What is it that drives us to search for planets outside our solar system? Possibly because an ingrained curiosity to further our understanding of the world around us. Or maybe we owe it to future generations to find a new home, as Wernher von Braun suggested, before Earth is swallowed by our sun, destroyed by an asteroid, or ruined due to our own negligence. Almost one thousand exoplanents have been discovered to date (999 as of this past Saturday according to Exoplanet.eu), but only a tiny fraction of these could potentially harbor life. Astronomers have been searching for more than twenty years and still have yet to find a plant that resembles Earth. The practical goal now is not to find another Earth, but instead a planet that could sustain life.

Hope

A promising lead in the right direction came almost two years ago when researchers at ESO or the European Southern Observatory, confirmed the existence of a planet called Gliese 667 Cc. The researchers discovered the planet using the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Seracher, more commonly known as HARPS, located at La Silla Observatory in Chile. This method works by measuring a star’s speed towards and away from us, which is slightly influence by the gravity of the planets orbiting it. Through these slight changes in the stars velocity we are able to confirm the presence of planets. Gliese 667 Cc is located in the triple-star system Gliese 667, which resides in the Scorpius constellation twenty two light years away. Two stars, Gliese 667 A and B, lie in the center of the constellation, orbiting each other at a separation from 20AU to 5AU. Gliese 667 C on the other hand orbits the previously mentioned stars at an average of 230AU, which is nearly five times the distance from our sun to Pluto. The latter is particularly interesting because orbiting it are at least five rocky planets, three of which are within its habitable zone. Gliese 667 C is a M1.5V type red dwarf star that has a luminosity only a fraction of our Sun’s and is relatively cool at 3700K, yet it still emits a fair amount of energy in the infra-red spectrum.

Cold Hard Facts

Gliese 667 Cc is a prime candidate for a habitable exoplanet and here’s why. The planet is located inside of the habitable zone around the star it orbits and could hold liquid water. It is thought to be composed of rocky materials like those on Earth. It is big enough to retain a molten core; necessary for generation of a magnetic field to protect the planet. Given the proper atmosphere it is likely that Gliese 667 Cc could sustain life.

A visual of the habitable zone around Gliese 667 C, (credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory @UPR Arecibo)

A key selling point to scientists of Gliese 677 Cc, as mentioned, is that it is comfortably within its parent star’s habitable zone or the area that is able to support liquid water around the star. To calculate the inner and outer boundaries of the habitable zone D_inner and D_outer, respectively, we use the following two equations for the inner and outer edges, where L is the luminosity of a star in terms of L_sun.By using a value of 0.0137 for the luminosity we get a habitable zone stretching from 0.11AU to 0.16, which works out well for Gliese 667 Cc because it orbits at an average of 0.125AU way from its parent star. This ability to support water is due to an ideal temperature range on the planet which we can estimate using the following equation, where A is the planet’s albedo or reflectivity, D is the distance in AU from the planet to the star it orbits, and L is the parent star’s luminosity in terms of L_sun.

Since this planet was detected using the Dopler method it has not been directly observed and therefore scientists have yet to calculate a value for its albedo. To estimate a range of possible temperatures, assuming the planet has relatively similar atmosphere to Earth, we use albedo values of 0.01, 0.99, 0.125AU for D, and 0.0137 for L to get a temperature range from 85.1K-268.3K. However, according to more precise blackbody calculations from scientists the temperature is probably closer to 277.4K. Two other factors here play a huge role in the planet’s temperature. Since the planet is so close to the star it is orbiting, it is likely tidally locked and therefore only one side of the planet ever receives light from the star, which would make that side much hotter. The next thing to take into account is the planet’s atmosphere, if thick enough it could distribute this uneven heating to the dark side of the planet. Finally we must take into account the size of Gliese 667 Cc. Current calculations place it at around 4.5 times more massive than Earth, while its exact size is unknown it is certainly large enough to have current molten core. This is extremely important in generating a magnetic field, which in turn shields the planet’s atmosphere from being swept away by solar radiation.

A comparison of light on Earth (left) to predicted light on Gliese 667 Cc (right), (Credit: Sven Wedemeyer-Böhm)

A Bit of Speculation

If life were to exist on 677 Cc it would certainly be different to life here on Earth. One major difference is the sunlight. The planet receives about 90% of the light that we do, but almost all of it is in the infra-red spectrum. This means that life there would have genetically adapted to see more in the IR spectrum and plants would be able to photosynthesize using more IR light than visible. The surface of the planet is likely covered in rocky land masses and oceans on which the planets inhabitants live on and in. Since the planet is tidally locked an intelligent species living there would have built much of its infra-structure that requires solar energy, such as agriculture on the sunny side of the planet. Another aspect of life to consider is the force of gravity. Since the planet is more massive than Earth we would experience up to 1.6 times heavier than we are. Also due to its larger mass the planet would have a much heavier atmosphere which could add much more pressure than we are currently use to. So any life that evolved on Gliese 667 Cc would be much more suited to living at these higher pressures.

Back to Reality

There are still many more exoplanets out there to be discovered and vast amounts of information to be studied about ones already found, especially in the case of the Gliese 667 system. Whether life exists on Gliese 667 Cc is yet to be determined, but if it does it would certainly be different form life here on Earth. Hopefully through further analysis we will learn more about the planet’s atmosphere and surface composition, so we can answer the question of habitability once and for all. If we discover that Gliese 667 Cc is inhabitable, there is no need to worry because two other planets, Gliese 667 Cf and Ce, within the star’s habitable zone.

Sources:

http://science.kqed.org/quest/2013/03/22/gliese-667-cc-musing-the-possibilities-of- another-earth

http://www.mn.uio.no/astro/english/research/news-and-events/news/astronews-2012-02-17.html

http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.0446

http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.4058v2

http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1328/eso1328a.pdf

My initial idea for this project was to find a correlation between age and happiness. But as I looked through data, the relationship of happiness and life expectancy around the world caught my eye. I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression “laughter is the best medicine”, and think about when you were laughing, you were probably happy. So is there any merit behind this statement? To find out I charted some numbers in my own HR-diagram. The data looks at an average level of happiness from many countries around the world and compares it to the average life expectancy of said country. Here is the end result:

Compared to the typical HR-diagram there is not a true ‘main sequence’ since each country is separate and does not progress over time. One could say the main sequence of the EI-diagram is around a happiness of 4-8, and a life expectancy of anywhere between 50-80 years. On the other hand, a correlation is quite apparent; as happiness increases so does life expectancy. But is this due to purely being happy or other factors? One alternate explanation is that countries displaying lower life expectancy are also third-world countries while ones showing a higher life expectancy are countries such as the US or Switzerland. This trend could be explained by lack of proper health care and less happiness due to poor living conditions. So it is hard to sort out what the real cause is. I am willing to bet that happiness does, by itself, have a positive effect on health. One example being Costa Rica, which is considered a third-world country, but it has the highest happiness rating (at 8.5) and a high life expectancy (80yrs). Therefore, happiness must play some role unless there is an underlying bias not being addressed. Realistically a combination of factors including happiness, quality of life, sanitation, and diet all effect the length of a persons’s life.

Sources:

Veenhoven, R., World Database of Happiness, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Assessed on (10/16/13) at: http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl

Recently astrophysicists at Cambridge and Warwick have discovered a rocky, yet water rich asteroid orbiting a white dwarf (GD 61 to be specific) about 170 light years from our solar system. But this was no ordinary rock.The rocky body was found using images from the Hubble and the Keck telescope on Hawaii, but through reanalyzing the images a rich presence of oxygen was discovered. Exactly how is put better by the scientists themselves: “The Hubble and Keck data allows the researchers to identify the different chemical elements that are polluting the outer layers white dwarf. Using a sophisticated computer model of the white dwarf atmosphere, developed by Detlev Koester from the University of Kiel, they can then infer the chemical composition of the shredded minor planet” (Boris Gaensicke). This lead scientist to conclude that the rocky body had once been a part of a larger planet comprised of at least 26% water by mass. Compared to the Earth’s only .023%, that’s a lot of water! So why is this presumably life-less rock important to us. We have previously discovered water out side of our solar system, but this is the first time it has not been in the atmosphere of a large gas giant.

An Artists Depiction of the Asteroid

The planet was likely destroyed around 200 million years ago by gravitation force when GD 61 went from being a star slightly larger than our sun to a white dwarf and when the a yet to be seen larger planet knocked the smaller one out of its normal orbit. Physicists have compared the previous planet to one called Ceres that is thought to be one of the largest contributors to water here on Earth. The destroyed planet also probably had ice below the surface like Ceres. Hopefully this new knowledge can tell us more about the formation of our solar system and the necessities required for life.

Sources:

Photo: (Crdt. Mark A. Garlick, space-art.co.uk, University of Warwick and University of Cambridge)

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/4407/20131011/water-rich-asteroid-orbiting-star-gd-61-shows-life-exist.htm

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/uow-wdi100313.php

One subject that seems to keep coming up in class is dark energy or dark matter. I had only briefly heard about these concepts before recently. So what exactly are dark matter and dark energy? According to the Cornell astronomy department here is the break down of our universe; 0.03% heavy elements, 0.3% neutrinos, 0.5% stars, 4% free hydrogen and helium, 25% dark matter, and 70% dark energy. So the two “darks” definitely make up a large majority, but what exactly do the two effect? Before I continue I want to clarify that both dark energy and dark matter are hypotheses unconfirmed from direct observation, but thought to exist due to inference from other observable aspects of our universe.

Visualization of the Breakdown

For the past eighty years we have known the universe is expanding. According to our understanding of gravity, the universe’s expansion should be slowing down due to objects pulling on each other. After scientists Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Riess independently discovered the universe’s expansion was accelerating in 1998 they were quite surprised. There need be something out there causing this acceleration. Some type anti-gravity effect, which is now commonly referred to as dark energy. So dark energy is basically just a name given to explain the acceleration of the universe expanding, but that doesn’t tell us exactly what it is. The two main ideas as to what dark energy really is are the cosmological constant and quintessence. The concept of a cosmological constant is concept that Einstein originally came up with, which in simple terms means that  “a volume of space has some intrinsic, fundamental energy” or vacuum energy. The actual cold hard number is though to be around 10^−29 g/cm^3. There are some serious discrepancies with this explanation. The largest being that quantum theory predicts a cosmological constant that is 100 times larger. Quintessence explains dark energy by saying there is a field all through out space and that the potential energy generated by this field is what causes the acceleration of the universe. The only issue? Currently there is no solid evidence to support this hypothesis. In the end we still know very little about dark energy, but research on the topic is on going.

Now how about that dark matter. The galaxy we live in along with all others would rip apart and fly out into space if it wasn’t for the gravity holding them together. This gravity is caused by the mass of things such as stars, planets, and of course black holes, but according to calculations there is no where near enough mass in galaxy’s to keep them together. So there must be some unobservable other mass accounting for the extra gravity hold galaxies together. This unseen mass is called dark matter and it accounts for 84.5% of the total matter in our universe.

Something else to consider is that our understanding of gravity and  maybe completely wrong and that we are like the fish looking out through their bowl, with an incomplete view of their world. In this case dark energy and dark matter could just be a part of gravity we haven’t worked into our model yet. We’ll leave that to the scientists to figure out. More realistically (or not) we will find a way to directly detect the two or more accurately study them so their existence can be proven once and for all.

Sources:

http://www.space.com/20929-dark-energy.html

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=634

http://www.lsst.org/lsst/public/dark_energy

Recently while reading Popular Science, I came across an article that named ten scientist and engineers that the editors felt to be the cream of the crop. Interestingly enough one of the ten was a scientist named Heather Knutson who’s current research involves predicting the weather, temperature and atmosphere on exoplanets. Knutson, who works at Cal Tech, measures the brightness of planet in the infra-red spectrum and then uses this data to infer about the planet’s atmosphere and weather patterns. For example a planet with brighter IR emissions means a hotter atmosphere, while cooler temps are shown by dimmer IR light. Then a temperature map can be created, which can be used to determine weather patterns. Basically if a planet’s temperature map is uniform through out it points to strong winds. A dotted or mixed temp map would point to less sever weather. Currently most of her work is focused on gas giants, but she hopes to begin using the same technique to study rocky, cooler planets that could hold liquid water.

Temperature Profile of an Exoplanet

(Image credit: H. Knutson, NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This research could be useful in many different ways. Related to what we’ve been talking about in class it can help to narrow our search for habitable or life-sustaining planets in the universe. It’s amazing that we can tell so much about planets so distant from us only using infra-red light. Hopefully Knutson’s research also leads to many interesting discoveries about the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system. No matter what she is definitely doing some pretty cool work.

Mars has always been a planet that sparked our interest as humans to explore. Long before space exploration it started out as assumptions of civilizations or fictional Martian invaders such as in War of the Worlds, but now-a-days we know better (hopefully). Over the past 40 years we have sent quite a few probes, and more recently, rovers to the Red Planet. In the past 10 years some of the most notable projects sent up have been Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity.

Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars

Currently one of the main aspects that scientists are studying is the atmosphere of Mars, or the lack of one. A recent study of Martian meteorites done at Oxford compared with rocks sampled on the Martian surface by Spirit, suggests that Mars at one point had an oxygen rich atmosphere. This atmosphere would have existed around 4000 Myrs ago, which means that Mars would have had an oxygen rich atmosphere far before that of Earth’s that is estimated to have formed only 2500 Myrs ago. Today the atmosphere on Mars is almost only carbon-dioxide. So what happened to it? There area few hypothesis that include: erosion by solar wind, a collision with a body large enough to blow away most of the atmosphere, or loss due to low gravity and particles reaching their escape velocity. To hopefully answer the question once and for all NASA along with the University of Colorado and UC Berkeley created MAVEN or Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN probe.

A Depiction of MAVEN

MAVEN’s mission will be orbit Mars and use instruments such as the Solar Wind Electron Analyzer (SWEA) and Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS), along with many more, to measure the impact of solar wind on the planet’s atmosphere as well as it’s composition. Eventually comparing these measurements to ones made one the surface by Curiosity NASA hopes to reveal what happened to the oxygen and water that once was abundant on Mars.

There is one small issue though. Parties in our government stupidly decided to use the new budget as a bargaining chip, which has now caused a shutdown that includes NASA. The launch window for MAVEN is from  from 1:47 p.m. to 3:47 p.m. EST on November 18, 2013. Essentially if the shutdown lasts for more than a few days the building of MAVEN will be delayed enough to miss the launch window. This would be quite unfortunate considering the total put into the project if almost $650 million and the launch would have to be rescheduled for 2016. By then the solar cycle will have greatly reduced the results of the mission, as pointed out by a NASA employee. Hopefully those politicians get it together so we can continue exploring and furthering our understanding of science and the solar system.

Sources

http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/5532/mars-atmosphere-was-oxygen-rich-4-billion-years-ago

http://gizmodo.com/government-shutdown-could-delay-a-650-million-nasa-mis-1433554228

http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/files/2012/11/MAVEN-HQ_FactSheet.pdf

Many of you may have seen the trailer for the upcoming space thriller Gravity. It’s due to hit theaters on October 4th, staring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. If you haven’t seen the preview take a look.

While the movie certainly looks to be a heart-racing thriller with amazing visual effects, some people have already pointed out major flaws in the plot that tear down the movie’s credibility. The main dis-creditor is astronaut Dr. Michael J. Massimino, who has himself gone on similar missions to the one in the film. He went to see the movie with writer Dennis Overbye of the New York Times. (If you do not want to have details of the plot ruined, stop reading here.) An accident in space leaves Clooney and Bullock stranded out in space after doing repair work on the Hubble Telescope. Clooney decides their only chance of survival is to use the jetpack on his back to travel to the ISS. This is where the plot begins to detach from the realm of possibility. Overbye puts it brilliantly:

As we recall from bitter memory, the Hubble and the space station are in vastly different orbits. Getting from one to the other requires so much energy that not even space shuttles had enough fuel to do it. The telescope is 353 miles high, in an orbit that keeps it near the Equator; the space station is about 100 miles lower, in an orbit that takes it far north, over Russia.To have the movie astronauts Matt Kowalski (Mr. Clooney) and Ryan Stone (Ms. Bullock) zip over to the space station would be like having a pirate tossed overboard in the Caribbean swim to London.

If you didn’t want to read that whole quotation, basically what Overbye, along with input from Massimino, is stating is that it would be impossible for the Bullock and Clooney to travel the immense distance between the orbit of the Hubble to the orbit of the ISS.  Also according to Overbye, this would not be such a huge problem if the directors had not put as much work into realistically depicting physics and all the technology and gadgets in the film. One thing we all need to keep in mind is that this is a Holloywood movie we are talking about and not a documentary or educational video about space, so exaggerations are expected. I am still certainly excited to see Gravity when it comes out this Friday.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/science/space/an-astronaut-and-a-writer-at-the-movies.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

          One could attempt to simplify the epic know as Dune as the story of a boy’s ascension to manhood. This would be an insult to the immense and comprehensive universe that Frank Herbert has created for readers that spans out over close to eight hundred pages. There is an untold amount of depth and background history weaved into this novel. To attempt to condense this information into a paragraph or even two would be extremely difficult, but here are some basic details, so the following issues can be better understood in context. The story is set in a future world where space travel is common and controlled by a single ‘Spacing Guild’ and the population is spread out through many planets in the universe, who all answer to a supreme Emperor. The main character in the novel is Paul Atreides, the son of a duke. His mother Jessica is part of a secretive religious and political society called the Bene Gesserit who seek to control the outcome of the future universe through genetic selection. Most of the book takes place on the harsh desert planet of Arrakis, covered by sweeping sand dunes much like the ones we visited. There Paul is forced into manhood after the murder and overthrow of his father. He flees into the thought-to-be uninhabited deep desert to avoid being killed by his family’s sworn enemies, the Harkonnens. He is taken in by the original people of Arrakis, referred to as Fremen, and assimilates to their ways. During his journey he finds out he is the prophesized savior of their people and along his rise to power Paul discovers he possesses ‘the sight’ or the ability to see into the distant future. There are many more aspects and interweaved side stories that take place in this immense work, but these are the basic facts.

          Deeper analysis of the novel brings to light the following question: is Herbert attempting to comment on, or even predict, future issues in our on world through a sci-fi alternate? There are obvious similarities between our world and the distant future of Dune. Firstly, water scarcity is a dispute shared by the novel and life here on Earth. A huge theme throughout the book is the complex influence of politics and religion, which humans are quite familiar with in today’s world. A third parallel is the importance the environment plays on habitability of a planet, which can even relate to our current issues of global warming.

          It is common knowledge that water is necessary for life on Earth to survive, but the importance placed on water on the planet of Arrakis is tenfold. Is this intentional? Water is so essential that when someone dies, his or her body is processed to reclaim all possible water. This necessity is made clear early in the desert when a Fremen says the following: “Why did you not say at first it was a water matter?” (344). During this scene of one the men trying to protect Paul is attempting describe to a Fremen the urgency of the situation, but the Fremen does not understand until he describes it in terms of water.  In many places on Earth water or at least potable water, is also of great importance due to scarcity. Countries throughout Africa and other impoverished nations struggle to supply enough drinkable water, but in America water is relatively accessible. It certainly seems that Herbert’s focus on water was intentional and was meant to reinforce how indispensable and, possibly, taken for granted the liquid is in our day-to-day lives.

            There is a clear relation on the issue of habitability, due to the environment, on Earth and the desert planet of Arrakis, but did Herbert intend to predict planetary problems? The role the environment plays on Arrakis is a key point in the novel because the Fremen’s goal is to eventually turn the planet into a less hostile and more livable world through terraforming. This is a noble goal because it will create a world where future generations do not need to fight the desert to stay alive on a daily basis due to deadly conditions and giant sand worms. While people on Earth do not need to worry about being eaten by giant sand worms at any moment, the environment has become an increasingly heated issue. Scientists are pointing out the ramifications of CO₂ emissions. Current models suggest that there will be no serious effect on the current generation, but that global warming could be detrimental for generations to come if a solution is not reached. On the other hand some believe that global warming is a natural cycle and will correct itself. Whether Frank Herbert was predicting environmental issues or not is not clear. He was without a doubt presenting the idea of environmental problems to the reader, and doing so in a way that leads him or her to consider the impact humans can have their living world.

          The complex relationship between politics and religion in Dune is akin to the way the two interact in our world. Paul becomes the religious and spiritual chief of the Fremen people, but also their political leader. While it is commonly accepted that politics and religion are supposed to be separate in America due to the First Amendment, they are certainly entangled in Paul’s world. As Paul has a moment of clarity after escaping into the desert, “‘We’ll find a home among the Fremen,’ Paul said, ‘where your Missionaria Protectiva has brought us a bolt hole’” (319). Here Paul is referring to the prophecy the secretive Bene Gesserit have laced the universe with that predicts him as the savior of the Fremen people. This is the main reason the Fremen are even willing to consider taking him in, along with his mother. Without this religious influence Paul and Jessica would likely have been left to die in the desert, if not killed by the first Fremen they came across. In many other parts of the world, Iran for example, politics and religion are not separate and a political leader may also be a religious leader. Even though the two are said to be detached in America, many times religious preferences affect political decisions. By creating in-depth systems of politics and religion in the book, Frank Herbert is able to explore the issues of attempting to isolated religion and politics as well as their influence on each other. This creates a feeling the reader can relate to because of parallels here on Earth.

          Frank Herbert’s Dune has many key issues that have similarities with ones here on Earth, which begs the question of whether or not he was attempting to comment on future problems he foresaw in our own world. Or maybe he wanted to just create a more complete universe where the reader felt at home. This is sure to be a topic of debate and only one that Herbert himself could indefinitely answer, but unfortunately he passed way almost thirty years ago. Therefore, it is left for the reader to interpret. In the end, the reason why he chose to include so many relatable aspects in the universe of Dune and our world is not necessary. What is though, is the fact that these similarities exist is. By including aspects of life humans can relate to, such as politics, religion, and environmental problems, he creates a comprehensive and more believable realm for the masterpiece known as Dune to unfold in. Regardless of the time difference of when the book was written and the current day, Dune still has the power to make readers think critically about issues in their own lives. If he was, in fact, commenting on issues in our own lives, a topic of further research to consider would be: are issues in our lives easier to view from an outside perspective?

Works Cited

Herbert, Frank. Dune. New York: Ace, 1990. Print.

Since the space race began in the fifties space has always been a frontier that has taken immense amounts of money to reach and has only been accessible to a select few. In recent years though the chances of our generation easily going to space has greatly increased. Private companies such as SpaceX and Virgin have both put massive funding into programs to create space ships and rockets, respectively, to get tourists and cargo into space. Recently Virgin sent up its Space Ship Two for a test flight that successfully reached an altitude of 69,000 feet at a top speed of Mach 1.6.

The space plane is still in testing, but the expected launch date is sometime in 2014. To me the only issue here left to tackle is cost. At this point the price of a ticket would be far beyond the average person’s budget. On the other hand going to space is something that only a few have done so it will not be hard to convince those with the funds to splurge. Ideally if the price can be brought down to a point where more people can afford it, it could be a lucrative business model.

On a more personal note I  have always wanted to go to space or at least for a long time now. I was never obsessed with rockets or astronauts as a kid, but the vastness of space has fascinated me. looking up at the night sky with no light pollution in a huge open field can really make you feel insignificant. It makes one wonder what else is out there and there is that human drive to explore the unknown that can’t be ignored. Hopefully by the end of my life time affordable space travel it will be a reality.

Today’s assignment was to find out about a geographical feature located near your home town. I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California so I went with the San Andreas Fault. Even though the fault doesn’t run directly through Santa Cruz I would definitely consider it close enough to be of importance. My parents both still remember the massive earthquake it caused in 1989, which toppled many buildings in downtown Santa Cruz and wreaked havoc in San Francisco.

Downtown Santa Cruz after the 1989 earthquake

The San Andreas Fault is about 30 million years at its oldest sections and run 810 miles vertically through the state of California. A Berkeley professor named Andrew Lawson first discovered the fault in 1895, naming it after a small lake formed by the fault. This convergence is where the Pacific Plate meets the huge North American Plate. So why is this related to life on Earth? For one plate tectonics obviously created the continents we live on today, but it also created the first land masses that life moved out of the sea onto. A huge step in evolution. One of the most important rolls that plate tectonics plays though is in the carbon cycle with the recycling and creation of new rock. Plate tectonics allows for carbon dioxide to be taken from the atmosphere (after being trapped by bacteria in the soil or in the ocean) and then stored in newly formed rock. This is an important step that would throw off our planet’s climate regulation if missing. On a more local level the Fault is responsible for creating the Santa Cruz Mountain rage that surround my home town.

A map of the San Andreas Fault and it’s movement

Sources:

http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/geology/features/sanandreas.html

http://www.yuprocks.com/earthquake_pictures/loma_prieta_earthquake_017.jpg

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1990/1515/