T-minus 1 week!!

By: Brady Flinchum

Fregon's Kaljiti store entrance. This image was taken from the user
edomic on Flickr
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/72353146@N00/).

It is exactly one week until we are leaving for the outback and I am getting really excited!! I am going to take this time to reflect on exactly what I will be doing over the next three weeks and how my participation in this project will influence not only myself but also the aboriginal communities of South Australia. Let me begin by saying it still blows my mind that we, as a human race, have the technology that will allow me to travel across the world within just a few days. I am extremely excited to explore another country and experience another culture. As most of my family and friends know I love taking pictures. I am hoping to take some excellent pictures that capture the culture, lifestyle and emotion that the aboriginal people experience on a daily basis. I am also hoping to get pictures of the breath taking landscapes that this remote area of South Australia has offer. I am sure a lot of my images will find their way to this blog later on, so stay tuned! Since I haven't traveled to South Australia yet all pictures of SA are coming from searching the Fregon on Flickr. Credit is given to the representative photographers, please feel free to copy the links and explore their albums.

Fregon skyline taken in November of 2006.This image was taken
from the user edomic on Flickr.
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/72353146@N00/)

I am excited to be part of a project that is using Ground Magnetic Resonance (GMR). I have been trying to find creative ways to implement it into my research but have come up empty handed. As I mentioned in my previous post this is method has been developed and refined over that last decade or so and is what I would consider cutting edge science. The GMR is directly sensitive to the amount of water in the subsurface. I think it is really cool that we will be traveling so far into the outback to use this equipment and find water for a small community.  Not only will we be using the GMR we will be using time domain electromagnetics (TEM) to estimate the quality of the water. These communities already drink groundwater but it is usually very salty. We want to be able to pinpoint a location where there is water and that water is the highest quality possible. The pictures I have found online show this region of Australia to be very arid. As everybody knows water is key to sustain life. So finding a new source of high quality drinking water might allow this community to grow its own food or even expand.

Children from Fregon South Australia. The image was taken
in July of 2007 and is complements of Haley via Flickr.
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/stellarjandri/)

Unlike a lot of the work being conducted for my PhD, the scientific results of this project will directly impact a small community. Typically my projects focus on understanding hydrologic processes, and don't have a direct impact people living in my area of study. In this aspect I really feel a sense of purpose with this project. I hope that our findings will provide a location for a new water well. The final location will be important because the drilling company that will end up drilling the well will have to travel over 1500 km prior to drilling! Our findings will also provide crucial information about the aquifer system in the region because very little is known about it. The lack of knowledge is probably due to the cost of getting exploration equipment that far into the outback. So our field area is very small we we will learn more about geology and aquifer that could be extrapolated for further studies.

Besides the science and feeling of purpose I am very excited to meet and work with the scientists of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the people from Stanford University. I hope that while participating in the project I can demonstrate my work ethic and knowledge of geophysics so that the connections made during this project will turn into long term collabors during the course of my career. One of my career goals is to become a research professor of hydrogreophysics. This project provides a great foundation because of the scientific objectives and the people involved in this unique project.



CPR/First Aid Training

One of the things that was required prior to leaving was CPR/First aid certification. Since the nearest village of Fregon (population of ~350) is about 40 km away it is important that we know basic first aid. Although it is extremely unlikely that any of us will get hurt it will be important that we can bandage or splint each other up during the drive to get help. Andy and I completed our training with the American Red Cross here in Laramie this weekend. I had taken CPR training about 10 years ago when I worked as  lifeguard in Reno but over the course of these 10 years things changed.

After taking this course I feel confident that I could perform CPR on an unconscious person, although I really hope I never have to do that! I thought the dummies that were used in the training were very cool! When you actually do your compressions there is a lot of resistance and there was a clicking sound, probable meant to simulate the persons sternum breaking. I was not expecting to break a sweat in this class, but I definitely did. Doing compressions is physically exhausting, if I ever had to do it, I am hoping the adrenaline would keep me going because once you engage you must continue until help arrives. The other really neat thing about the dummies was their chests actually rise if you hold the airway open and seal the lips properly. I am grateful that we had the dummies because it took me a little practice to figure out how to get the rescue breaths in. It turns out you really have to open your mouth wide to get it in.

Left: Andy practicing chest compressions on the dummy. Right: Myself getting rescue breaths into the dummy. The small red object is a simulated AED, which I am assuming we will be carrying with us when we travel deep into South Australia.

Left: The sling that I tied for Andy. I clearly did a good job because Andy looks stoked! Right: The sling Andy tied on me. I tried acting hurt, but the sling was tied so well it was hard to do so!