My Deep Sea Journey Ends

This week was the last week (I think) that I will spend in the realm of deep sea research. As I have previously mentioned, I have spent some time working on side projects at the lab while I simultaneously prepare for my final experiment this summer. One of the side projects that I've featured is a continuation of research from my advisor's dissertation, and I have sorted through deep sea sediment samples to make microscope slides for identification purposes. This week, however, I finished the last of the samples for this work (to my knowledge), which also wraps up the side projects I embarked on. This timing does align with my project plans, as I will be going to collect seawater to start microplastic incubations for my final chapter. The deep sea research was exciting to help out with because shallow, coastal sediments and deep sea sediments often provide homes for animals with vastly different features. Additionally, as you'd expect, many animals in the deep sea will never be seen in coastal environments. Now, I don't know if that is the case with the animal in this week's picture, but I saw this in a sample and knew I had to take its picture, because I have no idea what it is. All I know is that it is quite large and that it has two features that remind me of a bottle cleaner brush, which I'm guessing are likely swimming appendages. 

As I mentioned, I am going to be spending the next few weeks working on microplastic incubations, which create microplastics that are more similar to ones in the environment, rather than sterile particles that come from the lab. Additionally, I will be testing out my new glow in the dark particles, as the most recent version of these particles did not perform as expected due to user error. I mistakenly purchased particles that were not waterproof, and most of the particles clumped and stayed at the top of the water column in my test experiments. I think I was too excited by the bright color of these particles that I didn't check on the much more important chemical features, but I should have the newest batch by tomorrow evening. 

Next week I will be setting up the last of the physical features for this experiment, including the aquarium stand and photography station, which will allow me to also reassess the photo quality and image analysis ease with the newly defined setup. I'm excited that this project is quickly approaching.

---