Ladybeetles aggregate as summer wanes

Richard and I joined Sierra Club hike leaders John and Lucy, along with their friend Steve, on a hike through the redwood grove of Purissima Creek, near Half Moon Bay, today. Wildlife spotting began at Stonestown mall, where we met our ride in the morning and saw what appeared to be a falcoln or eagle with a huge wingspan, touch down in the parking lot. On the trail, Lucy keenly spotted a huge banana slug, which the rest of us would have missed because its coloring so closely matched that of the soil and the deacying leaves in the duff. Near the end of the hike, however, Richard noticed that what appeared to be berries on the blackberry bushes actually weren't berries at all, but were hoards of ladybugs. All of the "berries" in this photo are such beetles. According to wikipedia, ladybugs gather together on the south sides of trees and stalks when winter approaches, and remain in this configuration to overwinter. Then, in the springtime when spring approaches, they disperse. According to the ladybugs, autumn has arrived in coastal California, so it's time to aggregate. Are ladybugs the autumnal groundhog?

California Climate and Glacial Geomorphology

Willie, Richard, Tetsuya, Chris B. and I took a trip to Freel Peak, at almost 11,000 feet the highest point in the Lake Tahoe basin. Chris took this great panarama facing north, with Tahoe and its surrounding forests on the left, the arid (though irrigated) Carson Valley of Nevada on the right, and the alpine Starr Lake near the pass at center. The juxtaposition of forests to the west and desert to the east show how the effects of mountains dominate the climate of the western USA. Storms advect eastward from the Pacific Ocean. As the Sierra Nevada forces the moist air upwards, the air cools to its dewpoint and drops rain and snow over the western slopes of the Sierra, and over Tahoe. Over 10,000 years ago, this moisture also fed the glaciers which carved out many of the lakes and hanging valleys in the Tahoe basin and elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada. After a storm loses a good deal of its moisture to the Sierra Nevada, the storm flows eastward, down the leeward slope of the mountain range, gets compressed as the air pressure increases, and heats up. Since the air is now drier than it had been during its trip up the western slope of the Sierras, there is less moisture to evaporate than had been condensed over the western slope, so the temperature of the air east of the mountains rises above what it had been at the same altitude west of the mountains. The result is the hot, dry desert of Nevada, easily seen in the brown Carson Valley. Even the glacial history of the region was heavily affected by this gradient in moisture: the Sierras and are full of glacial-carved lakes, valleys, and moraines, while the mountains to the east of Carson Valley, though nearly as high, did not receive enough moisture to feed glaciers, and thus do not show these glacial-carved features.

Chris was really on a role with these beautiful panoramas he shot during the trip. This one was taken from Maggie's peak, looking northeast toward South Lake Tahoe. We accessed this peak from the top of Emerald Bay, and at the summit ran into a UC Berkeley geomorphology class being taught by Prof. Deitrich! Naturally we hung out for this fascinating lecture in the field, and, as we were freeloading without paying tuition, it's only right that I share the learning here. Cascade Lake is in the foreground. This lake exists at the furthest extent of an ancient glacier, which dropped down off the mountain and deposited its terminal moraine at Cascade Lake's northern (left) end, and which built up lateral moraines that now confine both sides of the lake (the lateral moraines are the hills which run along the long axis of the lake). Fallen Leaf Lake (at far right) is a larger lake formed in the same way; the lateral moraines of the glacier that formed it are still visible as forested hills on the lake's flanks, and the terminal moraine forms the isthmus between Fallen Leaf Lake and Lake Tahoe. That isthmus is now a relatively flat, marshy regions atop which the city of South Lake Tahoe and the casinos of Stateline have been built. The meadows and marshes along the stream flowing from Fallen Leaf to Tahoe hold nice campsites and flat-ground trails which should make scenic (and easy) cross-country skiing in the wintertime!

At the far left of the photo is Emerald Bay. This was also likely formed by a glacier ending in the lake. The lateral moraines (hills) which confine the long axis of the lake are readily visible. There does not seem to be a terminal moraine, however. This may have been due to the lake slowly rising in level during a wet period, flooding over the terminal moraine, and eventually eroding it away (as the Mediterranean eroded the Bhosperous during what may have been the Great Flood of the Bible). Alternatively, Prof. Dietrich said the lack of terminal moraine may be due to a lake seiche (tsunami) resulting from the Meek's Bay landslide that occurred many thousands of years ago on Tahoe's western shore. The landslide in the lake may have caused a long wave that washed over the low-lying moraine, eroded it away, and thereby dug a connection between Tahoe and Emerald Bay.

I've got to include a photo of my buddies at the summit!

Sights of Mt. Tallac

Lone pines and cheeky chipmunks thrive on this granite behemoth overlooking Lake Tahoe. The talus was deposited by glaciers, upon whose lateral moraines twist the trail up the mountain. At the base of Tallac is Fallen Leaf Lake, which is separated by a terminal moraine (acting as a dam) from lower Lake Tahoe.

Oakland Engineers' softball league playoff game

Yesterday was the playoff game for the B-league teams in the Oakland Engineers' softball league. Though we lost the final playoff game, we had a great season, evidenced by the fact that we actually made it to the final playoff game for our B-league. It was my first time ever playing softball (or even baseball), which turns out to be much more fun to play than to watch! Though the sport was new to me, the technique used to transmit power from the body's core through the arms and bat to the ball was very familiar, as it's the same technique used in swimming and couple dancing, where power is transmitted from the body's core to the water or to one's dance partner, respectively.

We played all our regular season games in West Oakland, right in the middle of gangland. The fields and parks are nice, but the surrounding neighborhoods and projects made for a sometimes-frightening experience, especially when games would drag on till dark and we'd hear gunshots in the distance. None of us ever saw anything disheartening in the area, but gang-related crime is common there, so hearing shots was always frightening. After the games in West Oakland, I'd skate back to the nearby BART station, incuring such cautionary comments from my teammates as "common, dude, this ain't Malibu...". Though I knew safe routes along which to skate to the station, the area does have a lot of crime, and my teammates' worries are not unsubstantiated. 40 years ago, West Oakland was a rich suburb of downtown, and still has the large old homes to prove such. Sometime since then, however, the area descended into poverty and crime. This was likely due to the closing-down of Oakland's WWII steel and shipbuilding (Kaiser) industries, the "white flight" of the 50's to the suburbs that was accompanied by the invasion of Oakland with flyover freeways that divided neighborhoods, and the abandonment of the once-extensive transit systems that until that time kept this area well-connected with the rest of the Bay Area. Regardless, the area is still home to the largest port in the region; with all the commerce and jobs created by the port, why is the area still so poverty stricken? Why do gangs hold a monopoly on the area's youth?

On the bright side, however, I did meet local softball coaches, who organized the area's kids into softball and soccer teams, keeping them off the streets and out of reach of the gangsters who would otherwise lure them into another life. Men like these coaches are hope for a brighter future for Oakland and us all.