In Honor of Soilduck

In honor and congratulations of SoilDuck's awesome new job (!!!) (What is it again SoiDuck? Where?), I am sharing a few fungi pics.  I took them on my vacation to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, my yearly summer mecca.

SoilDuck really likes fungi.  I don't know much about my vacation photo subjects, except that they are decomposers, of course.  And that they are located in an area that receives an average of 40-50 inches of rain per year.  Compare that ATX's measly-peasly 30-35 inches (No, I'm not mad we're living during an exceptional drought.  Yes, I am.).

By the way, don't forget that decomposition in general increases with increasing temperature and water.  Whooh!  On to celebrating SoilDuck...

Looking good in the forest.

Near Muddy Creek Falls at the Park.
Look: moss, fungi and lichen in one pic!
Which is- Plant kingdom (moss), Fungi kingdom, and symbiosis between the two kingdoms (lichen)!

Close-up of emerging 'shroom from the 2nd pic (above).

Close-up of the other one from the 2nd pic (above).

What's this?  I don't know.

Forest floor again.

Close-up of it's gills, or lamella.

Congratulations, Professor SoilDuck!  Go forth and inspire them with your knowledge and enthusiasm!

"What the...?" Part 2; How to identify a mystery substance.

Hey guys,
Where did we leave off? Oh yeah, there were two "mysteries of nature" that I was trying to solve:

1. A yellow flour-like powder veins in the clay; and a 
2. Very thin white crystalline crust on the soil surface.  

So I sampled them both.

Freestyle soil sampling.

Here is Mystery #1 in the field.  See the yellow powder, look how fine it is.  Can you see it spread on my fingers?

Here is Mystery #1 by microscope magnification. I think it is pollen!

They appear circular, but I can't quite tell due to their small size.
I'm gonna try and get some mineral oil magnification soon.

Here is Mystery #2 in the field.  To obtain the crystalline crust,  I dug out a chunk, which revealed fresh clay (you see the yellow veins, Mystery #1, very clearly).  The rest has that thin layer of white crystal crust on it.

Here, I'll "magnify" again, using my special magnifying lens.

Here is Mystery #2 magnified under the microscope and at various angles.

Thank you Eastside Memorial Green Tech and Mr. Moldenhauer for hosting my curiosity! 

Here are my future plans (if I can acquire a few supplies with limited effort on my part, ahem):

• Mystery #1 (yellow "flour" powder): Access a microscope with greater magnification and hopefully identify the pollen.  
• You see, each type of pollen looks different when you get up close.
• Mystery #2 (tiny white crystalline crust): Attempt to dissolve the crystals in water.  Then, add acetone to see if there is any precipitation reactions. 
• Why? I'm testing to see if it is gypsum.  I think it is gypsum because gypsum is a very common white evaporite. Also, the presence of gypsum indicates arid environments (like where I was standing at the time).

UPDATE: I haven't found a higher resolution microscope yet.  Also, I tried the acetone experiment, but I don't believe I had enough crystal sample to get significant results; it's a very thin layer.  Alas, the mystery continues... 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

"What the...?" Part 1

Once upon a time, I started to write a blog post that went like this:


Recently I went to, according my zero research, the world's largest antique fair(!!!) in Round Top, TX.  Fried pickles, fried mushrooms, funnel cake, fresh fried pork rinds, and popcorn may or may not have been devoured ravenously.

We may or may not have found the perfect vintage accessories.

While in town, in a pine forest, I also happened upon a cut in the soil that showed the native clay a few inches below. It had weird yellow veins going through it.  The veins were very fine grained, like a flour-fine powder.  I dug deeper to see if they thinned out, but after several inches of digging through dry clay, the veins were still there.  Can you see them below?

You don't see the yellow veins?  Let's try again, with "magnification."

OK? 
OK.

"What the...?" I was being SoilDuck's good kind of stupid: stupid yet curious.

Internet research was boring, so I checked in with my fellow twits, to see what they thought.  Here were some ideas:

• Fungus.
• But the location (deep) and orientation (horizontal) look wrong.  
• Sulfur.
• But sulfur precipitates as gypsum, and gypsum is white (ahem, it can actually come in different colors).
• Pollen.
• But the powder goes preeeeeetty deep into the cracks...
• Microscope it!
• Oh yeah, and I work at a high school, so this is feasible...
• Do you know the series?
• Maybe.

 I forgot to mention that there was something else interesting too: a white crystalline crust on the outer surface of the clay.

Here is your first official look at the '"mystery of nature" observed under a stereoscope.

See? It is right there, under the stereoscope.

(Thank you, young scientist, Manuel Lopez for taking this picture.

Thank you Mr. Moldyenhaur for setting up the learning apparatus.

Thank you Eastside Memorial HS for hosting this scientific inquiry.)

Actually, were looking at the white crystalline crust here, not the yellow vein powder. Our computer screen is showing a blurry version of it.


But then I hit a stopping point.  I hit Publish anyway.  I hope this post finds you well, and if we don't chat sooner, Happy Mother's Day!  Thank you to both Granny Sharon and Mother Earth.

Join us next time, in "What the...?" Part 2, How do you identify a mystery substance?

What is Science?

Science isn't being bored in class while someone lectures.
Science is the learning we gain through the scientific method.


Observation Hey, look!
Question Why is it like this?
Hypothesis Well one time, at band camp, this happened, so maybe ...
Prediction it would happen the same way here.
Testing No.  Hmm.  Wonder why.  Let's try this.

And that is all in the way of learning you will get from me today.  But you wanna see something cool (Doyle, did you post about this?  I forget where I first saw it, but THANKS to who did!)?  Look at this.

Wanna read something cool? Read how they did it.

Can you imagine how much sky-watching and tinkering they'd have to do before they'd come up with that system? Quite obviously, for at least a few people, staring out into space (and actually paying attention) was the thing to do.  Sweet.

And then there is this:

•   More outer space, but also really teeny tiny stuff. You must look.

And thanks to Classic Detritus, we get beautiful art, with an explanation of some of it's scientific limitations.

 In a nutshell, in "real life," the shell they have in the movie dons't match the math they are showing.  It is still a logarithmic spiral though.  But I can't confirm, I didn't do the measurements myself.

And of course, there is one of the reasons I wrote this whole post: I found some awesome shells on Galveston Beach on New Year's Day (To my hubs, these shells seemed much more fragile this year than he remembers.  Of course, his hands don't count as a scientific instrument.  We'd need something with more accuracy and precision.  But it got us thinking.  What would make them more fragile?  What happened between last year and this one?  The BP oil spill happened.  What was that dispersant again? But maybe these are just older, more worn shells than the ones you've crushed before?  No, he says.  Well, we know CO2 makes water more acidic.  And an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere would influence the dissolved CO2 in the ocean.  And acidity "eats away" at calcium carbonate.  And if they are made of calcium carbonate...but we don't know.  We weren't using the scientific method all the way through, you see?  No testing, no researching through peer review journal articles.  But observation, paying attention, and wondering and being curious will get you pretty far, but the tedious tinkering of the dedicated and hardworking may save us all.)

You see, science is everywhere.  All we have to do is pay attention.

All I got so far in my new room.  Don't judge.  We can go from here to the scientific method, no probs.

P.S. The way that my tutor groups are divided, I only get the same kids 9 times before my gig is up.  I got 9 80-minute sessions to inspire them to consider that Science is the way, the truth, and the life, and that they should never be discouraged from challenging themselves with it's study.  No pressure, right?  Send advice, now please, thanks.

The Dirt on Enchanted Rock, TX

An honor to be climbing with The Prez of the Texas Invasive Plant and Pest Council and The Lady that is responsible for my love of science (and wavy hair)

So, me and some lovies went to Enchanted Rock, Texas.  It reminded me of my last trip to Enchanted Rock, wayyyy too long ago with a precious godmother, or madrina, who was visiting for a baptism circa the spring equinox.  I also have many a memory of camping here during college.  Ergo, during this hike, I was twice filled with The Love: the lovies of the present, and the lovies of the past.    I will spare you the relevant Sesame Street video, but let's all agree, climbing Enchanted Rock is fun.

What is Enchanted Rock?  It is a big granite intrusion.  It's most common minerals, I believe, are microcline, plagioclase, quartz, and biotite.  You can follow a geological tour up the hill, it's nice.

Schmanyways, obvs there are associated soil photos, but first (!!!) here is what Enchanted Rock looks like from the road.

Since Texas is unfairly known for being quite flat, this is kindof a big deal.  Look, a protuberance!

A closer peek...

We climbed to the top and had some cool views.  

Forgive me because I have lots of pictures I want to share about an obsession I didn't really know I had: plants appearing to grow out of rocks (!!!).  

People in the know are calling them vernal pools.  Vernal pool ecology is created by pioneer species: they are the first to colonize a mostly abiotic area.

I like this pic: this is a vernal pool - the first inklings of entisol soil formation.

I think  that is an oak tree.  Sorry for my photo smidge on the right.  

Looking uphill, presumably native grass.

Same area.

Some cactus.

Spatial distribution.

The top.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the plants and animals that live here are "uniquely adapted to a harsh environment."

In fact, by studying weather pits, ecologists learn: (1) how plants and animals colonize a newly formed habitat;  (2) how those organisms modify their environment and help develop soils; and, (3) how plant and animal community structure and composition change over time.

In other words, they are super neat.

At Enchanted Rock you can see the progressive development from bare rock-bottom pits, to annual plant establishment, to miniature prairies with grasses like little bluestem and even trees like live oak. Vernal pools also support an interesting species of invertebrate, the fairy shrimp. These tiny animals survive total desiccation as fertilized eggs, and hatch into larvae and grow into adults each time water collects after sufficient rainfall.

Since these things are super cool, and their ecosystems are so fragile, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wants to make sure visitors are aware of their significance and asks them to back off. 

"STAY ON THE ROCK," they say.  And, 

"Thank you for protecting an important part of the Enchanted Rock experience."  

Look at the length of the root compared to the height of the above-ground portion (green leaves only).  This was on the bank of a dry creek bed.

Have a great visit!

P S.  Natural resources of Enchanted rock found here.

Six Degrees of Separation: Smectite Style

Hello, my dearest little poblano peppers!

How are you today?  Where are you today?  You know, I clicked on something according to my research, there are twelve whole readers of you out there. TWELVE of you that lovingly indulge me with a subscription!  I thank our usual suspects, Dr. Doyle, Soilduck, GonferalinID, and Layla.  And you others aren't my mom or dad (well, two of you are, but you don't actually subscribe, LOVE YOU!), so... who are you? Please let me know, so instead of me talking about soils I encounter, we can talk about our soils.  For example, uno de mis amigos vive en un ultisol importante, y otro vive sobre de  roca y un poco suelo (his guest post here).

So please, will you comment and introduce yourself?  Or what you want to hear about next? Or a random thought? I'll pause and wait, to give you a moment to do that....

Waiting for you to comment gives me similar existential issues as those confronted by Grover and Telly Monster in "Waiting for Godot Elmo" by Sesame Street's Monsterpiece Theater. 

Moving on, I have this little "6 degrees of soil separation" game going on in my head all the time.  I believe you can link anything back to soil, just like Kevin Bacon.  So today I am going to relate annoying small toads to the chemical structure of smectite*. I know, it's magic!  Thank you ;-)

First of all, let us let us focus our attention on a gentle, young, unsuspecting Bufo valliceps toad.

Actually, he indeed suspects, see why below.

According to my research hubs, this toad is a Bufo Valliceps. I like to water my foundation, catch them, and gawk at them adoringly.  I pour water onto the side of my house and they all come jumping out from the crack between the foundation and the soil. 

You see, when it doesn't rain, my clay shrinks to provide these naifs space to cuddle in a nice, moist resting area. 

And when it doesn't rain, I water my foundation to get rid of the very same crack in which they reside (Does it help your foundation stability for reals? No idea).

You see, this toad and my humble abode are located upon a smectite clay. I'm obsessed Perhaps you have heard of this soil here, here and here.  Anyways, the crystal pattern for smectite involves adjacent planes, or sheets of oxygen (among other elements).  And adjacent oxygens don’t “bond” with each other very strongly compared to say, hydrogen bonding [the polarity of water: discuss].  This means that when precipitation (rain) percolates into the soil, fresh soil water molecules have an opportunity to get all up in between the tetrahedal layers, which pushes the layers apart and increases the soil volume(!!!).  Yes dude, the soil gets bigger, and in an annoyingly uneven way.  "Le sigh," says my house.

Imagine, the soil under your house is a smectitic, and whenever it rains, the clay under your house expands, and shrinks when it doesn't.  It is like building on ... some other slowly flowing (viscous) material.  Your walls may crack, your door jams stick.  Anyways, we water it in a futile? effort at keeping soil moisture nice and even at all times, which should supposedly preserve our foundation's integrity.  And this is where the toads come in again.

In conclusion, our 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon separation:

1. I pour water onto the soil next to my house foundation so that it will expand to close the crack between the two.  Toads hop out of the crack, annoyed (and then I catch them!).  You see,
2. Maintaining near constant soil moisture levels may preserve our foundation located on a smectite clay. 
3. Smectites change volume depending on soil moisture, 
4. Cuz their adjacent tetrahedral layers are only bonded by oxygen bonds and 
5. Water is more electrostatically attracted to the oxygens in between the tetrahedral layers than the oxygens are to each other.  
6. Once hydrated, the smectite clay mineral expands with the added molecules.

Ta da!  You too, can use your soil science expertise to mildly inconvenience small animals!

PS These smectitic soils are characterized by high base saturation, partially explained here and here.  

Definiciones:

Smectite: A mineral found in great quantities in vertisols, which are known for their shrink swell capacity due to expanding 2:1 lattice clays (source).
Phyllosilicates: Silicates (atomic structures featuring silicon) that combine to form planar sheets.
P.S. They discovered phylosilicates on Mars.  

ATX: Your poo promotes birdwatching. Indirectly.

Birdwatching at Hornsby Bend (Photo credit: Meredith O'Reilly)

Hornsby Bend, Austin’s premier birding location, is a biosolids recycling facility.  

Say what? Your beatific contribution to the sewer system via flushing toilet travels through pipes and goes to a wastewater treatment plant. After treatment, the biosolids (or, if you want to sound like a nerd, primary and secondary waste-activated sludges) go to Hornsby Bend, where they are manipulated again ultimately composted with yard trimmings collected from Austinites to make Dillo Dirt (Read page 3 of this doc for more details on how this is done.)  The liquid waste portion of the biosolids make outdoor ponds, whose waters irrigate onsite fields.  

The birds love Hornsby Bend.  They like the ponds, the drying basins, woods and fields:

The biodiversity is present both because of the nutrient rich biosolids treatment  processes used by the facility and because of the diversity of habitats at the site stretching along 3 miles of the Colorado River. (source)

We built it, so they came, enjoyed, and returned.  And now we can go watch them. Meredith at GreatStems wrote a very nice blog post on Honsby Bend's birdwatching and history.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit Hornsby Bend's neat avian-friendly ecosystem, you should fer reals go. 

Here are some visiting tips:

Hornsby Bend Map

Location Descriptions: Where to see What

Seasonal Guide

You can go by your lonesome or join the group activities as listed on The Dirt on Soil's calendar, which include:

• A monthly bird survey every 2nd Saturday of the month @ 7am,
• Birder led "field trips" every 3rd Saturday of the month, and
• Eco-literacy day every 4th Saturday of the month @ 9am -1pm
• 3 hours of outdoor volunteer work; 1 hour of ecological education

Also, Hornsby Bend is open daily to the public from sunrise to suneset.

So, Did You Know That Moss is an Ecological Indicator*?

I was walking with my chickfriend (not to be confused with chiksa, even though she is one of those too) the other day, and we happened upon what I will call moss (Is it moss? I don't know; I'm a geologist!).  It was growing on the sidewalk downtown, under a gutter!

Photo courtesy of my chickfriend Sarah Kerver

For reals, where is your soil, Little Moss?  How do you live so bright and happy under a drain spout?  On top of cement, apparently very satisfied with the nutrients provided by the accumulation of dust that deposits underneath you?

So it inspired me to look up info on this plant that reminds me of ... my verdant childhood (Maryland has more moss than Texas.  Our loss).

So what is moss? Here are some basic factoidals.   They are not to be confused with lichens, more on those here.  The neat part is, they get many nutrients from rainwater, not soil.  However, if the rain droplets are falling through polluted air before they reach the moss (I wish the plural for moss was meece!), it will more likely disturb the moss faster than it will other plants.  In fact, moss is a good indicator of air pollution Why? Here is a good quotation from Kevin J. Lyman of the Milkwaukee Public Museum:

Why are mosses and lichens sensitive to air pollution? Since mosses and lichens lack roots, surface absorption of rainfall is the only means of obtaining vital nutrients which are dissolved in rainwater. Lichens and many mosses lack protective surfaces that can selectively block out elements including pollutants that are dissolved in rainwater.

So, it looks like finding happy moss in the middle of downtown ATX is a good sign!  Hopefully this does mean that the air around the moss is clean :-)

Wanna grow your own moss? Try reading here first.  Enjoy!

*Definiciones:
Ecological indicator: as discussed in another ecological indicator post on a toad, it is a measure of the environment (e.g. the presence/absence of an organism)  that is used to evaluate the health of an ecosystem (more technical definition here). 

My favorite maggots

The adult soldier fly.  Photo credit: Rock Hill high School

Howdy neighbors!  How is your soil today!?

I need to tell you about my new favorite pet, the soldier fly larvae.  I'm being totally serious.  I worry about their health!  When I go to my compost tumbler to drop off a new gift, and see hundreds of them chewing on my food scraps, I get so relieved. Yay, they are still there!  Phew! Now that I have them, I don't know what I'll do without them.  Well, I do- I'll actually have to exert myself and turn my compost instead of just gawking at it lovingly.  Don't leave me, maggots!  I love how your efficiency enables my laziness!

 See them in their gross glory here (click play):

Look at the smiles on those happy Hermetia illucens.  That was once an avocado, by the way.

The best part about my maggots is that I pretty much do nothing to keep them around.  They are lower maintenance than chickens!!  My compost tumbler system is set up well to house them, because I can keep fresh kitchen scraps on the top of my pile, inside the tumbler, and attract the soldier flies without attracting rodents. 

Factoids about my new Friends

• Heterotrophes*, and detritivores*, these baby solider flies eat rotting things (like my kitchen scraps) like it is their mission in life.  They'll take big uncut (read: lazy compost style) chunks of whatever and turn it into homogenous poo so it can further decompose into awesome humus.  Ergo, they help me make compost faster.  A lot faster.  For example, before these guys, we called my tumbler "the preserver" since we wouldn't get but one binful of humus a year. Now I'm depositing pretty-smelling bug poo on my soil that was food just a few weeks prior.
• They are voracious and will likely  eat scraps before they have a chance to smell badly (even big compost no-nos like dairy, shhhh).
• Their poo is a nice smelling soil amendment. Mmmmm bug poo smells like actinomycetes.
• The adult soldier flies do not eat.  This means that unlike the maligned cockroach and house fly (yuk!), they don't come into your house looking for food! If they are in your house, they are lost; they don't want to be in there!  Unless you have rotting food in your house, but that is another discussion (you should clean your house *cough*).
• The flies inoculate the compost with beneficial bacteria.
• They are native.
• They don't bite or carry disease (source)!
• They outcompete houseflies for habitat, reducing your housefly population.  

Gratuitous macro lense house fly pic:  I am not a fan of this diptera (Diptera is the order that characterizes both flies).

Soldier flies have so many interesting positive attributes, that Dr. Watson and others are looking into utilizing them for large scale animal waste  management.  

Yay!!!  Tell me about the bugs in your soil that YOU are grateful for!

*Definiciones:
Autotroph: "The acquisition of metabolic energy from the fixation of inorganic carbon, for example, by photo- or chemosynthesis (source)."
Heterotroph: "An organism that depends on complex organic substances for nutrition (source)."
Detritivore: "An organism that feeds on dead organic debris (source)."

Watersheds in a nutshell in a nutshell

Hello!  I would like to describe to you the issues that are paramount to my watershed in such a way that you learn about watershed management principles.  First of all, what is a watershed?

A watershed is a piece of land that drains water to an outlet.  An outlet could be a river mouth or an aquifer*.  There is no scale requirement for the definition, and there can be watersheds within watersheds.  They can be super-big or tiny.  For example, the Fort Branch watershed is neighborhood-sized and is a subwatershed of the Austin watershed (city-sized), which is a subwatershed of the Colorado River Basin (about Texas-sized).  Live in the U.S.?  You can find your watershed here (go to the water section and click "Hydrologic Units," then on "Redraw map") and here (scroll over the names to see the watersheds light up).  But technically, you can make a watershed while building your sand castle.  

OK, so technically this isn't a watershed since it isn't "land," but close enough.  Look, there is an outlet!

So, the watershed, like all things, participates in the hydrologic cycle.  As in, when it rains on the land (and you inhale the sweet scent of actinomycetes) some water…

• Infiltrates into the soil and is either stored in place or percolates further down to the water table; or 
• Becomes overland flow, runs off, and maybe ends up in a river down the hill; or 
• Transpires.  "Transpiration is the process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere. Transpiration is essentially evaporation of water from plant leaves (reference)." Some water
• Evaporates up from the land to the clouds again. Evaporation is "the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas or vapor (reference)."

There are other parts of the water cycle not mentioned here, like water storage in glaciers.  Want more details? Click here.

Here is a picture courtesy of the USGS that helps the visual learners.

Thanks, USGS.

So, what is going on with the hydrologic cycle in my watershed? Well, there are some complaints.  If you read this report, you’ll see that aquatic habitat in the creek has been rated very poorly.  Why? Well, if aquatic habitat isn’t even in the creek (for the most part), you can’t rate that category very highly, can you?  And what does aquatic wildlife need, but …water (aquatic, water - you see where I am going with this)?  There isn’t enough water in our creek to support aquatic habitat.  Now, the cynics out there might ask, well… so? Is not having aquatic wildlife bad?  Well, I guess it is up to us to decide. But let’s discuss why there is not that much water in our creek, and then we can decide what to do about it. 

Here we are upstream, a day after a big rain.

Remember, oh so long ago, when we discussed how rainwater either soaks into the ground or runs off, down slope? OK, well when you cover up your watershed with impermeable stuff like cement and asphalt, the rain is more likely to runoff.  Since it will drain off all at once instead of soaking in, the river draining this watershed gets a lot more water at one time.  So with the same amount of rain, the water flowing in a river that drains a "pavement watershed' will be high all at once, and then a lot lower later on (drip, drip).  A watershed covered in permeable stuff like soil will contribute water to the river flow much more slowly, so the river flow would be more constant.  River water flow in a "soil watershed" wouldn't reach the high peak it reaches for a “pavement watershed.”

So maybe, we don’t have so much aquatic habitat or wildlife because our watershed is partially covered in pavement, which is preventing the soil from absorbing rainwater and helping to keep the river flow at a more constant level. Gasp!!!  There is SO much more to talk about, so stay tuned! Coming up we'll learn why the Austin watershed experts don't want clean rocks in their creeks (?).

*Definiciones:

Aquifer: a water-bearing rock that readily transmits water to wells and springs (which can form rivers)  (U.S. Geological Survey, 2010).

Water budget: the study of the water that goes into a watershed versus what water leaves the watershed.  It is assumed that the water budget of my watershed has changed due to patterns in development.