Good evening all, or rather good morning since it is 12:07 A.M.

Today was the first day of the sessions at GSA here in Baltimore. Amanda and I started our day by going to mass at The Baltimore Basilica, which is also known as Americas first cathedral. We then went back to the hotel to put some stuff away. We got Mandy and took off to get breakfast down by the harbor. We stayed there until 1:00 so we could attend the afternoon sessions.

My afternoon consisted of going back and forth between the hydrology and geophysics areas. I found them all rather good and informational. A lot of things that we have learned in sedimentology this semester, I could follow along with. Such as viewing a stratigraphy column and actually being able to know what I'm looking at. One of the cool things a speaker talked about was burrows!

Majority of the afternoon though was spent in the exhibit hall where I got to talk to several grad schools. I have now been introduced to the science of oceanography and am very curious about it. My mission is to find all grad schools who have this program to learn more about what it actually is.

I talked to several of the students who had posters (including our own students, who by the way did an AMAZING job!) and networked with them. There is a lot of great students and future geologists out there.

BY FAR THE COOLEST THING TODAY WAS THE VIRTUAL SANDBOX TOPOGRAPHY DEMONSTRATION. It is nothing more than a computer, sandbox, sand, projector, and an Xbox Kinect. The Kinect will pick up the depth of the sand and draw out topographic lines in real time. When you move the sand around, the whole environment changes with you!

With this virtual sandbox, it could be a great way to have our intro physical classes to really be hands on when learning about maps. There is so much potential with this hardware.

Ryan Hefley