, abbreviated for he Cretaceous period , and T is the abbreviation for the Tertiary period, which marks the end of the Mesozoic era. The K-T Boundary is normally associated with the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event that occurred 6.5 million years ago. It was a large mass extinction that took out animal and plant species and a geological quick time. For geologists, this event was important because it brought on the signature K-T Boundary.

The K-T Boundary is a thin layer of sedimentation found in various parts of the world. There are many different hypothesis that scientist have established to determine why there are thin layers of sedimentation found throughout the world. Some of these possible causes include the Alvarez impact hypothesis, Chicxulub Crater, Deccan Traps, Multiple Impact events, Maastrichtian marine regression, and supernova hypothesis. 

•  The Alvarez impact hypothesis suggested that since the layer of sedimentation contained concentration of iridium that an asteroid or comet, which contain high amounts of iridium, must have struck the earth at the time of the K-T boundary. 
• The Chicxulub crater suggests that a giant crater landed on the earth's coast and coast tsunamis to form the K-T boundary.
• The Deccan Traps theory suggests that Deccan Traps could have caused extinction through several mechanisms, including the release of dust and sulfuric aerosols into the air which might have blocked sunlight and thereby reduced photosynthesis in plants. In addition, Deccan Trap volcanism might have resulted in carbon dioxide emissions which would have increased the greenhouse effect when the dust and aerosols cleared from the atmosphere.
•  Multiple impact theory just suggests that there were multiple impacts to the Earth's surface to cause the K-T boundary. 
• The maastrichtian marine regression is the idea that a severe regression would have greatly reduced the continental shelf area, which is the most species-rich part of the sea, and therefore could not have been enough to cause a marine mass extinction. However, research concludes that this change would have been insufficient to cause the observed level of ammonites extinction.
• The Supernova hypothesis, which was disproved, states the the cause of the K-T boundary extinction event was cosmic radiation from a nearby supernova explosion.

Type of Igneous Rock

Carbonatite:

Carbonatites are perhaps the most unusual of all lava types. Carbonatites are intrusive or extrusive igneous rocks defined by mineralogical composition consisting of greater than 50 percent carbonate minerals. There are only 330 known Carbonatite locations on Earth, most of which are shallow intrusive bodies of calcite-rich igneous rock in the form of volcanic necks, dikes, and cone sheets. It can be seen in places such as the Rhine valley and the East African rift system. 

Most carbonatite lava's have low eruption temperatures between 500 and 600 degrees. Although they often resemble flowing lobes of black mud, they are hot enough to display glowing, deep-red colors when seen at night. It has known to have erupted in the active Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania. 

Here is a video clip of othe Ol Doniyo Lengai volcano erupting with carbonatite lava.

LAB 3

6 Examples of Minerals and Rocks!

Mica

Mica is the group of sheet silicate. This group of minerals has perfect basal cleavage and capable of splitting into thin laminae. Muscovite, or potassium mica, is the commonest of all and whenever the word mica is used it is understood to mean Muscovite.

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate. Limestone makes up about 10% of the total volume of all sedimentary rocks. Limestone has numerous uses, including as building material, as aggregate to form the base of roads, as white pigment, or filler in products such as toothpaste or in paints.

Halite

Halite is commonly known as rock salt. This the mineral from sodium chloride. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow or gray depending on the amount and type of impurities 

Pumice

Pumice is a textual term for a volcanic rock that is a solidified, frothy lava typically created when super-heated highly pressurized rock is violently ejected from a volcano. It can be formed when lava and water are mixed. 

Quarts

Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earth's continental crust. Its formula is SiO_{2 other wise known as silicon-oxygen tetrahedral. Throughout the world varieties of quartz have been since antiquity the most commonly used minerals in the making of jewelry and hard-stone carving.} 

Galena

Galena is a natural mineral form of lead(III) sulfide. It is the most important lead ore mineral. Galena deposits often contain a significant amount of silver. Galena deposits are found worldwide in various environments 

LAB 2: Five Maps

Here is an example of a choropleth/ isarithmic map because it uses color and region distinction to show information. This map shows the average precipitation in the state of Georgia.  

Here is an example of an isarithmic map. Isarthmic maps use distinctive colors or shading to corresponding units according to a key on the map.

 Dot-density maps, like the one above, use a predetermined shape, color, and scale. This map uses concentration to show data trends the distances of McDonald's' locations. The more data there is in an area, more corresponding dots there will be in that area.

This map is called a proportional symbol map. It uses a fixed shape of a fixed color, but the size changes in proportion to the amount of data. Thus, the more data there is in an area, the larger the shape in that area will be. Here, the larger the red circles are in a state the more murders occur in that state. 

This is a choropleth map. It uses different colors to help quickly visualize general data trends over larger areas. This map looks at the estimated household income in the of year 2008. The different colors used represented an average income base on the scale in the bottom right hand corner. 

Lava Meeting the Pacific Ocean 

When lava hits water, it is cooled quickly which gives it a different appearance. It turns out looking dark and has a glass like appearance. It is the same which most extrusive igneous rocks, meaning rock that is made from molten rock material that cools on the surface of Earth, and not underneath the Earth. Also, the hot lava may take on saline water from the ocean, therefore altering the overall mineral composition.