Danny Baza Blas

The beach off Hagatna, Guam by Danny Blas 2013 Pilot whales were found off the southwest coast of Florida, stranded and dead. Whales in their pods will not abandon a sick or dying pod member, and will often times remain beached and die with the entire pod.  It's so fascinating how loyal these whales are to their pods.  Read about it here .

The New York Times has a Marine Science crossword puzzle: print | online interactive

Today is the last day of coring operations for this cruise! It's a significant day because three weeks of science have come to an end. Now we're cleaning up the ship and compartments, and preparing to disembark in a few days. This morning many of us on-board saw land for the first time in three weeks. Barrow was in sight on the starboard side, and what a great feeling it was to see good ole land. During this cruise, the Coast Guard team, or "Coasties" as they are known affectionately, were highly professional and extraordinarily helpful to all of us on the science team. One of the cooler happenings is to discover individuals with exceptional talent on-board. One such exceptional persons on-board Healy is Command Master Chief Sullivan, who's official work is to be the "liaison between the ship's enlisted crewmembers and the command." Master Chief Sullivan is an outstanding photographer, who also owns impeccable knowledge of the U.S. Coast G...

A ship's morale is often times based on food quality Current ship status : latitude: 71.40N; longitude: 150.54W; temp: 32F; speed: 4.7k; winds: 32k; water depth: 1450m Yesterday (Day 18) was Labor Day on the ship, meaning the science team and Healy crew labored all day, dropping our coring instruments into the Arctic Ocean from morning to dusk. Today we are experiencing rough seas again, and because of the sea situation, our science--meaning coring--is taking a brief pause. Teacher On-Board Today is the first day of school in San Diego Unified School District . Steve Walters (Mission Bay High School, San Diego) will have a brief respite from coring operations today due to rough seas . Yesterday, Steve's Labor Day did not include barbecue or relaxation; coring was the order for Steve's day. Danny Blas (Lincoln High School, San Diego) did not write a blog post yesterday in observation of Labor Day; however, did conduct video interviews with the entire Healy Fo...

The view from the bow of our icebreaker USCG Healy (Master Chief Sullivan) Ship's current status: visibility: low, foggy; temp: 37F; latitude: 70.39 N; longitude: 137.30 W The third straight day of sunshine and more vitamin D for a crew with good morale. Very little coring today (relative to previous days of core, core, and more coring). We are transiting west, towards an area with very shallow waters and geologic features called pingos , which are mounds "of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic and subarctic that can reach up to 70 metres (230 ft) in height and up to 600 m (2,000 ft) in diameter." What we seem to be more interested in, however, are pingo-ish, underwater hills that "form when methane hydrate (a frozen mixture of gas and seawater) decomposes beneath the seafloor, releasing gas that squeezes deep sediments up onto the seafloor like toothpaste from a tube," according to Charlie Paull and William Ussler, MBARI geologists. Our goal i...

Day 10. That's our fun day.  We had "Ice Liberty," Science Team Cook Day, bingo, and movie night in the hangar. Pictures and videos from this day will be forthcoming; however, since our Internet connection to the outside world has kinda went kaput, there's nothing to show at the moment (until we get in range of our satellite again). Today was a no-science day, thanks to our principal investigators, Lloyd Keigwin and Neal Driscoll. We've been working really well on the science the past nine days, so we finally had a chance to catch on sleep, relax and recreate. Thanks co-PIs! Ice liberty, ahhhh. As you can imagine, we stopped our gigantic ship next to a humungous piece of ice real estate, and we ran around like little children, and played. Responsibly, of course.  The ship's leadership, CAPT John Reeves and CDR Greg Stanclik, did a stupendous job preparing all-hands for the this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The way in which ice liber...

Green arrow is our current station; white arrow is next station Where Are We? This is Day 9 of our Arctic Expedition. The Google Maps image to the left will give you a good idea of where we are currently (click the image to enlarge). We are currently in Canadian waters after leaving Alaskan waters yesterday. The green arrow on the image indicates the point where we are currently coring for sediments, while the white arrow points to the area where we will be headed next, Amundsen Gulf, part of the Northwest Territories, Canada . ICE We are finally surrounded by ice! As of yesterday after dinner, our icebreaker ship has finally found ice to break. I will be posting a video later today describing our surroundings, in addition to our first sighting of a polar bear mommy, and her cub. Our Current Status Click to enlarge As you can see it's cold . The temperature is 21 degrees. Brrrr. Today's video will be posted very soon. As we continue eastward, we will lose I...

This blog post was written from the upper most observation deck (Aloft Conn), which is the 08 Deck, above the bridge. The Beaufort Gyre source: http://goo.gl/7scLp6 This is what it looks like from the Aloft Conn (D. Blas) Today (Monday) is purely a transit day. We are making our way east from Barrow, AK to the Beaufort Sea, where we will begin sampling around the Beaufort Gyre. When we finally arrive to our desired location, the science team and the Healy crew will begin the deployment of the core sampling tools to collect sediments. Our expectation is to arrive to our location between 8-10pm. Not much new to report at this time, other than rougher oceans than the previous days. Signing off from the Aloft Conn. Your blogger, Danny Blas (D. Blas)

Barrow, Alaska, very cold desert is the most northerly point in the United States  http://goo.gl/R1K8Ym Day one of the Arctic mission objective was--pretty much--getting onto the ship, the United States Coast Guard ice breaker  USCGC Healy . If you read my previous blog post, you already know the trip from San Diego, CA to Barrow, AK was a long one; however, the ending of Day One was worth it. I'll get to that in a moment. When the Alaskan Airlines flight landed in Barrow, we were met by a convoy of pickup trucks and vans, which collected the members of the science team, and delivered us to the Search and Rescue Hangar (SAR). (Take a peek of the SAR in the video below.) The first order of the day at SAR?: order lunch! And we did, and it was surprisingly good. It never occurred to me that good pizza could be had in Barrow, a very cold place with zero paved roads. (Another person on the science team, Mackenzie, who will be a senior a...

USCG Healy is an icebreaker ship, home-ported at Seattle, WA Hey readers. I just landed on the ship on which I'll be part of the science team, collecting sediment samples in the Arctic Ocean. I'll be onboard the USCG Healy, which is an icebreaker ship, operated by the United State Coast Guard. The mission will take three-and-a-half weeks, and I'll be absent the first week of school. The flight from San Diego to Barrow, AK was a long one! I departed San Diego on Wednesday, August 14th at 7:00pm, and arrived in Barrow at 11:30am on Thursday, August 15th. You don't have to be a mathematician to know it was a long, long flight, with a long, long layover in Anchorage, AK. (16.5 hours total)!

A fascinating presentation of Earth at night courtesy of NASA

Two LHS Marine Science students are onboard the UC San Diego research ship R/V Melville, currently off the Northern California coast, dropping instruments into the ocean, as part of a research team. R/V Mellville is a reserach vessel on which Jonathan Franco and Julie Alvarez, students at Lincoln High School, will be assisting in the oceanographic research for three weeks out at sea on the Northern California coast. Jonathan Franco and Julie Alvarez , both seniors, were selected to represent Lincoln High School as the only high school students to take their place amongst the research scientists. The mission will out on the Pacific between Nov. 10 - Dec 3. Follow the two Hornets as they blog about their daily work on the ship, and answering their classmates' questions each day (links to the blogs can be found above). Marine Science is a year-long, UC-"D" course that builds on the physical and life science concepts learned in previous science courses, and appli...

This is the fourth installment of video reports, answering student questions about Hawaii, its people, history, and its volcanoes. Today's questions: 1. What kinds of work do Hawaiians do to make a living ? 2. What kinds of volcanic rocks are you looking for (part 2) ? 3. Did you see B.J. Penn ?

This is the second installment of video reports, answering student questions about Hawaii, its people, history, and its volcanoes. Today's questions: 1. What does the Hawaiian word Aloha mean ? 2. What types of volcanic rocks are you looking for ? 3. What's the most beautiful place in Hawaii ?

This is the first installment of video reports, answering student questions about Hawaii, its people, history, and its volcanoes. Today's questions: 1. Where is Hawaii ? 2. What are the Hawaiian islands ? 3. Where will you and your Scripps team go the first few days ? 4. Mr. Blas, why are leaving us for Hawaii ? 5. Why are you collecting volcanic rocks ? 6. What's in it for us students ? 7. What do Hawaiians like to eat ? Danny Blas Hawaii 2012 - Report 1 from db.blas on Vimeo . High Definition:  download a high-quality, high definition video of my Hawaii report as a QuickTime Movie  here .  Low Definition:  stream a low-definition version of the same video from Vimeo here . Location: Hola Hola In Youth Hostel, Volcano, HI

The following document is the first assignment of the year for U.S. History, Marine Science, and Yearbook classes. The information you provide will allow me to better understand how best you learn, and as a result, increase my ability to meet the needs for all students to be engaged, and actively learning. Completion options (pick one): A. Print, complete, submit Download this document Print it Complete all questions Return to Mr. Blas ASAP B. Complete online Click here 20-point assignment