Summary for Wednesday January 13th

...topics covered in today's lecture were focused on (a) the dam failure at Lake Merriweather and (b) the water cycle. Our discussion of lake Merriweather introduced the following important concepts (and by 'important' I mean 'stuff that ends up on quizzes and exams').

The role of the USGS
The role of the Army Corps of Engineers
The dual purpose of Goshen Dam/Lake Merriweather
Discharge (what is it and how is it calculated)
How to read a hydrograph
How to access real-time USGS hydrography information

Important things to remember from our introduction to the water cycle include:

The relative sizes of the various reservoirs on (and in) Earth
The driving forces behind the water cycle (solar energy and gravity)
The importance of continental runoff in the origins of life
The importance of oceanic/continental differential evaporation & precipitation in the water cycle and in sustaining life
The mechanisms of water cycling that occur at tectonic plate boundaries

Other things:

As of 2:40pm today, 24 of you have contacted me about your Bottlemania/Blue Covenant preference (16 for Bottlemania and 8 for Blue Covenant). This means that (a) everyone who has contacted me thus far will be reading the book of their choice and (b) the next 4 people to e-mail me with a request to read Bottlemania will be able to do so; the rest of y'all will be reading Blue Covenant.

PowerPoint slides shown in lecture today are now available as a .pdf on Sakai.

Please read chapter 4 of Manning for class on Friday and come prepared to take a short quiz.