Field Trips

The following field trips are available for my science classes:

Term 4, 2006 - 07: March 26 - May 16

Development of Planet Earth
Surroundings of Pirmasens (near Kaiserslautern - Ramstein), Pfalz Mountains (Palatinate Forest), Rabenfels near Lemberg.
The features of the geologic formations, illustrating the development of planet Earth about 230 million years ago (Early Triassic age, the beginning of Mesozoic):

• The red color of the sandstone is caused by finely dispersed hematite, Fe₂O₃, a highly oxidized (3-electron) iron. This oxidation could be caused by free (elementary) oxygen only. Therefore, occurrence of the red sandstones is evidence of the free oxygen available in the time of the sandstone formation. On Mars, similar red sands are common. The red color was responsible for the planet's name Mars, god of war, bloody god. By the way, hema in Greek means bloody red; blood is red due to hemoglobin, being red by the 3-electron iron too. This is why the free oxygen had to be available in the Mars' atmosphere sometimes in the past (currently, there is no oxygen in the Mars' atmosphere). Because we know that the free (elemental) oxygen can form in the given Mars' environment by photosynthesis only - we must assume that this process had to operate also on Mars in the past - an indirect evidence of photosynthetic life on Mars in that time.

• Hardness of the sandstone layers increasing toward the younger layers is caused by increasing content of opal. This mineral is hard, formed from silica ooze in the waters. The silica ooze was released by tropical weathering of silicate rocks. This is why the increasing hardness of the sandstones, due to increasing opal cementation, indicates warming climatic trends during the sandstone formation.

MEETING SITE:           McDonald's, seemingly at Landstuhl (see the actual address below),
meeting time:                 5-MAY-07, 9:30h,
expected end about      12:30h.

ADDRESS of the meeting site:
McDonald’s                     Phone:    06371-91 20 10
Am Kohlwäldchen
66 877 Ramstein - Miesenbach
http://mail.map24.com/field_trip_ps

Location of the Field Trip's starting point:
highway B10 (Pirmasens → Landau), Lemberg; turn into the rising Bergstrasse (at Post Ofice), continue Eastwards along the Landgrafen Strasse, from the cross with the "Schlossgässel"-Strasse 300 meter EastSouthEastwards up to the parking lots on the Rabenfels foothill, GPS coordinates: 49°10'27" North, 7°39'49" East.

Geological Museum of the University Heidelberg
Museum des Geologisch-Paläontologischen Instituts, Universität Heidelberg
Street: Im Neuenheimer Feld 234
69120 Heidelberg
Map of the area "Neuenheimer Feld" (Geological Museum is marked by a black circle):
http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/univ/besucher/karten/6234.html
The access is from south, through the street "Berliner Strasse".

MEETING SITE:             McDonald's, Hebel Str. 4, Heidelberg;
meeting time:                 12-May-07, 10:00h,
expected end about:      Heidelberg 12:30h.

ADDRESS of that meeting site:
McDonald’s                    Phone: 06221-166 262
Hebel Strasse 4
69115 Heidelberg
after the cross with Czerny Ring street, south of PX ( US-Shopping Center),
access via Czerny Ring Street → Carl-Benz-Strasse, left to Hebel Strasse up to Pizza Hut, left to the entrance from Czerny Ring Street
http://mail.map24.com/field_trip_hd

Weather forecast:
http://wetter.rtl.de/deutschland/vorhersage.php?id=10708&id2=10708&ort=PIRMASENS&near=&tag=1
 

Meeting Sites:

Ries Crater around Nördlingen
Saturday,  10-JUN-07, 9:30h
This field trip includes both geologic and astronomic aspects: uniquely preserved meteor crater since its origin 14.7 million years ago, 24 km diameter, formed by the energy equal to 250,000 Hiroshima bombs. In comparison, the famous Arizona meteor crater (owned by Barringer family) has been formed relatively recently (5,000 to 50,000 years ago), its diameter is 1.2 km (= 0.75 mile) only. 
We will visit the famous Museum in Nördlingen, providing multimedial simulation of the impact etc..

Address:
Rieskrater-Museum Nördlingen    Director: Dr. Michael Schieber, Phone: 09081-273 822-0
Eugene-Shoemaker-Platz 1 
86720 Nördlingen 
(the street name above bears the name of the American planetologist who disclosed the currently accepted explanation of the Ries crater by meteor/asteroid impact).

http://www.iaag.geo.uni-muenchen.de/sammlung/Rieskrater/RiesCraterMuseum.html
location of the Rieskrater-Museum (flag number 10):
http://www.noerdlingen.de/ISY/index.php?get=149
http://www.noerdlingen.de/ISY/index.php?PHPSESSID=0042760f768679ee7aa558ef4b9aad37&get=209
http://www.riescrater-museum.de/

Heidelberg, two Astronomical institutions

Meeting: McDonald's, Heidelberg (see above), Saturday, 10-FEB-07, 9:00h. We will go to
Heidelberg, onto the hill Königstuhl:
MPI of Plasmaphysics, Institute of Planetology, the Gate, Phone: 06221-516-0
LSW Königstuhl (Astronomical Observatory) - Mrs. Stefanie Schwemmer, Phone: 06221-54-1727.

1 Gentner Laboratory (Institute of Planetology), Max-Planck-Institute of Plasmaphysics:  
a 9-foot model of the Moon; extraterrestrial materials: differentiated (metallic & stony), non-differentiated and carbonaceous meteorites. The latter ones contain both the chondrules and volatiles - therefore they represent the least altered remains of the solar nebula; they seem to be a few million years older than the solar system (Scientific American, October 1990, p. 14-15). Some of them contain all three crystal forms of carbon (diamond, graphite and fullerenes - see below) and grains of silicon carbide.

In addition to the two known crystal forms of carbon (diamond and graphite), a third one was discovered recently: fullerenes, buckey balls, or Buckminster fullerenes (named in honor of Richard Buckminster Fuller, American architect, who advocated using such geometric structures in architectural design) are spherical clusters of carbon atoms. The most stable is C60 (soccer ball structure); C70, C76, C84 are also relatively stable. Fullerenes are soluble in non-polar liquids, such as benzene and toluene. Their discovery, on which some scientists of the Department of Planetology participated, was honored by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996. 

Moldavites, the Bohemian tektites (glassy meteorites), are considered they formed by an impact of a  meteor which caused the 24km diameter Ries Crater, about 14.7 million years ago.

2 Astronomical Observatory (LandesSternWarte Königstuhl) presents a model of the solar system alley; walk through the Solar System and experience the relative distances of planets from the Sun, and the relative sizes of planets. We may also examine several types of telescopes, research instruments, and some results of graphically processed data on computer screen.

About Some Old Field Trips:

Report by the Research team ASTR-100 Ramstein, Saturday, 22 July 2000

We have seen an incredible number of Sun spots, and - two days later - I received a report from Space Weather, which confirmed our unusual observation: http://www.spaceweather.com/ :

SUNSPOTS GALORE. The Boulder sunspot number reached 401 on July 20th, the first time during the current solar cycle that the index broke the 400 mark. Such a large value is rare. During most 11-yr solar cycles, the Boulder sunspot number will exceed 400 on no more than a few days. 

Another discovery - I talked about growing number of known satellites of the jovian planets (Saturn, Uranus, and recently Jupiter): http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0007/21jovianmoon/ 

Another exciting astronomical event some of my students have seen by a binocular, was the comet LINEAR - click on: http://www.spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast05jul_1m.htm .
The comet Linear was visible below the rear part of the Big Dipper constellation (opposite to Polar star).

Löwentor Museum, Stuttgart

Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt

WEATHER FORECAST

You may obtain the latest information on the following sites: