6/17 ROME! (Ok, not exactly... You’ll see)

Alright, so forgive me in advance if this is my most scatterbrained posting yet.  Today has been an amazing day full of new experiences, science, and culture.  I’m still trying to figure it all out!  We’ll just start at the beginning and I’ll hope that you can make heads or tails out of this one (to make up for it, I’ll just toss in bunches of pictures!).

Boarding the train outside of Porta Romana

Day started bright and early, 5:30.  I found if I leave my shutters open it doesn’t feel like midnight all day.  Lexy and I headed out for the train station by Porta Romana and headed to the bar.  Gots myself another one of those awesome cornettes filled with the yummy cream, and an espresso.  Good way to start the day.  We then boarded the train to Rome.  The train takes about an hour and a half to get to Rome, with a few stops.  Over the course of the train ride it was a fun experience.  Scott, Paula, and Irene were all talking for the first bit in Italian.  I’d listen and try to pick out as many words as I could.  I’m a bit impressed with myself, that cheesy Italian Language app I got actually taught me some useful words!  No words I can imagine using in conversation, but they were using them!  They spoke about baggage and something about boys, and, ok, I didn’t really follow it...  I knew sorta what they were talking about ahead of time.  And all the hand gestures help...  Meh.  I can ask for a coffee, so that’s all that matters.  

Metro in Rome, called the Metropolitana by the locals

After their “Italian for Kristina” lesson Scott started talking to Lexy and I about the surrounding landscape.  The Romans started a system for logging the country side that is still in use today.  They come in and take trees from an area of about 4 to 5 hectors, but leave about 80-100 mature trees per hector.  So no clear cutting, they are able to have the forest regenerate.  The stumps then produce more trunks, thus producing more lumber per tree than a single trunk tree does.  Granted, you can’t use this for large lumber.  They do log the larger trees to use for beams in the buildings (like the exposed ones in my apartment), the oak is used for wood stoves, the chestnut is used for fences.  There are a few places that they don’t log, however not many.  Most of the land is owned by the communities or business, soooo, no BLM land to go offroading.  Sorry...  Italy is one of the few Mediterranean landscapes that has trees.  I thought that was interesting.  They get enough rain to support the foliage.  You can tell how long ago they’ve cut a forest based on the height of the underbrush.  With the landscape as flat as it is, you can see far out to where they have recently cut.  Pretty cool in a serious nerdy way!  OH!  And they have Umbrella pines.  I totally thought they were just cutting their pines like that, but it’s their normal growth pattern.  They harvest their pine nuts from these, which I’ll point out are super yummy on raviolis.  Thanks Paula!

Next up we headed to the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia to check out the Magnetic lab .  To be very honest, this was so seriously over my head...  I thought I’d get to play with some iron shavings and a magnet, but nope.   Oh that’s funny, the auto correct on my notes app  changed “magnet” to “mango”...  Apparently it’s now a cryogenic mango.  Thats a strange flavor...  Ok, back to topic.  

Part of this project is taking core samples from lakes.  The scientists  then examine the magnetic particles in these samples.  The Magnetic equipment is in a room that is shielded to create a zero magnetic field in the room.  If it ever shifts, they have to remake the room.  I thought that was interesting (and we all know magnetic north isn’t true north, so yes, it is moving sslllooowwwlllyyy).  So they take the sample and they put them in those large cylinders.  One of the cylinders then uses liquid helium to bring the temperature down to about -270 degrees F. By analyzing the samples the hope is to find a relationship between world events and relative amounts of magnetic particles in the samples

Then the Seismic Lab!  It was really exactly what you expect to see.  Computers, monitors, people...  They have some of the old style big roll of paper and pen models going, but they are just mostly show.  They certainly have their act together, as my sister and I will appreciate, earthquakes magnitude 2.5 and larger are reported within two minutes.  Love that response time.  So in the picture on the left is a technician looking at a computer with three graphs on it.  One of those lines represents the vertical movement of the Earth and the other two are the perpendicular.  They mentioned sometimes they have up to six components to a single episode.  The black and white picture is of a 4 magnitude earthquake that happened in Croatia yesterday.  Scott asked about the earthquake that just occurred in Mexico.  Apparently they can feel the S waves even here in Italy, but that one wasn’t large enough. To learn more about seismic waves check out this page at Michigan Tech.

Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo

After the Seismic Lab the group  discussed the findings they have so far.  This was the first time the "big picture" of the project started to make sense to me.  They brought up a couple of graphs based on the magnetism of the particles in the cores, and the spikes were interesting.  The are attempting to link events they see in their data to real world events.  There was one spike in particular where the particles were angled a certain way then suddenly in a very short time (perhaps a few days or a few months) the particles dramatically change direction. The researchers have no idea what happened.  They don’t even know the exact date, only an estimate.  This is the best part of science.  Thinking about how this could look in the classroom, it’s exciting to have this experience to show kids that this is how real scientists work.  It’s not all cook book labs with easy answers.  It’s all curiosity and desire.  Something to think about.

Our next stop was to a cafe where we met with the historians.  I’m not sure if that’s their official title, but that’s their portion of this project. Based on the rough idea of when the spikes occur the historians use their knowledge of history to suggest events happening during that time that could be related to the spikes. Very interesting!

Finally, on our way back to the metro, we got to take a peak at Rome.  Bet you all thought I’d be all “Collesum this, Vatican that!” huh?  Nope.  Science first!!!  We took a peak at the Piazza Del Popolo.  Let me just say, Ceasers Palace in Vegas has nothing on this place.  I could have stood in one place for an hour and be happy.  It’s so beautiful.  We are planning at least two more trips to Rome, one for exploring purposes only, the other for our nerd walk that got bumped today.  I will have so much more for you on Rome then.  

Me in the Piazza de Popolo, Rome.

Ok, I’ve totally hit my page limit.  Must be all that espresso I had today...