Day 4: Afternoon: Drilling Our Core.

Adding a New (Holocene) Layer to our Sea Floor Model.


Our Core


'Drilling Our Core'


Next we did a core drilling experiment and agreed to believe that this represented the core we had headed to the Chatham Rise to drill on board The Aumoana. Ms Gain had created a sea floor model that had different layers, made up of cake slices and coloured playdough. Some of us took turns to add/deposit some new, recent layers to our sea floor to help us understand that the top layers in a core are the newest. We then used a long plastic tube to 'drill' a core sample. When the tube was lifted out we could see the different layers of our core. We talked about how the deepest layers of a core are the oldest and the top layers are the newest. We then looked at the Geological Time Scale and talked about how geologists can describe the different time periods the different layers are from. For example a layer of a core that is dated to 160 million years ago (done by testing fossils found in the layer) can be described as coming from the Jurassic period. The most recent material deposited on the sea floor today is described as being in the Holocene period. Some of our group has been researching how cores can tell us stories about the past, including the story of the KT boundary. In cores that have been drilled around the world there is a common layer of ash, which has been dated to 65 million years ago. This layer of ash, which seems to have covered the earth's surface, is thought to be evidence of an asteroid that hit the earth in the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago. It is thought that this event led to the extinction of dinosaurs, and in fact many creatures. There are many fossils found in layers below this ash layer that are not found above it.

Day 4: Mid Morning: Diary Writing

Next we imagined that we were on another scientific venture on board our research vessel The Aumoana. In contrast to our last imagined trip, this trip so far had been smooth sailing. We imagined that this venture was to the Chatham Rise Region where the team had planned to drill a core. There were now experts in our group who could tell us some details about the Chatham Rise and show us the area on a map of the sea floor. Ms Gain gave us the longitude and latitude co-ordinates of where we were heading to drill our core and we all had a go at marking this on a map. This was something new for all of us and a good challenge!

We went and sat in our own spaces on the field to help us get into role for this writing. It was a beautiful day and the flat green field became our sea! For this diary entry we tried to include sea life that we might see on the boat and details of the science work we would be doing. After our writing we shared our favourite sentences to each other as a group. Here is some writing from our diary entries.

'It is a beautiful morning and I am very pleased to say that we are launching our drill pipe tomorrow, very exciting. I hope we find lots of fossils. Our boat has already fished up lot of plankton, silverfish, and phytoplankton […] The best thing about living on a boat is the sunrise. There are no hills in sight so around 7 o’clock the sun goes down and reflects on the water. It is the most wonderful sight in the world, it is awesome'. Mia W.

'Another beautiful morning on the Aumoana. A pod of dolphins are passing us as I write. I named one Splash and another Cloudy. The boat is surrounded by crystal clear waters but the wind is still strong when I’m out on deck. I’ve just seen a pesky seagull eating someone lunch but I left him to it because he was so skinny. He came back for my lunch but that time I didn’t leave him to it! […] The stillness of the water goes blood red from the sunset. The sunrise is just as good!' Sally

'It is just morning and I am the only one up. All of the others are asleep apart from me. It is so quiet being the only one up and I just saw a big whale squirt water out of its spout.' Lucy

'I left Wellington 2 days ago and I am just about at the Chatham Rise to drill a core…I can see no hills so the sun goes down by the water. The colour of the sun is kind of orange and red mixed'. Tom

'Tomorrow I’m going to be in the lab all day. We counted fish and plankton yesterday. Tomorrow we will be measuring things […] We wear warm clothes like overalls and woollen hats.' Zoe

'There is an albatross flying around the boat and a blue whale chasing some krill that we want to catch for our science. Tomorrow we are going to drill a core, which I am excited about.' Mia P.

'The sunrise is amazing. I smell seaweed pulling up the nets, it is hard work.' Julius

'It’s lovely weather. Not there yet. Been doing lots of sampling, which is fun, but I miss my family. I’ve been on the deck lots.' Rosa

'Sunny days, great food, fun games, and amazing discoveries. The weather is great. Last night I saw a shooting star. The boat is quite rocky but I don’t mind.' Tim

'It is a very hot day today. I have been sampling very hard and I am very tired, we have been on our boat for two days.' Samantha

'It’s warmish its about 12 degrees and pretty sunny too […] When we put our clothes on we have to put on lots of layers.' Robbie

'Very smelly because of all that plankton I’ve been allowed to spray my room with perfume because it’s so smelly.' Georgia

Day 4: The Morning: Researching and Poster Design Work

Today we got stuck straight into researching for our foyer display project. In our teams we continued to find answers to our research questions. We also started to think about how we were going to put our information on our posters. We started to think of some good attention grabbing titles and headings for our poster. In our research teams we had to decide how many headings we were going to have on our poster to show our research clearly. We started to think about what diagrams, images, photos, and pictures we would like to include on our poster. We have also had to start thinking about how we are going to record the references of where we have got our information from. We have all chosen different programs for publishing our posters including Comic Life, Keynote, and Word.