Water! Pastorious Park Pond

    The water I have chosen is a pond in a dog park that happens to be directly across the street from my house. The park is called Pastorious Park and its located in Philadelphia, PA. While the pond is probably not as polluted as the ponds in center city Philadelphia, the pollution in this pond is a concern to me. Sense I was little my dogs have always gone swimming in this pond. And my little brother has occasionally taken a dip in the pond. (Against my parents will)..
   My dogs drink this water and sometimes swim in it. Which then leads to them tracking it through my house. So I was concerned with what exactly they are tracking through my house. And also what is coming off on my hands when I pet them.
   When searching for test results I found a few things. The first is that the 3 pump system that is supposed to circulate the water around the pond (an attempt to keep it clean) is not the correct system for this pond. So the pumps get clogged, and little cleaning is taking place. This completely explains why the pond always looks disgusting. However, the cost for a new pumps cost was estimated 8,000-10,000 dollars.
    They are putting anti-algae enzymes into the pond. Which they clam to be working.. This may be true. But makes me concerned for what this pond would look like if they were not using these. Because the greenish brown thick mucky water does not seem like it could get any worse.
     Another problem is that when it rains the pesticides and weed killing chemicals run into the small pond. Which increases nitrogen levels and spurs the growth of more algae. As stated by Joel Hoffmann who wrote an article on the pond. And people obviously want their park to look pretty, so they are going to continue using these things that pollute the pond. So as they release anti-algae enzymes into the pond, it seems it might be getting canceled out by these pollutants..
      Officials say there is no immediate danger being caused by the pollution and algae in the lake. However, the pond is not meant to swimming or playing in. It seems like if there is no immediate solution for clearing up my little pond. While it would be nice for people that visit the park to have a more clear pond, the only solution is to expensive. I am glad I am now more educated about what is happening around me. I will no longer just thing what a gross pond,  now I know why it that way!

Here is a picture of the cute little dirty pond!

12 Soils Orders

Above is a map of the world with the 12 Soil Orders shown. All 12 can be seen on the key on the left of the map. In the state of Georgia Mollisols are the most popular.

Here are 12 Soil Orders-
Gelisols- soils with permafrost within 2 m of the surface
Histosols- organic soils
Spodosols- acid forest with a subsurface accumulation of metal-humus complexes
Andisols- soils formed in volcanic ash
Oxisols- Intensely weathered Soils of tropical and subtropical environments.
Vestisols - clayey soils with high shrink/swell capacity
Aridisols- CaCO₃-containing soils of arid environments with subsurface horizon development
Utilisols- strongly leached soils with a subsurface zone of clay accumulation and <35% base saturation
Mollisols- grassland soils with high base status
Alfisols- moderately leached soils with a subsurface zone of clay accumulation and >35% base saturation
Inceptisols- soils with weakly developed subsurface horizons
Entisols- soils with little or no morphological development

This information was found on the University of Idaho web site for the College of Agriculture and Life Science. here is the link!
http://soils.cals.uidaho.edu/soilorders/index.htm

Extremophiles Animals

Extremophiles are living organisms that survive in extreme conditions.
There are 3 tyeps of Extremophiles-
thermophile- They survive at very high temperatures.
Acidophilic- They survive in acidic conditions.
Halophiles- They survive in very high concentrations of salt.

Halobacterium is a type of Halophiles that surivie in salty lakes. Owens lake in California contains a high level of Halophiles. Below is a picture of the lake.

Soil Orders

 

One of the ways to examine soils is by looking at the soil color- one way we find the soils is the Munsell soil color chart. The picture above is a page of that.  We went around campus collecting soil.. Which I enjoyed. Then we brought them back and tried to find out what type of soil we had. Soil is different because of of the amount of sand and different minerals in them.

This is a Soil Map of Georgia. All the colors from the Munsell Chart can be clearly seem. 

This is a soil texture Dichotomous key. You can see how soils made out of different combinations of things turn out to look and feel so different.