Long Days Make for Good Sunsets

This past week, I started working on the samples from last week's sampling trip. These sediment samples represent the final samples for the first chapter of my dissertation, which focuses on the seasonal and spatial variation in microplastics within St. Andrews Bay, a coastal urban area in northwestern Florida. I have been working vigorously on getting these samples processed because I will be presenting my research in two weeks at an invited talk, and I want to have as much data as possible for the presentation. This has meant some 11-hour days at the lab, though based on today's workflow I think my workload has decreased to 8-hour days. 11-hour days did make for this week's picture as I got to see a great sunset over the Ochlockonee Bay on my way home. We also got a new tool--new to me at least--to make work easier at the lab: an improved spray nozzle attachment for our water line. We use a garden hose spray nozzle to wash samples, because the different spray functions help with different types of sediments and to break up sediment clumps on the sieves. However, holding down a spray nozzle for 11 hours is not exceptionally comfortable, which is why our new nozzle is a great improvement. The new nozzle has a latch that slips onto the grab-bar which keeps the spray going, similar to the stop that you can use on gas station nozzles. The new nozzle also has slightly different spray functions than our previous attachment, and I have found one of the new spray functions to be extremely efficient at breaking up clumps and cleaning sediment.

I don't have much more to update on, since I spent the last week washing tons of mud, but I can let you know that starting the second week of March (so only a few weeks away), I will be working nearly exclusively with the lasers since I will have extracted all the microplastics from my sediment. Therefore, I will be providing more commentary on what I am learning from the microplastics, what types of particles I am finding in all the samples, and potentially what the distribution of particles in the bay system tells us about the pollution in that area compared to what we see in the literature. I can't wait to bring you new information.

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