PART XXVII: THE LAST GELATO (10/27)

Leaving Coldigioco was tough for everyone. After three months of traveling, bonding, eating, singing, laughing, getting pissed and frustrated at projects, and living on top of one another we had to say goodbye. We were all heading off to travel Europe so we had more exciting adventures ahead but our time at Coldigioco was an unforgettable one.

We decided to climb Monte San Vicino one last time as a whole group to watch the sunrise.

Thanks Colin for snapping this picture.

Sam looking east toward the sunrise.

The whole crew.

The last view of Monte San Vicino from Coldigioco.

The last gelato.

The Marko Polo awaiting our boarding to journey across the Adriatic to Split once again. 

PART XXVI: MAKING OLIVE OIL (10/25)

We had the amazing opportunity to pick olives from the trees in a small grove just down the hill from Coldigioco and then bring them to a local pressing facility to make our own olive oil.

"So how do we get those off of there and into a box?"

Using various hand rakes and whatnot to pull the olives off the branches. The fruits are allowed to fall onto the net on the ground and then once the whole tree is picked, the net is emptied into a box for transport. The olives were actually quite reluctant to let go off their branches.

Travis revelling in our productivity.

At the pressing facility Alison and Carly empty our Mignola olives into a larger bin for storage until the next day when they will actually be pressed. Because of the timing in the season there was not enough demand the day we went to start up the machines.

Raw olives are incredibly bitter, and Mignola make some of the most bitter olive oil.

First the olives are dumped in this hopper.

The next machine sifts the leaves out of the mixture.

These immense granite wheels crush the olives, pits and all, into a fine paste.

The paste is spread on layers of woven nylon and stacked on these spindles with a metal plate between every five layers. The woven layers used to be made out of coconut fibers because that is one of the few natural fibers strong enough to resist tearing under such a powerful force. The stacks are then wheeled beneath the six ton presses you see here and the oil squeezes out of the sides and middle and gathers in the bottom tray.

Our guide through the facility explains the last step of the process when the oil is pumped to this centrifuge to have the water separated from it and out the other end comes local, organic olive oil!

 

The wasted mash is washed off the nylon layers and the broken bits of olive pits are separated to be burned in the facility's pellet stove. Apparently the pits give off about 8 times more heat than burning wood.

We also had a little olive oil tasting. We tried these eight oils, which included a range of bitter oils, two blended oils (standard olive oil), and two oils infused with lemon and orange. The lemon one was tremendous and would have gone tremendously on fried fish. I also really liked the very bitter Mignola olive oil we made because it opened up a new dimension of oil that I never knew existed. Isn't that the way with so many things on a trip like this?

PART XXV: FINAL PROJECT (10/16 10/23)

Hannah, Taylor, Robbie, and I worked on our final project for the program at Coldigioco. We were basically processing samples from a site on the Adriatic coast at Monte Conero that were collected a few years ago by a grad student from Vienna or something like that. The first step was to grind about 420 samples using mortar and pestle. This first step took us a good 12 hours of straight smashing, pummeling, and grinding.

Hannah sorts the samples taken every quarter meter that we received already ground.

All 420 samples laid out in numerical order to reflect the stratigraphic column.

Using the mortars and pestles.

Snapped this picture after waking up to the most amazing golden light one morning.

The next step was to measure the magnetic susceptibility of each ground sample using a magnetometer. The resulting data was recorded in an excel sheet and plotted over the stratigraphic scale. Thus a time series of magnetic susceptibility is created showing its variability with time.

Robbie found some glasses.

Hannah and Taylor prepare samples for calcimetry, which measures the calcium carbonate content of each sample. These results were also superimposed over the stratigraphic column to create a time series.

Catie, who spent much of her final project digging in the mud, tried to sabotage our productivity with an attack. 

We went to the Adriatic to visit the site itself and to collect about 40 more samples to fill in some gaps in the data. Many geologists are interested in this sight because it contains the Messinian-Tortonian boundary as well as record of an asteroid resonance and the Messinian Salinity Crisis.  A celestial body known only as Veritas collided with the asteroid belt about 8.3 million years ago and set off a chain reaction of collisions and explosions. A rain of extraterrestrial material entered Earth's atmosphere and some of it was preserved in sedimentary rocks forming in the oceans and seas of the Earth's surface. The Messinian Salinity Crisis was a time when the straight of Gibralter closed and the Mediterranean Sea was cut off from mixing its waters with those of the rest of the world and the entire sea essentially became an enormous salt lake.

Loading into Atlantis, an apt name for a six foot dinghy we expected to use to cross a bay of the Adriatic to get to the site.

The ever stalwart Sandro.

An old fisherman's house is now abandoned on the cliffs next to the outcrop.

Looking south toward Monte Conero.

Sunset back at Coldigioco on the day before final presentations.

Hey look I found a wild Kari! Kari showed up at the train station in Castelplanio last night and she's here just in time for our final project presentations. What fun!

The final poster is really something. It's pretty complicated to explain but the ultimate goal of the project was to compare variations in the data we measured in the samples to known variations in insolation (the average amount of sunlight this part of the world received at any given time in the past). Using a program called Matlab we were able to use statistical analysis to find cyclic fluctuations in the data and then match them up with Laskar's calculated model of paleo-fluctuations in insolation in order to put a date on the rocks in the section. Pretty exciting stuff!

PART XXIV: GIVE AND TAKE (10/14)

After returning from Croatia we all settled in for a two day art project to represent completion of our art course, Science and the Aesthetic. Sandro's wife, Paula Metallo (born and raised in Syracuse), did a great job inspiring all of these scientists who had little confidence with expressing themselves through art. The funny thing was that we discovered that everyone actually had experience in some totally different art concentration, which made for a very diverse art show. The show also had a theme of "Give and Take" and each piece was expected to represent something relating both to science and to the concept of give and take. Once set up in Coldigioco's little gallery space the show made a gorgeous composition as a whole and was a great place for getting to know our guests that night, a band of American folk musicians visiting one of the geologists staying in town at the time.

Devon depicted Mother Earth being exploited by the consumer mass.

Bryn used a flip book to depict a farm being fertilized while the resulting runoff kills fish in the neighboring body of water.

Colin used charcoal to create a shape reminiscent of a simplified geologic cross-section of a subduction fault.

Alyssa used pencil to draw an incredibly detailed beach being eroded by waves of the ocean: "The Great Giver and Taker."

Alison's four colored pencil drawings show how natural events like the passage of the seasons and the breakup of Pangaea depict the passage of time, although they do so at different scales of time.

Taylor created a landscape using trash found on the side of the road and then photographed the result.

Catherine photographed, drew three times, and sampled a leaf from the same tree a short walk down the road of Coldigioco. 

Robby used white limestone and red chert to construct the form of a yin yang on the floor.

Sam used watercolors to paint a picture attempting to synthesize a photograph of an amazing glacial valley in Tuscany and a dream he had a few nights after we had been there.

Alex used wire, paper mache, torn newspaper, and Italian and Croatian currency to represent how a profiteer might see the environment in order to justify exploitation of natural resources. 

Catie used oil pastels to draw an amazing sight we saw with clouds being blown across a mountaintop in the Dolomites. 

Hannah made a traditional embroidered ball made by mothers, daughters, and friends in Japanese culture.

Travis made a coil pot out of locally resourced clay and little sample bags of powdered sediment from previous projects taken throughout our travels. He then drew pictures to demonstrate the three staples of Mediterranean agriculture: wheat,...

...grapes,...

...and olives.

I painted a mandala superimposing various natural cycles working in competition and cooperation to maintain the balance that makes the world a livable place. The square meter canvas sat on the floor of the gallery.