What's Going On in the Sand?

Sometimes processing samples can be tiresome. In my opinion, days where the process becomes repetitive are made that much better by interesting findings or oddities. Today I was in a monotonous mindset while processing the first four samples of the day but I perked up when I worked on the second set of samples. The reason? I found something odd and unusual that I was not necessarily expecting. The first four samples of the day were from a waterway that I had gone through most of the samples for, while the second set of samples was from the waterway that hosts the wastewater treatment plant. The picture (right) is from a sample in the polluted waterway and if compare it to previous samples from the pristine sites, you'll see two major differences: the first is that this sediment is multi-toned, and the second is that there appear to be odd flecks throughout the sand. Now before anyone starts shouting, "Plastic!" please realize that the microplastics that I am looking for are not going to be visible in a photograph without magnification. However, there is something unusual here that I'm hoping to learn more about. All four samples from the polluted waterway had this multi-toned appearance and the flecks, and while observational data does not answer any questions as to why this sediment appears the way it does, the observations give me hope that there's more to learn about the Panama City benthic system. 

As an aside, I have been asked how long it takes to conduct microplastics research or even research with nematodes. My timeline may be different from others in the field, as I have less experience in working with sediment systems, but my sampling trip was October 26th, and I collected 90 samples. I am in the lab two days a week and can usually get 8 samples processed per lab day. Today I finished processing samples 33-40 and extracted meiofauna from these samples. I still am waiting on chemicals to run the microplastics extractions and then I will need to count nematodes, extract nematodes, identify nematodes, and identify microplastics. It does take time but every day is a new adventure for me and my work, and I really enjoy the opportunity to be learning and practicing new skills that don't often get talked about in undergraduate (or even graduate) biology courses.

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