Posts Tagged ‘Science’

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Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Allyson and Bekah Arrive at the ISRU Field Site

by Bekah Shepard

Ahhhh, Hawaii. The Big Island. Palm trees, tropical ocean, coconuts, yummy coffee – you can’t beat a tropical field destination! Of course, when Allyson and I arrived at the site, this is what we saw…

Base-camp

ISRU Base Camp

Where are all the beaches and palm trees! Can you guess where we are on the Big Island? I’ll give you a few hints. It is quite chilly. We are quite close to the stars. How about this one: we are on the tallest mountain in the world if you measure from the seafloor! If you guessed Mauna Kea, you are correct!

The ISRU field site sits in a crater at about 9000 feet above sea level on the slopes of the extinct volcano Mauna Kea. The site was chosen because of the cold, dusty conditions and the presence of volcanics that are similar in many ways to what exists on the Moon. Working at a high elevation and on the slopes of a mountain can be pretty tough – plenty of wind, occasional dust storms, lots of fog, and the threat of altitude sickness or overexertion. In truth, however, it is also a beautiful place to work. Mauna Kea offers lovely views, interesting volcanic rocks, and the thrill of spending time on such a large and powerful mountain. In fact, Mauna Kea is considered a very spiritually powerful place to the native Hawaiians – you can check out a brief introduction to that history here: http://www.imiloahawaii.org/59/maunakea.

Hawaii... a fine place to do research in February! (Photo: Bekah Shepard)

Hawaii... a fine place to do research in February! (Photo: Bekah Shepard)

Base camp is a small tent city. We have a mess tent (yum – lunch!), a medical tent, an administration tent, tents for the scientists, tents for the engineers, and tents that function as garages for the instruments and robotics that are being tested. Allyson and I settled into one of the science tents, but didn’t stay inside too long! Right away, we set about following the various science and engineering teams in their testing activities. Details about what we found to come!

- Bekah


Sunday, January 31st, 2010

PLRP Meets ISRU

by Bekah Shepard

Aloha! That’s right – PLRP is visiting Hawaii! To be more specific, Allyson and myself have journeyed to the Big Island to take part in another exploration analogue test – the In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Test. ISRU is just a fancy way of saying “using the resources that are in place”, but in this case, we mean resources that are “in place” on the Moon or Mars. Some of the major goals of planetary exploration are sample return (bringing samples from other planets to Earth) and human exploration. Both of these ventures will require lots of fuel, and in the case of human exploration, plenty of oxygen and water. To send enough of these resources to the Moon or another planet would be incredibly expensive, and might even take several trips! Therefore, learning to use resources “in place” to generate fuel, oxygen, and water will be a great help to planetary exploration!

“But what are you Pavilion Lake researchers doing at an ISRU field test?” I hear you cry. It is true that our main focus at Pavilion Lake is the scientific exploration of the lake and its microbialites. However, as our project has grown and the exploration has become more complicated (submersibles, AUV’s, complicated communications, LOTS of people working to support the science) we realized that it can sometimes be challenging to keep the science as the top priority! In our struggles to do science as effectively and successfully as we can, we realized that developing metrics (tools for evaluating how successful we are at doing research) was surprisingly helpful!

ISRU-tent

Our tent at ISRU-Hawaii. Yes, this really is Hawaii.

We have since gone on to collaborate with folks developing the next generation Lunar Rover, and have applied our metrics to their Desert RATs analogue test site in Arizona. (Check out the NASA analogue site for more information about RATs: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/analogs/). That collaboration has continued, and when the opportunity arose to test our metrics in yet another analogue setting, we jumped at the chance! Why? The balance between science, engineering, and operations in different in each of these analogue field tests, and that difference helps us to hone our metrics. We are gaining a better and better understanding of how science functions in each of these types of analogues, and that helps us all to become better exploration scientists.

Stay tuned for next time when Allyson and Bekah say “Hey! This is Hawaii! Where are all the beaches and palm trees!?!

- Bekah


Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Data Management: Almost like doing your taxes?

by Nick Wilkinson

Now that the field season is over, we can all just go home and not think about work until next summer, right? Not by a long shot. As fun as it would be to hang out at Pavilion Lake for a few weeks each summer, diving and watching (or piloting) subs as they’re used to explore the lake, we wouldn’t be contributing anything to the science or exploration communities unless we share the data we collect. While each of us on the project came away from the lake with great memories and a lot of anecdotal experience that will undoubtedly make next season that much better, it’s the analysis of the hard data that was collected over the course of the field season that will lead to research publications, ensuring that the work conducted at PLRP remains fresh and relevant.

Nick Wilkinson helping DeepWorker begin its mission. (Photo: Greg Slater)

Nick Wilkinson helping DeepWorker begin its mission. (Photo: Greg Slater)

But what is this “hard data” and how is it used? This summer, the various research groups working at the lake generated several terabytes of data that included digital video from each sub flight, pilot logs, sub tracking data, rock sample information, data from the Gavia autonomous vehicle, weather station data, water samples, photos and video of the lake bottom collected by SCUBA divers and much more. One of my roles on the team this summer was to help make sure that this information was gathered and stored in an organized fashion. This included tracking down the original source of the data (such as hard drives and voice recorders from the subs), making sure that all files were named and stored according to an agreed upon format, and ensuring that our network-enabled data storage was as up-to-date as possible. Of course, this was a team effort and many people spent long hours tracking down data and keeping things organized.

Spending so much time making sure that we’re keeping track of these details might seem like a lot of trouble to go through, but it’s important to realize that time in the field is always at a premium and researchers want to spend as much field time as possible gathering their data. Analysis of this data can sometimes take a long time or require access to special facilities that aren’t on site, so most of the analysis generally happens after the field season. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that the field data is organized in a structured way so that you can find what you’re looking for weeks or sometimes months after the field season.

Think of the post-season data analysis like tax-time: organizing your receipts and other paperwork year-round takes a bit of work, but in the end, it makes filing your return that much easier. If your paperwork is spread all over the place, tax-time, which can be pretty laborious to begin with, is made that much more difficult. Thankfully, data analysis is generally more enjoyable than filing taxes.

With the field season behind us, we’re moving into a new mode of operation. The data has been collected and archived, and soon it will be distributed among the entire research team for their perusal and analysis. Personally, I’ll be looking at new ways to help the team share and interact with that data, enabling them to zoom in on exactly what they’re looking for, quickly and easily. I’m excited about what new discoveries will be made during this period of analysis, and I’m looking forward to how these insights will help shape plans for next summer, and beyond.

-Nick


Friday, July 24th, 2009

When there’s a camp cook… PLRP 2009 Closing Remarks

by Darlene Lim

A while ago, Donnie Reid said something to me that went something like this: “When there’s a camp cook, that’s when you’ve got a real field camp on your hands”. He said that to me as we cheerfully prepared a modest dinner of salad and spaghetti for a hungry band of about 8 people. He was volunteering his diving skills to our research efforts, and me, I had just started at NASA Ames and was keenly exploring my new research site of Pavilion Lake. That was August 2004.

August 2004.  Early days of the project

August 2004. Early days of the project

Welcome to July 2009 – and guess what? We have a camp cook. Her name is Dana. And she now prepares a mean pasta dinner for a thriving (and still hungry) camp that has grown to almost 60 characters from all walks of life and from all over the world. Oh, and as for Donnie, well he is now the PLRP Logistics and Operations Manager and is in charge of organizing the activities of everyone from the astronauts to yep, the camp cook. I think he knew this was coming when he said what he said to me some years ago.

August 2005. A few more faces, but still no camp cook

August 2005. A few more faces, but still no camp cook

August 2006.  New graduate students and a camp cook join the team.

August 2006. New graduate students and a camp cook join the team.

When I think back, I’m struck by the fact that the project has seen more faces come than go, and as a consequence, we’ve grown. Folks keep coming back, and bringing more folks with them. It’s great, because with each passing year the PLRP family gets larger. One reason for this phenomenon is that the lake is a scientific goldmine. As we answer the first round of questions we came to the lake to research, so many new, interesting questions surface for us to ponder. And as we’ve set out to answer questions, we’ve had the chance to select the best technologies, methodologies and protocols to help us accomplish our science objectives. And what we’ve learnt isn’t just relevant to us at Pavilion Lake, but also has bearing on how humans will conduct science on the Moon, Mars and beyond. And with this natural procession of scientific research has come the development of a new crop of researchers. Allyson Brady, Rebekah Shepard, Alex Forrest, Ben Cowie, Margarita Marinova, Weston Pike, Olivia Chan, and Carol Turse are all graduate students who joined the project early on and who are all now either completed or on the cusp of completing their degrees. Through their work at Pavilion Lake, we’ve learnt so much about the physical, chemical and biological processes that govern this remarkable environment. And now we are in the process of shepherding in a new crop of students to evolve their research and tackle the new questions ahead of us. To me, all this is the essence of the scientific endeavor – gain knowledge, give knowledge, and grow knowledge.

August 2007.  Post-SCUBA dive debrief with the growing PLRP team.

August 2007. Post-SCUBA dive debrief with the growing PLRP team.

This year we did 40 submersible flights in 10 days of operations. We cycled 9 scientist pilots (SPs) through a variety of rigorous sub flight plans that included contour mapping, detailed imaging, basin transects and deep sample collection activities. We gathered ground-breaking quantitative data to measure the efficiency, productivity, and discovery mindedness of each SP. We implemented a new Surface Data System (SDS) and communications plan that allowed us to view sub tracks and science notes in real time, and get voices from the deep up to the shore and into our Mobile Mission Control Center, or “The Hab[itat]“, much to the delight of an eagerly awaiting Science Backroom Team (SBT). We had underwater fluorometer experiments, water monitoring, and virology surveys taking place at the same time as the sub ops, as well as a very busy Education and Public Outreach schedule. Visitors came, visitors went, and there were a lot of boat trips to carry out everything we had to do to complete the science goals and objectives we set for the team and then some! It all got accomplished and happily, everyone made it home safely. Whew.

July 2008.  First year of DeepWorker sub operations.  Dana, our camp cook and raison d’etre, pictured bottom row, three from the left.

July 2008. First year of DeepWorker sub operations. Dana, our camp cook and raison d’etre, pictured bottom row, three from the left.

As a final note to all those who have been following our field season blogs, we’re planning on keeping our updates coming to you throughout the year, so definitely stay tuned. But for now, I just wanted to say thanks to all those who have been reading our entries, and by extension supporting our research efforts through the July 2009 field season. I’m looking forward to seeing the PLRP family again in 2010 and to meeting the new faces who will help to grow and evolve the project. Which leaves me to wonder what Donnie and Dana would have to say about having two camp cooks? Ah, but that’s a story for another time…

So long for now,

Darlene

July 2009.  The 2009 PLRP family photo.

July 2009. The 2009 PLRP family photo.


Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Tracking submarines on the go!

by Matthew Deans

For the past 10 days we have been making real time maps of all of the sub operations at Pavilion Lake. To do this, we have written some software to generate KML files to load into Google Earth. The Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames has a lot of experience with ground data systems for NASA missions like the MER rovers, robotic earth analog field tests like the Robotic Recon test in northern Arizona in June, disaster response applications, and the Gigapan camera system, we were able to put together a set of tools to support sub tracking and mapping using a lot of existing software. We call the collection of tools and processes the “Surface Data System.”

Pavilion Lake 2009 Data Map

Pavilion Lake 2009 Data Map

We started with importing overlays of the bedrock geology from British Columbia Geological Survey (BCGS), as well as sonar bathymetry and sonar backscatter maps that show depth of the lake and structure of the bottom. These provide context for flight planning and for setting expectations for what we will find during the flights. In real time during the submarine flights, we get sub position every 5 seconds from the navigation computer on the chase boat. We use that to track the sub by periodically writing out updated KML files and automatically refreshing them in Google Earth as network links. A submarine icon shows the current location of the sub, and a compass rose shows bearings to indicate which way to go to reach the next waypoint. Google Earth also provides lots of measurement tools, annotation tools, and other built-in functions that we can use to annotate and analyze the map. All of this information is saved to a shared filesystem so that everyone at the camp has access to all of the same map data.

We have established an operations role on the support vessels which we call the “Science Stenographer”. That person’s job is to listen in on the voice loop and transcribe any significant observations in real time. Observations worth calling up to the surface immediately appear on the map as icons that you can click on to read the date, time, lat/long, and what was said.

My reflection in the monitor showing the stenography program

My reflection in the monitor showing the stenography program

In addition, the submarines are recording video continuously. The video recorder also has an “event” button that can mark the timestamp of a significant event on the video. In post-processing, we cross-correlate the timestamps to get position, and put a preview image and compressed video clip into the map as well.

These maps have been very useful for operations, for post-flight analysis, and for planning the next set of activities. After the flights are over, the science back room immediately has the flight track as-flown and georeferenced notes from the pilots. After some video post-processing (which takes some time simply due to the quantity of data: over 25 GB of video from each flight) the video clips and video stills are georeferenced and in the map. This information has been used to modify or create flight plans in real time. As an example, one morning Margarita identified interesting sampling locations during her flight. The post-flight map was immediately used to create a second flight plan to send Ricky to those locations for sample collection that same afternoon. It has also been interesting to see all of the flights and notes and images on one map simultaneously. The team realized before the end of the field season that there were areas of the lake that had not been covered and could plan accordingly.

Georeferenced notes attached to the flight tracks in Google Earth

Georeferenced notes attached to the flight tracks in Google Earth

Without this real time information procesing and integration, it would have been too late to go back and investigate those areas during the field season. Those flight plans would have to wait for another year. In a field setting with a lot of logistics overhead and a short duration for field work, understanding the big picture of operations quickly is a big time saver.

Georeferenced tree image in Pavilion Lake

Georeferenced tree image in Pavilion Lake

After the field season is over, the map data will be used by the team to analyse and correlate information from across the lake and across different flights to support their research, and to plan next year’s activities. All of the observations and information gathered this year bring up new questions and new hypotheses, and there is always more to study in this lake.

The images in this post show a few different views of map screens. There is also a KMZ file that you can download and open in Google Earth to see one of our flight plans and watch the time lapse animated flight track for the actual submarine positions flight as it was flown that day. Try setting the playback speed to the minimum for best results. Enjoy!

- Matt

DOWNLOAD THE KMZ FILE


Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

The Scientific Firefighter

by Andrew Abercromby
Andrew on the deck

Andrew on the deck

As happens most days, this afternoon we had a local visitor stop by the mobile command center to see what was going on in the big trailer with NASA and CSA logos on it. As we explained what was happening at the various workstations, he was particularly interested when we told him that we were trying to use a variety of metrics to better understand the many different factors that influence the effectiveness of scientific exploration. I explained that we are using several different techniques to try and measure aspects of scientific exploration that are very difficult to put numbers to – things like scientific merit, productivity, and data quality – and that if we can measure these things then we can begin to understand how to do scientific exploration more effectively, whether we are under water or on the moon.

He told me that he is working on a very similar challenge right now but applied to fighting fires rather than finding funky-looking rocks in lakes. There are a lot of ways to fight fires and new technologies can help. But which technologies are most effective and do their benefits justify their costs? Difficult questions and this firefighter is trying to develop metrics to begin answering them. He fully appreciated the importance of measuring what you hope to understand. He recognized that his task would be a difficult one, that in science or firefighting some people want perfect metrics or no metrics. But he was undeterred. Good man.

-Andrew


Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

What Did You Do On Your Summer Vacation?

by Bree and Jen

This is a question that we ask our students on the first day of school in September. Boy, we have some interesting things to share on our first day of school. This summer, we travelled together to the Pavilion Lake Research Project to learn about the science that is being done here and how it can be incorporated into the classroom. During the year Bree and I are both immersed in the classroom, and most of the time we are teaching science. Today we have found ourselves writing a blog which neither of us have done before. We seem to be entertaining the people around us with our different ideas of how best to compose one of these, and we will find out if we get a gold star later. The crew here have been very welcoming and happy to share about what they do here. In fact, our first night here we were allowed to get inside one of the DeepWorker submersibles which are used during the scientist flight missions (we were still on dry land, but still very cool). Part of us being here at Pavilion Lake was to integrate teachers into the different activities that go on here, and integrate us they did.

From left, Bree Riddell, Ricky Arnold and Jen Stonehouse

From left, Bree Riddell, Ricky Arnold and Jen Stonehouse

So we are sure you are wondering what we were were able to do at the lake. Unfortunately we were not allowed to drive the subs but we had many other cool opportunities to be part of the team. We sat in on science meetings, pilot meetings, classified data from the submersibles, talked to scientists and astronauts, observed the launches of the submersibles and helped record data from the flights as a science stenographer. One of things that we did was classify the images returned from the underwater flights. During the flights images of what the pilots see is recorded on camera. The pilots see very cool things when on their mission – microbialites. After the mission this data then has to be classified. We looked at images to identified what was in the image – microbialites, algae, rocks, sediment, trash – oh my! This is something that can easily be transferred to the classroom. We classify every day just like the scientists (just on a different level). As the team here classifies these images for science and further understanding, students can also classify these images in the process of learning how to do science. Trust us (or read the rest of these blogs if you don’t), microbialites are very interesting!

How did we do with our first blog? Did we get a gold star?

-Jen and Bree


Monday, July 13th, 2009

Thank you, Pavilion Lake Community!

by Ben Cowie
Community Day was a great success this year - with nearly 100 visitors from Pavilion Lake, the surrounding communities, and as far away as Kamloops

Community Day was a great success this year - with nearly 100 visitors from Pavilion Lake, the surrounding communities, and as far away as Kamloops

On Saturday evening, the PLRP opened its doors to the Pavilion Lake community! Roughly 100 people visited our community open house to learn about our project and how we study the lake they call home. We especially enjoyed the enthusiastic questions, the smiles and good wishes from everyone who attended the event.

Community members were invited into the Mobile Mission Command Center to check out our communications and lab equipment.

Community members were invited into the Mobile Mission Command Center to check out our communications and lab equipment.

We are very grateful for the support of the community at Pavilion Lake and the Ts’kw’aylaxw First Nation. Thank you all, from PLRP.

-Ben


Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Sometimes you get some answers, sometimes you’re left with more questions

by Margarita Marinova

Coming back from a great flight in the subs, I am even more excited about the lake! What an amazing place!

I had a great flight – the goal was to fly a contour at 15m depth on the east side of the South Basin (north section). That was just fascinating! A specific objective was to identify rock slides, to enable the afternoon flight to document and sample some of these rock slides. Why? Well, one of our hypotheses is that microbialites need rocks to start their growth. The sediment around is so soft, that it seems hard for any large structure to just grow in it. Using video to image these rock slides, we find that at significant depth we just see the rocks. As we get shallower first there is a thin cover of microbialites on the rocks, and then with increasingly shallower depth the microbialites get bigger and bigger! At this point there is no sign of the rock that’s likely underneath. So does this prove that microbialites always need a rock? Well not really! Just nearby there were landslides with no microbialites on them. Why is that? It’s the same type of rock, likely the same lake chemistry, and likely the same biology. But there is such a difference! Then later in the dive I also found areas with scattered microbialites, which certainly didn’t look like they depended on rocks for their growth. Examples of these relationships are seen throughout the lake, but it is this field season that we are meticulously documenting them. And while we are certainly showing some relationships are true, what we see raises even more questions!

Another big question we are asking is if the microbialites are currently growing. On this dive it was sad for me to see that there was a lot of trash on the lake bottom. But this trash is also like a natural experiment to look at microbialite growth. In this case, we can look at whether there is anything growing on the trash, or also on trees that have fallen into the lake. In the case of trash, we know it got there less than ~100 years ago, and a lot of the trash in this area was covered with about 0.5 cm (1/5 inch) of microbialite growth! So we now know that the microbialites are currently growing, at least in that part of the lake. So then we ask why is there such a difference in sizes for different parts of the lake? Just a few hundred meters south of my dive, Mike Gernhardt was exploring unusually large structures: 2 meters tall, by 3 meters wide (6 ft tall, by 10 ft wide). Where I was flying, most of the structures were small: maximum height of 20 cm (8 inches). So why is there such a difference? Is microbialite growth constant, or does their growth effectively turn on and off? Do the microbialites grow faster in one area than another because of slight water chemistry differences? Or something else? We haven’t seen any of these chemistry differences yet, but it could be something we haven’t measured … yet.

We started out 5 years ago with so many questions. Now we have more and more questions, but it is also nice to see that some answers are coming in as well. As we analyze the wealth of data we are collecting with the DeepWorker submarines, we are sure to answer more and more of these intriguing questions.

-Mars


Friday, July 10th, 2009

Why do the microbialites have different shapes?

by Dawn Sumner
Different microbialites have different shapes.  Why?  How do we even answer this question?  One approach is to look at the building blocks of microbialites – the legos that stack together to make the structures.  Some microbialites have little tufts on them that make the surface rough.  These tufts are composed of the mineral calcite, which is intermixed with long, hair-like bacteria that come in two colors, pink and green.  The calcite makes the microbialite a rock, and the bacteria shape the tufts.  They are all lined up, pointing upward into the water like spiked hair.
These tufts are one of the building blocks for the microbialites.  How many there are, how they are arranged, and how fast they grow help shape the microbialites.  Lots of closely spaced tufts growing quickly create rough surfaces on the microbialites.  If the tufts grow slowly and there is lots of calcite, they only form small bumps.  If they are absent, the microbialites are smooth.  These smooth microbialites might need a different building block to form, one we haven’t identified yet.
The bacteria that form the tufts are photosynthetic – they use light to grow.  The tops of microbialites get more light than the sides do.  We can measure this, and it’s true in Pavilion Lake.  If tufts grow faster with more light and there is more light at the tops of the microbialites, we can predict that the tops might grow more quickly than the sides.  We haven’t measured this because the microbialites grow very slowly, and growth rates are very hard to measure.  However, the shapes of the microbialites suggest that they mostly grow upward.  Many of them have ridges on their sides pointing up or “chimneys” on top.  Thus, our prediction is consistent with the data we have so far.
Do we now understand why different microbialites have different shapes?  Nope!  The tuft building blocks that we’ve been analyzing should all behave about the same on near-by microbialites.  But the near-by microbialites aren’t all the same shape!  Maybe some of the differences are due to differences in growth rate, but I think there are probably more building blocks that we haven’t described yet.  To make a lego boat, you need different blocks than you do to make a lego submersible.  To make a dome-shaped microbialite, you might need different blocks than you do to make an “artichoke-shaped” microbialite.  We still have a lot to learn.

Different microbialites have different shapes.  Why?  How do we even answer this question? One approach is to look at the building blocks of microbialites – the legos that stack together to make the structures.  Some microbialites have little tufts on them that make the surface rough.  These tufts are composed of the mineral calcite, which is intermixed with long, hair-like bacteria that come in two colors, pink and green.  The calcite makes the microbialite a rock, and the bacteria shape the tufts.  They are all lined up, pointing upward into the water like spiked hair.

Close-up depiction of smooth and rough microbialite surfaces

Close-up depiction of smooth and rough microbialite surfaces

These tufts are one of the building blocks for the microbialites.  How many there are, how they are arranged, and how fast they grow help shape the microbialites.  Lots of closely spaced tufts growing quickly create rough surfaces on the microbialites.  If the tufts grow slowly and there is lots of calcite, they only form small bumps.  If they are absent, the microbialites are smooth.  These smooth microbialites might need a different building block to form, one we haven’t identified yet.

Smooth Microbialite Surface

Smooth Microbialite Surface

The bacteria that form the tufts are photosynthetic – they use light to grow.  The tops of microbialites get more light than the sides do.  We can measure this, and it’s true in Pavilion Lake.  If tufts grow faster with more light and there is more light at the tops of the microbialites, we can predict that the tops might grow more quickly than the sides.  We haven’t measured this because the microbialites grow very slowly, and growth rates are very hard to measure.  However, the shapes of the microbialites suggest that they mostly grow upward.  Many of them have ridges on their sides pointing up or “chimneys” on top.  Thus, our prediction is consistent with the data we have so far.

Closeup image of Microbialite

Closeup image of Microbialite

Do we now understand why different microbialites have different shapes?  Nope!  We still have a lot to learn, and many of the questions surrounding microbialite formation remain unanswered. The tuft building blocks that we’ve been analyzing should all behave about the same on near-by microbialites.  But the near-by microbialites aren’t all the same shape! Maybe some of the differences are due to differences in growth rate, but I think there are probably more building blocks that we haven’t described yet.  One thing to think about before I finish: To make a lego boat, you need different blocks than you do to make a lego submersible.  To make a dome-shaped microbialite, you might need different blocks than you do to make an “artichoke-shaped” microbialite.  This kind of thinking might help us solve one of the big mysteries of Pavilion Lake!

-Dawn