Day 2: Mummified Head and the Clock Master

The second day is brought to you by the letter K... No wait....Nicole Hutton and Aaron Cronk.
This morning our group of 14 attempted to organize ourselves into tube friendly groupings. We used numbers, letters, or animals names to identify ourselves. We certainly stood out. Our group photo in front of a tube map certainly confirmed our propensity to block traffic. We made it though all together all day, and our CIS OSP even saved us money on the tube passes!

Our many circles through the UCL campus led us to Dr. Bill McGuire's lecture on Geophysical and Climate Hazards, with no help from mysteriously placed street signs. Although the historic evidence regarding the impact of climate change on natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding and landslides has a significant evidence base, current impacts are still being investigated. Sea level rise and glacial retreat trigger mass movement and magma changes. Supporting research has been completed in the Himalayas, Iceland, and Greenland by Jiang et al., (2010), Hompel et al. (2010), and Sigmundssen et al. (2010) respectively. Dr. McGuire made mention that the recent addition to the USF School of Geosciences, Dr. Steve McNutt, also has research interests in climate forcing of volcanoes. Further research is needed because the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change continues to put off action.

We enjoyed lunch on campus, including an opportune advisee family reunion between Dr. Collins, her former PhD advisor Dr. Mason, and her advisee Charles Paxton, creating a three generation mentor-mentee chain.  After lunch, Dr. Mason introduced us to UCL's longest sitting board member and founder Jeremy Bentham, who has  been mummified in honor of his contribution to education. He still attends meetings of University Council but he is unable to vote at these meetings. We all took inspiration from these traditions as they are a valued aspect of UCL life.

After the University College of London we hiked our way up a seemingly 90 degree cliff. Once we arrived we were greeted with a crowd and the opportunity to stand in 2 hemispheres at once because of the Prime Meridian.

The Prime Meridian was created by Europeans as a central point to determine the line of longitude that separates the east and west hemispheres. Although latitude was found via a sextant that makes measurement based on the sun at its zenith, longitude was more difficult to measure because there is no set point that divides the world by east and west. In 1714, the British Government posted a £20,000 reward (approximately £200 million if adjusted to today's value) for anyone who could determine longitude reliably at sea. John Harrison took up this challenge and built a clock that was able to retain time and work on a constantly moving ship in all weather conditions. Although Harrison was successful in this, he was denied the reward money for many decades. Even after inventing several more versions of the clock, he was only able to collect a portion of the money. Discouraging! It was only after his death that his son was able to collect the rest of the reward. After the museum tour, the group took a wicked photo on the Prime Meridian. 
On the way back to the hotel we came upon a market with all kinds of food ranging from vegan to Chinese. We had a light lunch then went on to trinket shopping. Overall it was a super totally wicked awesome day ya'll.

Sponsorship towards the creation of some of the materials for the Study Abroad in the UK trip provided by the Office of Undergraduate of Research.

Day 1: Arrival Day

Welcome to the University of South Florida (USF) / Plymouth State University (PSU) wicked awesome UK Field study blog!  Hope all y'all enjoy it.  A little background to get you started.  We are going to be traveling from London to Cornwall, Snowdonia, Barmouth in North Wales, Lancashire, and back to London in a two week long adventure.  We are studying the land from the rolling hills to the open coast.  Our group consists of 10 students who are a mix of graduates and undergraduates, 3 faculty members, and an event coordinator.


The Fabulous Family

Your adventure begins with Day 1 brought to you by BJ Quinton and Brittany Angelo.  We are the perfect dynamic duo to get you started as BJ is a graduate student from USF and Brittany is an undergrad from PSU.

(The wicked awesome dynamic duo...all y'all can't touch us - BJ&Britt)

Our first task was to find each other at the airport.  After a couple hours of some serious struggle including delayed flights and lost luggage, 8 of the 10 students finally made it together.  The other two students would arrive at the hotel later that evening.

In the meantime, the rest of us went to an orientation lunch where we met with the Center for International Studies (CIS) and discussed what to expect during our trip and what to expect culturally as well (what on earth is a pence?).  After lunch, we high-tailed it to Westminster Pier to catch our boat for the tour on the Thames River.  Throughout the tour we learned about many historic buildings and structures along the river as well as environmental features (tides, etc.).

London Bridge

The London Eye

One of the most notable structures was Tower Bridge which is often mistaken for London Bridge, which was rebuilt in 1973 to prevent it from falling down as the song suggests.  By the way, the original London Bridge is currently sitting quite happily in Havasu County, Arizona.  We also passed by the well-known London Eye, a very large ferris wheel that was built for the Millennium but was so popular that it has been in place ever since.  Other structures included many historic buildings, most of which have unfortunately become luxury apartments.

Tower Bridge

One thing that is very different compared to Florida is the magnitude of the tide. Differences between high and low tides range from 18 to 26 feet.  The typical time is about 12 hours and 15 minutes from high tide to high tide.  Tides can be affected by many factors including atmospheric pressures and storm surges.

The "Defensive Position"

Thames Barrier Project

High tides and storm surges have, in the past, had devastating effects around the North Sea coast.  In order to counteract the  effects on London, the Thames Barrier Project was established and finished in 1982.  This barrier prevents extreme tides and storm surges from flooding London.  Large rotating cylinders called gates block the tides when they are in the "defensive position", meaning the portion of the cylinder which is usually under water is rotated upward.

After the tour was over, we succumbed to our jet lag, most of us having been awake for 35 hours.  We checked into the hotel and relaxed for a bit, preparing ourselves for the next journey... 


Sponsorship towards the creation of some of the materials for the Study Abroad in the UK trip provided by the Office of Undergraduate of Research.