GPS in the marsh

 I have an MSc student who is doing a fair amount of fieldwork. And it helps him if he knows where the observations he makes are taken. Not just what location; also what elevation. And for that you need our expensive GPS. The first time we went into the field it wasn't available, so there were still quite some points we had to survey in. He had noted the locations with handheld GPS and suchlike, but that wasn't quite enough. And our technical staff won't let students walk away with a GPS like that; a member of staff has to be with them. So we had to go together!

My intention had always been to sometimes go together; first get him started together, and then do every Nth day in the field together. And it was about time I joined him! So first we picked up the GPS from the responsible technician, and then we were on our way. It was a beautiful day for it!

On the sandflat 

I had imagined we would survey in whatever needed surveying in, and then add some observations to that. But quite soon it became clear that that might have been a bit ambitious. A salt marsh is not always easy going! Sometimes you are trudging through confusing vegetation in which you can't see the ubiquitous pits and gullies, sometimes you are wading through chest-high rush, sometimes you are slushing through the mud, and sometimes you might be doing several of these things at the same time. It was a bit slow going. And sometimes finding the exact location took a bit of time as well.

Striking red leaves among the vegetation 

For reasons of tide we set off at noon, and when we had surveyed everything in we decided it has been long enough. We went back to campus. It was close to 4 pm.

The week after we would have a tutorial, and the idea was that by then he would have collated all the data gathered so that we could see what kind of a picture was emerging. I hope that will be as good as being out on the marsh for the afternoon!