ENVL 4500- NW Field Experience Prep

Angelique Wanek
Professor Tait
10/30/2017

Guayaquil Reflections

The Geology of the Galapagos Islands

To begin, the process of the formation of the Galpagos Islands is just as hard to
understand as the process of the start of Ecuadors environmental movement. Through years of
research, scientist have unanimously have agreed that the formation of Galapagos islands
started as a product of a mantle plume (White,1997). This process entails the movement of hot
rock that is deeply embedded in Earth, towards the surface of earth. This happens for the rock
is hotter than it surroundings, just as hot air rises. As this hot rock moves upward
decompression causing the rock to melt (White, 1997). For normally, when the rock is held
under such strong pressures, it is uniform and confided.This process happens continuously but
tends to move at a pace of 10 cm/year (White,1997).
At first, the slightly melted mantle is stopped at Earths lithosphere; however, it
eventually surpasses the lithosphere, in which ... the melt becomes magma (White,1997). This
magma is either stopped at the lithosphere and becomes part of earths ...magma chambers
or during and volcanic eruption it surpasses this stage of storage all together and breeches
Earths surface (White,1997). Once magma leaves the volcano or breaches the surface of earth
it is technically termed as lava. As noted from the reading, it takes hundreds of years of
eruptions for volcanoes to actually form (White,1997).
At the same time tectonic plates are moving above throughout the lithosphere. The sort
of unique timing of the movement of tectonic plates as it passes a magma plumbing zone,
creates the movement of the Galapagos volcanic islands. This zone can also be called a
hotspot for it an area where high volcanic activity takes place. With the same respect, as
discussed above islands are formed after numerous volcanic eruptions have occurred over time.
The spacing these islands away from the hotspot area is relative to their age. E.g. the older
the island, the further it is from the hotspot source.
As seen in the Field Trip Guide, there is a sort of regional split of the islands and their
status of volcanic activity in relation to one another. Below are the locations and common traits
associated with different Galapagos islands that are in similar locations (source for all this
information is (Geist, 2011):
The "old" subprovince comprises Espaola (Hall, 1983), Santa Fe (Geist
et al., 1985), and Baltra Islands and Northeastern corner of Santa Cruz
(Bow, 1979).
Activity: 3-1 Ma
-The central subprovince is made up of San Cristobal (Geist et al., 1986), Santa
Cruz (Bow, 1979), and Santiago Islands (Swanson et al., 1974).
 -Activity: average activity
-The western subprovince is made up of the historically active volcanoes of
Isabela and Fernandina islands and Roca Redonda volcano.
-The northern subprovince is diverse petrologically: basically, the archipelago's
entire range isotopic and trace element values is encompassed by the 5 islands,
Wolf, Darwin (Harpp and Geist, 2002), Genovesa (Harpp et al., 2002; Harpp et
al., 2003), Marchena (Vicenzi et al., 1990), and Pinta (Cullen et al., 1987).
-Activity: intermediate- high
Perhaps one of the last more pronounced distinction amongst island morphology is
between the east and west volcanoes. The islands that tend to have the more inverted soup
bowl look to them are western islands (White, 1997). These volcanoes also tend to be larger
than the less dramatic slope of eastern volcanoes.

How did animals get to the island?

Animals got to the Galapagos by several different methods of location. Roughly around
5-10 million years ago the Galapagos emerged out of the Pacific Ocean (Species Arrival,
2017). The islands that make up the Galapagos islands are relatively isolated from colonization;
henceforth, the main ways in which animals arrive to these islands were from air and water.
Animals could either fly to the islands or smaller animals as well as plants could be transported
by heavy winds (Species Arrival, 2017). Traveling by water could have been a bit more
intensive. For instance, animals could travel to islands by being powerful swimmers; however,
most scientist find this not really plausible. The ultimate theory of how animals arrived to the
islands is through them holding onto patches of vegetation and making their own flotation
devices.

Challenges in eradicating feral pigs, donkeys and rats from islands

Eradicating feral pigs, donkeys and rats from islands is especially difficult for numerous
reasons, mainly all surrounding the vast numbers of these introduced mammals on islands. All
three of these organisms have been introduced to the Galapagos islands from humans
throughout several different years. The main challenge to eradicating these organisms, was
finding an effective method or series of methods that could be used to remove all of these
introduced species. There has been a serious of time periods in which eradication projects have
been established to remove all feral pigs, donkeys and rats from islands (Campbell, 2005).
Poison, traps, hunting, bait setup as well as ariel killings have all been methods used in
the past to accomplish the goal of extinction of these species (Campbell ,2005). As a general
rule of thumb, the most successful eradication programs made sure to monitor the species of
interest both during and after eradication had occur (Campbell, 2005). This is the only way to
ensure that an entire species was indeed extinct. The benefit to having these different species
eradicated was so that a mass extinction of both indigenous and endemic species of these
islands would not take place and so that these species could grow and evolve without the threat
of introduced competition.
 NPP RadioLab Program
This radio program basically outlines the experiences of one of the producers
experience during his time in the Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. The first thing that
the producer described was how insecticide was sprayed on his plane on the way to
Quito and how odd it was. The second thing that the producer notes is that once he had
arrived in Quito, all of the sudden he saw a line of slow moving cars driving past him.
Each car was continuously blowing their car horns, loudly and most people had blue
flags on them. This was to represent their support of a political candidate. The candidate
himself was waving a white flag.
Next, the producer described the water of the Galapagos as blue/green iridescent.
He then goes into the speal about Darwin and his finches and his Origin of Species. Some
other speakers then go into how in the 1980s the islands were more isolated than they are now.
A huge portion of this podcast is dedicated to the giant tortoises of the islands and
Darwins finches, and the issues that surround both of these organisms. Basically, the giant
tortoises that once were numerous on the Pinta Island have gone extinct. This was due to the
introduction of goats on this island, who were running the tortoises habitats. Once an
eradication program was set up, the goats were removed from the island (shot);however, things
did not get any easy for these organisms. In the past, tortoises were mainly hunted for food, as
well as oil and whale bait. Now in days, fisherman have stopped hunting tortoises for such
purposes. In order to expand the Pinta Tortoises ancestry, scientist are now breeding close
relatives of the Pinta tortoises with each other in a hope to one day, establish most of the
population back onto the island.
A similar type of protection is being used towards Darwins Finches. For instance, five
species of the finches are going extinct and 6 more species are highly threatened. In a mark
and recapture sort of style, scientist are trying to forcibly breed finches so that their offspring
survive. The long-term results of these studies are still to be determined.

Galapagos Biodiversity

Issues related to the major species on these islands include:

Plants
Invasive species: can cause competition and extinction of indigenous
species
Harsh living conditions: Salty areas, plants roots must adapt
Giant Tortoise
Human interaction: hunted for food & oil
Exotic species: predation of its eggs, competition for natural resources &
habitats
Iguanas & Lizards
Predation: by feral cats and dogs
Species move to breeding centers
Cut number of organisms significantly
- Exotic Species: Example goats, who graze on plants
 - El Nino Events: lacking of nutrients available, causing them to shrink
dramatically and has caused death on large scales

Mammals
Sea Lions: Defending for territory. Pups are defenseless
Land Birds:
Finches: had to evolve beak size to deal with droughts. Needed to be
able to eat the seeds it has.
Sea and Shore Birds
Galapagos Penguins: Vulnerable to El Nino, restricted land range, small
population size
Galapagos Petrels: Critically endangered due to predation (feral cats &
rats).
Habitat Destruction: Goats, donkeys,etc
Marine Life:
Predation: Eaten by sharks
Invertebrates:
Mainly all endemic, meaning its biggest issue is with invasive species
Source for all above: (Biodiversity, 2017)

Mangrove Forest
To begin, it is believed that there are over 35 species of trees that make up
mangrove forests, in the world. What makes mangroves different from other types of
ecosystems is that it has salt tolerant trees. These trees have deep roots that when
submerged have white little nodules that add oxygen to the trees and anoxic waters.
This helps both the trees and organisms in these ecosystems survive. Mangroves are
home to both terrestrial and aquatic organisms (fish). In fact, these organisms tend to
be nurseries for young fish. Since mangrove forest can be found in temperate and
tropical biomes, their plants have to adapt with high salinity and mass amounts of
sunlight at time. Most plants have certain features (cellulose) to help deal with sunlight.
Lastly, mangroves depend heavily on nitrogen and phosphates (nutrients) to grow. If
preserves, mangroves can act as storm buries, water regulators and nursery grounds
for schools of different types of fishes.

References

Campbell, K. & Dolan, J.C. (2005, October). Feral Goat Eradications on Islands.
Retrieved from:
https://amalavidaexperience.weebly.com/uploads/3/9/0/2/39029957/paper-
feralgoateradications2004.pdf
Galapagos Conservatory.(2017). Biodiversity. Retrieved from:
https://www.galapagos.org/about_galapagos/about-galapagos/history/species-arrival-
and-evolution/

Galapagos Conservatory.(2017). Species Arrival to the Galapagos. Retrieved from:

https://www.galapagos.org/about_galapagos/about-galapagos/history/species-arrival-
and-evolution/

Geist,D.(2011, July).The Galapagos as a Laboratory for Life Sciences. Retrieved from:

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~dgeist/Chapman/ChapmanFieldTripGuide.pdf

White, W.M.(1997, October 2). Galapagos Geology of the Web: A Brief Introduction to
the Geology of the Galapagos. Retrieved from:
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/GalapagosWWW/GalapagosGeology.html