After I got over the shock of getting accepted to go on this amazing trip I first started to look at the history of the islands. I found it interesting that the British captain whose name was James Cook, that found the islands in 1773 named the group of islands Hervey Islands. It didn’t get […]
Here is an interesting poster from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (one of the daughter regulatory arms of the Interior Department birthed from the now dead Minerals Management Service in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon blowout).
BSEE analysts have used inspection and accident incident reports from 2011 through 2014 to show that (surprise, surprise) a dangerous work place last year is also a dangerous workplace this year. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that our low-rig density region in the deeper offshore waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico have an aberrantly high number of accidents.
The red blobs in this figure are abnormally high frequencies of accident regions. See this legend:
+4SD is really, really high.
What can we take away from this? Offshore drilling is dangerous to be sure. But deep- and ultradeepwater drilling is manifestly different from the more common shallow water drilling efforts. Regarless if this is due to the inherent logistical difficulties of such deep drilling, the greater complexity and coordination that must be manifest, the relative naïveté of the operators in this new frontier, or the increased pressure for results and profit that follow in the wake of the intense capital outlays that are required to play in these worlds, it all amounts to greater risk and a more dangerous oil extraction endeavor.
See a webpage about this BSEE data here.
Note: there are no authors listed on the poster, but the program attributed the work to Allison Fischman of BSEE.
Here is that overall poster:
This poster was presented at the ESRI Users Conference in San Diego on July 20, 2015.
Medicinal Plants of the Cook Islands Link to an interesting article on uses of plants in the Cook Islands. Click on the plant below: Saltbush (Scaevola taccada)
When I first found out I was selected for this trip I immediately started looking up the Cook Islands’ biodiversity. I found bird checklists and I found that my favorite species of crab, the fiddler crab, could be found in the Cooks. I also found that two species of albatross frequent the islands. I cannot […]
This species of Kingfisher is endemic to Mangaia Island, the southern most Cook Island. Despite it’s relations, this species does not usually eat fish. Most of its diet consists of lizards and skinks. This species’ mating habits are also different than most, they often breed in pairs or trios and switch between polygyny, polyandry, and […]
Happy Summer! Information for each of my ENGL 105 courses this fall is available via the menu on the left hand side of this page. Please select the link for the course in which you are enrolled to access the syllabus, course calendar, learning modules, and so forth.
Stay tuned for information on reading to complete before our first day of class. If you’d like a sneak peek, check out Learning Module 1 for your class. Thanks and see you soon!
Dr. A
Even here at the ESRI Conference in San Diego, the Cooks are on my mind. One more week! I hope everyone is ready!
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