Howdy there little bloggeroo's,
Sorry to disappoint y'all yesterday. I was going to post at my scheduled blogg time but wouldn't ya know it, the college was closed for MLK day. You may have felt let down, but hopefully you spent the balance of the day celebrating the struggle for social justice. Anyhow, back to me. I spent this past Thursday and Friday helping out Sarah Morley and Holly Coe from NOAA. They have a pretty cool project going studying the marine derived nutrients Salmon provide to the riparian ecosystem, related the Elwha river. I spent much of the time helping Holly remove samples from underwater racks containing periphyton growing surfaces with differing nutrient availability in the growth medium, which was designed to demonstrate nutrient availability limitations on the periphyton, relating to nitrogen and phosphorus specifically. I also helped collect terrestrial invertebrates with a butterfly net. The second half of both days I was able to utilize an area of expertise that I have much experience in; grunt labor. I pounded numerous rebar stakes into the riverbed for the purpose of attaching Salmon carcasses to them this week, in order to study the effects of the nutrients they will release into the riparian ecosystem. Tune back in two weeks from now and I will probably jump to describing another project.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 7, 2008
2008 and full speed ahead!
Hi everybody!
I know you all have been checking in religiously, sometimes twice a day, to see if I'd posted a new message. Well the wait is over. The new year is upon us and the NASA project is moving forward. My crack team and I (they're not really my team, I just like to say that) are comensing with snow surveying. We have established a series of snow courses in the Olympic National forest just east of the Park and south of Sequim. We'll be visiting these snow courses twice-a-week in order to collect snow samples that will be used to estimate the amount and water density of the snow pack in the Dungeness watershed. This data will contribute to the NEW AND IMPROVED! water budget model of which I've told you much already (maybe too much). My understanding is that it will definately be used in a ground-truthing capacity and possibly as legitimate data wich may be entered into the model. The exciting part of the snow sampling, for me anyway, is that I get to do stuff outside. There may be danger involved, but don't worry excessively for your cyber-hero, just worry for the people with me. On these survey trips my crack team and I will be snow shoeing to remote (kind of) areas where we have to follow exacting procedures in order to collect samples from the correct spot and make sure we measure and weigh it precisely and with the greatest possible accuracy. Soon I may have real data to wave in your collective faces so you can see how smart I am. Tune in next week ;)
I know you all have been checking in religiously, sometimes twice a day, to see if I'd posted a new message. Well the wait is over. The new year is upon us and the NASA project is moving forward. My crack team and I (they're not really my team, I just like to say that) are comensing with snow surveying. We have established a series of snow courses in the Olympic National forest just east of the Park and south of Sequim. We'll be visiting these snow courses twice-a-week in order to collect snow samples that will be used to estimate the amount and water density of the snow pack in the Dungeness watershed. This data will contribute to the NEW AND IMPROVED! water budget model of which I've told you much already (maybe too much). My understanding is that it will definately be used in a ground-truthing capacity and possibly as legitimate data wich may be entered into the model. The exciting part of the snow sampling, for me anyway, is that I get to do stuff outside. There may be danger involved, but don't worry excessively for your cyber-hero, just worry for the people with me. On these survey trips my crack team and I will be snow shoeing to remote (kind of) areas where we have to follow exacting procedures in order to collect samples from the correct spot and make sure we measure and weigh it precisely and with the greatest possible accuracy. Soon I may have real data to wave in your collective faces so you can see how smart I am. Tune in next week ;)
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