Sampling modern forams

After the coring and geophysics of this year’s estuarine field trip, there was one day where I was not needed. That was great! I think I really hadn't been drinking enough, and I felt a bit rubbish the entire next day. But after that I was fine again, which was good, because then I had two days of sampling. 

Low tide was in the afternoon, so I picked up the students rather late, got to the Pritchard Jones Institute, made a sampling plan with the students, and then went into the field to get the samples. It doesn't have to take very long!

The first group went for logistic efficiency; they sampled some environments on the very accessible northern part of the marsh, and then only sampled environments you can't find there in the south, where the marsh is bigger and there are no paths. That worked!

The second day I had different students, and they decided to do everything in the southern part of the marsh. Some of the reasoning was that the other group had already sampled the north. Good thinking!

In the marsh

After the sampling we briefly returned to PJI to drop off things or pick them up, and then I had to take the students to the lab. Their samples needed to be processed immediately! But luckily, that is not much work. We tend to be done in an hour or so. And that meant that both days, I was actually home at a reasonable time. The first day that didn't mean I stayed home (blog post to follow), but the second day I could just have a shower, I have my dinner, and have a well-deserved beer.

Sample sieving

After all that I had another day where they didn't need me in the field, and I could just work from home. And that only left the last day in the field: surveying! Watch this space…