Geoverse

Remember the Minneapolis State Fair?

Try this:

Last week was an extremely busy time for me. As I arrived in London Heathrow Airport from New York JFK, I had to navigate my way through the infamous London underground network of subway trains to Euston train station. Once there I caught the Virgin Express train to Liverpool. I arrived one day earlier than my old study mate from Utrecht who now does his PhD at the ETH in Zurich, Zwitserland. The accommodation was good but the neighbourhood of Wavertree looked like the apocalypse had just happened. Rubbish everywhere on the streets and many houses stand empty ready to be demolished. On the Sunday evening, the conference ice breaker started and we moved to the Crowne Plaza Hotel next to the Liver building at the docks.

In the photos of Liverpool, you can see some beach shots with iron men standing in the water. These are the famous 100 iron men of Crosby. In the Sunday afternoon, my colleague from ANU had arrived and she was going to see this so I decided to tag along for a couple hours.

The conference itself was three full days of 15 minute talks and discussions. It was pretty intensive but very interesting. The DRT (deformation, rheology and tectonics) meeting is one of the most important in the research area of rock deformation, be it in the laboratory, in the field or modelling using computers. On the first day, there was a bit of a confrontation when suddenly a man stood up and demanded speaking time. It turned out he is a freelance scientist who is not affiliated with any university. His theories on the processes of rock deformation are controversial to say the least but I was told no one is inclined to believe him because he never shows his calculations. He was almost escorted from the room if he didn’t sit down and shut up he he. But then he decided to behave.

The people were all very friendly and of course it was great to meet all the most well known professors. They are all very clever of course but also funny and maybe a slightly bit mad which I mean as a good thing he he 😉 My talk was on the last day. I was pretty nervous but fairly confident. It went pretty well but as usual i think i tried to explain too much so i was a bit short on time. At the end though, I was recognised as one of the students with the best talks 🙂

The last couple days of the week we headed out to a place called Anglesey in North Wales. It is actually an island and a very pretty place. Again, you can see the photos of the field excursion. We looked at heaps of rocks. Generally speaking they are the oldest pre-cambrian rocks over 500 Million years old. They were deformed duing the Ordovician and Silurian (400 Million years ago) during a period of massive mountain building. What you see now as mountains in Wales and Scotland were once majestic peaks as high or higher than the Himalayas. The geological history is relatively simple with only two major deformation phases but the foliation and folds in the rocks are very impressive.

We got back on Friday evening and I stayed one more night before heading back to London by train on Saturday and the plane to Brussels on Sunday. My mum picked me up from the airport and now I think I will have a well deserved break at home in the Netherlands. Who knows, some old friends will come over to visit me 🙂

I return back to Australia on 22 Sept.

Photos:
Liverpool – Picasa / Photobucket
Anglesey – Picasa / Photobucket

Last day in the USA and in New York City. I visited the Natural History Museum near central park west. It is amazing and really big! Not much else to say. I will leave today in the evening. It’s a 9 hour flight to London and then another 4-5 hour train ride to Liverpool and my accommodation. The conference officially starts on Monday until Wednesday. The field excursion is until the end of the week.

Photos

I couldn’t leave Minneapolis without having experienced the Minnesota State Fair. I went there with two colleagues from the lab; Amanda and Ayako. In short, it was the biggest fair I’ve ever seen and I haven’t even seen all of it that night. The fair goes on for two weeks so I can imagine that you really need that much time to experience it to the fullest. After having tried the Australian chips with sour cream and chili sauce (ha ha) we watched a free horse jumping show in the hippodrome. That was my first time ever so it was really good but did get boring quite quickly. We then walked to the part of the fair where the rides were. We only bought tickets for one ride which was the most insane thing I have ever tried and that was quite enough. You can see it in the photos. Basically you are strapped in a seat and then the big wheel starts lifting up and rotating. The arm also rotates and the individual seat rows also rotate. That is three modes of rotation! Needless to say, I felt dizzy and sick afterwards. It not scary, mind you and if you have the bodily resistance to being thrown upside down and around quickly then all the more power to you 🙂

By sheer co-incidence we met up with a girl, Beke at the fair whom I know from the place I was staying at. If you image that at the fair there were thousands and thousands of people, the odds were amazingly small. For some reason though ive defied the odds so much with Lynn that i was hardly surprised ha ha. The fair was heaps fun and would love to check it out again someday.

I then flew to NYC and took a 5 hour train to Boston. There I met up with one of my phd advisers and stayed a night at his place. He has a really nice house on the outskirts of Boston near a shallow lake. His two daughters and wife sometimes go canoeing on the lake with their own canoe boats. My talk at Boston University the following day went well and the discussions with the group researchers/students were interesting.

I am already back in NYC now and taking an easy day off. Tomorrow is my flight to England and a conference awaits. Still gonna be busy, but I cant wait to relax when i get to the Netherlands 🙂

Photos -> http://picasaweb.google.com/robertfarla