A Rocky Day on the Water

Although the waves were calm, sampling at the lab on Monday was not an easy task. Through a full day's worth of equipment issues, my team and I persevered to get enough samples for my research however. Therefore, I thought today's theme could be about resiliency, explained through the lens of some of the research photos I have.

After I get the sediment on the boat, it looks like the picture to the right: half of the core filled with sediment and the top half filled with water. The next step is to get all the water out without disturbing the sediment, because I don't want the sediment mixing, as there might be something to learn from the different sediment depths. To get the water out, my team and I need to first remove the core (the clear polycarbonate tube) from the core head, which is the black collar and opaque white piece at the top of the photo. The core head has grooves from fabrication, but the polycarbonate tube is smooth, which means that if sediment gets into the core head, there could be problems getting the tube out. Also, to get sediment into the core, I am often dropping a weight to drive the tube into the sediment, which also drives the polycarbonate tube further onto the core head. The main problem I ran into on Monday was getting the core off of the core head.

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After spending approximately an hour at my first station with issues, I decided that I needed to readjust and rethink my plan for the day so that I would get enough samples for my spring assessment at the lab, and ultimately decided that 15 stations would not be possible. Luckily for my research, I only need 9 stations, which would make the work more manageable. Unfortunately for me, as you can see in the picture on the left, the core caused a lot of problems throughout the day and would not release from the core head. I had to come up with a new plan because as my team and I got through 3 stations at the first site, I realized we were running out of time on the water and would not be able to get to all 9 stations. It was then that I made the decision that we would do 6 stations instead of 9, based on a previous sampling I had done at the lab and data that six of the nine stations are more similar in terms of environmental variables.

So was the trip a success? Yes, considering that I was able to get 36 samples of sediment, enough to process and get an understanding of nematode and microplastic distribution in the spring at the lab. Was the trip what I wanted it to be? No, absolutely not, but I made adjustments to deal with the unforeseen issues that arose. I feel lucky that in my first semester of my PhD I took a field ecology course with my co-advisor where the graduate students went into different field ecosystems, observed the natural environment, and conducted an experiment. In that course I got experience in being a true field scientist and coping with the uncertainty that happens when you do work in the field rather than in a controlled lab setting; it is all about resilience and accepting things you cannot control while thinking about possible solutions for problems that you might be able to fix. I think what I've found really helpful, especially on my research trips, is having a team of field scientists with me. Although they aren't experts in nematology, microplastics, or sediment sampling, my friends are great listeners, they have good insight when I need help, and they are willing to work as long as I give clear directions on what I want. I can't upload the video to the blog this week, but there's a video from this research trip that really exemplifies how great my friends and research team are: I am holding the core down while my roommate tries to pull the core head off and we are squeezing the core so hard and exerting so much effort and it still doesn't work.

In a few weeks I will get another try at field work as I go to Panama City for my spring sampling trip with a brand new research team. I hope that I can figure out the equipment problems before then (don't worry I have some ideas), but even if it happens again I can take what I learned from this trip and apply it to any future excursions. Resiliency: it's the difference between wanting something and making it happen.

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