Day 7: Getting our full science on at Little Hot Creek

After much recon and deliberation, we came up with a game plan for Little Hot Creek. That morning, we arrived shortly after 8:30 am for a full day of science. The local soaker hippies had a party the night before that lasted until sunrise. Needless to say they were not thrilled to see the white Suburban and 2 white vans show up so early.

Once we got at it, the students worked hard, were focused and did a great job. We did a complete transect of the primary spring, focused on some of the microbial mats and then focused on some “cone” structures in another pool with microbial mats. All of it was really interesting and totally unknown. On top of all that, it was a beautiful day…

Here is a shot of us going out to Little Hot Creek. It was several miles of dirt road. I am glad I was not in the back of the van. The students back there were pretty green by the time we got there.

So, you can see the orange and green (in some parts) microbial mat here in this picture. There is a hot spring coming up behind the white carbonate rock in the foreground. The water here is only 45oC. The microbial mats are thick and well layered.

 Students and John Spear (white shirt, goofy hat to left) working on the mats and cones at the LHC-5 pool.

Brain-like structure that forms from the splashing waters of LHC-1 spring…

 Brad and John Spear rejoice in the rewards of a full days worth of Geobio2014 getting their science on! What this really represents is a TON of work in the lab this week and a crap-ton of sequence data on Catalina to analyze!

A shot from above…

The whole group working late into the day…