The Cruz Chronicles II

June 17th, 2010

To begin, I think I will expound on some of my goals for the internship. In addition to the goals that Dr. Schwartz has established for me, I also have a few personal goals. Most importantly, I hope that this internship will help me definitively decide if geophysics, and more specifically research, is right for me. It is something that I have been on the fence about for a long time now. I hope to return with a better understanding of the field in general as well as with knowledge of the tools used in it. I especially would like to become more fluent in the computing aspect, as this is what seems to be limiting me most at the moment. On that note, I suppose you would like to know what I have been up to lately. Research wise, I have been doing a lot of work in sac. It was a little daunting at first, but I am starting to get the hang of it. I'm also getting more familiar with UNIX, which is always a good thing. After finding some large earthquakes to look at in the area near Costa Rica, I have been converting the station data for the days on which they occur from miniSEED to sac. Then I have been doing things such as merging,cutting,and rotating the files in order to prepare them to look for tremor. This has taken the bulk of my time largely since I lack the scripting knowledge to do this all in one fell swoop. I will be working to educate myself in this area though. I'm eager to get all of the data presentable so that I can actually start doing some science. Today I was able to look at some seismograms and use taup to calculate arrival times for various wave phases. That was pretty interesting. Once I get more data in, I will be able to examine the love waves for associated tremor. 

I haven't spent all of my time in the lab though. In addition to my rigorous work schedule, I have also found time to explore Santa Cruz. I have spent a few leisurely afternoons on the beach and roaming around downtown. I also took a ride out to an old Spanish mission called San Juan Bautista. If you're a film buff, you'd recognize this as the spot where the bell tower scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo were filmed. I recommend it if you haven't seen it. It's a classic. I'll put some pictures up later. I've also watched a fair share of the World Cup. If you haven't been watching it, you should be. 

Until next time,

Zach