Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Journey Begins, Day 1 & 2

Hello!! The journey has begun and is underway! I’m currently into day two. It’s a little after 10pm and folks are bustling about taking our first set of all-night sampling while others are tying up the day and settling in for the night. Looks like I may be on the night shift tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

Wednesday July 20th
We started off our adventure by getting to know our new homes for the next week. I found my room on the Lake Guardian to be quite cozy. I will be sharing an ~7x12”
room with two fun and energetic women and, yes, I did get a top bunk! Although space is limited, it still feels private by pulling the curtains around the bed; very important since we will all be up during different times of the night. We then found our way to the kitchen… amazing. Every food I could ever want is available to me at any time during the day and night… very dangerous








We then met at Great Lakes Aquarium where we were introduced to the objectives of the trip and got to know the aquarium a little more. I gave several members of the group a behind the scenes tour before our dinner and presentations. We heard from Lek Kadeli, (Assistant administrator in the EPA), Ralph Garono (Great Lakes NERR), Jeff Gunderson (Sea Grant), and Jack Kelly (CSMI). I really connected with Jack’s presentation of removing sediments and protecting in Clough Island in the St. Louis River as I grew up right in the area he was advocating for.

Thursday July 21st
I slept well the first night on the boat. I was pretty excited and anxious about the journey ahead, but I was able to get a decent amount of sleep. After an amazing breakfast, we were trained in on safety protocol and donned emergency gear.




We then listened to Dr. Lorena Rios Mendoza’s (UWS – Natural Science/Chemistry) research on plastic’s effect on ecosystems. She noted that plastics never biodegrade. They can become smaller and smaller particles, but they never disappear. Plastics cause entanglement, ingestion, health hazards by releasing chemicals, and are also an eyesore. By sifting through beaches and collecting dragnets, she can quantify how much plastic is in a given area. Today begins her first collection in a freshwater.




Dr. Jay Austin (Large lakes Observatory UMD), who focuses on temperature monitoring of Lake Superior, discussed lake stratification (layering) and mixing with us. Today we got to pick up his Webb Electric Glider from an autonomous mission collecting data like backscatter, temperature, chlorophyll fluorescence, colored dissolved organic matter, and dissolved oxygen of the lake. GPS coordinates of pick up site: 46.907 N by 91.789 W For more information: http://www.northernwilds.com/pages/Explore/notes/torpedo-changes-the-game~print.shtml



It was then time to train in on taking samples at our first station (46.81240 N 92.01823 W). We used the rosette water sampler that takes sample of water at specific depths.




We took plankton samples.




We also took benthic grabs of the sediments to look for invertebrates.




To wrap up the night (for some of us), we discussed tucker trawling. We will trawl for larval fish to identify isotopes they contain that serve as a chemical maker for where they were feeding (either near shore or off shore).

I’m off to bed to recharge for the next day [and night] of sampling!

1 comment:

  1. Sounds awesome Jill! I'm definitely jealous of your experience! ~Gina

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