Mary Baker School, Brockton- May 15th

42° 5' 49 N
70° 59' 24 W
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Mary Baker School

Today EarthView is pleased to be visiting the Mary Baker School in Brockton! This is our second visit to the school, our first took place back in 2009 about a year after the school first opened its doors. The Mary Baker School opened its doors to the public on October 21st, 2008 and was the first green school to be built in Brockton. We here at EarthView are very pleased when we learn about what schools are doing to go green and become more sustainable, we wish that all would take the initiative as it would help to lessen our carbon footprint and wasteful impact on the Earth and the environment. The blog post for our first visit to the school can be found on our old domain, bsc-earthview.blogspot.com or by clicking here. 

Students from the Geography of Brockton course

If you attend BSU, you may have the opportunity to take a course that EarthView's very own Dr. Hayes-Bohanan teaches, the Geography of Brockton. The course teaches about the physical and human geography of Brockton and is currently offered as an Honors course. 

If you have been following our blogposts (and the news), you would have known about the deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal on April 25th. On Tuesday, May 13th a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal killing about 80 people and injuring about 2,000. Tuesday's earthquake was centered about 48 miles east of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal as opposed to 47 miles northwest of Kathmandu which was the location of the previous earthquake.

Nepal Earthquake

Dr. Hayes-Bohanan recently discovered an article about the effects of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on the Himalayan Mountains. When the earthquake occurred, scientists at the German Aerospace Center discovered that part of the Himalayas dropped five feet in height while the city of Kathmandu appears to have risen five feet. This rising and falling is due to the effects that earthquakes have on the tectonic plates beneath our feet. While the Indian plate that contains Kathmandu is consistently being pulled under the Eurasian plate forcing the Himalayan Mountains to rise, the earthquake temporarily reversed this causing the Indian plate to rise and the Himalayan Mountains to fall. This change in height is temporary as the tectonic plates underneath will continue to go with the flow as they did before the quake. 

Journey to the Center of the Earth. 

When we stand in EarthView, we are just below what would be the core of the earth. It could be represented by a ball about two feet in diameter, held about as high as a tall adult could hold it. This week, we join Google in celebrating the anniversary of the woman who discovered that core.

The image above was on the Google home page to celebrate what would have been the 127th birthday of Inge Lehmann on May 13. Using very early versions of the seismographs mentioned above -- and slips of cardboard stored in oatmeal boxes instead of supercomputers -- she analyzed reflections of earthquake waves to study a part of the earth that is more difficult to reach than Mars. She published her results in 1936, and it would be almost 40 years before computerised seismographs were sophisticated enough to verify her findings.

Read more about her life and work in the tribute from Smithsonian magazine.

Natural Earth -- This week the EarthView team found out about another great tool for learning about the planet.

This image was captured at 7am on Thursday, May 14. The lines show wind direction at the surface, indicating the importance of flows toward and away from coastlines. The colors indicate temperature and show the importance of continentality. At this early hour of the day, land masses remain cooler than the oceans, and high elevations are cooler than low.

This image is from a project known as Natural Earth, an artistic rendering of winds or currents overlaid on data about speed, temperature, or pressure. From the very simple main page, click on the word "earth" for a menu of options that include mapping high-altitude winds or shifting backward or forward in time.

Whatever parameters you choose, the flowing map reveals patterns that are both beautiful and informative.

We hope that the students of Mary Baker School enjoyed today's visit and we hope to be back again soon!