Laugharne aftermath

The Laugharne fieldtrip went well! As far as I could see. The weather was generally fine, the students were on it, the staff too, and there were no mishaps such as students losing their car keys in the salt marsh, or anyone needing transporting to hospital for some unfortunate injury. But then I left. And not just me; four people left before the coring started. So that was done very understaffed! And we regularly have problems with the coring. The equipment sometimes breaks! This year would be a challenge...

And it was. I heard later the new barrel (replacing last year's broken one) had broken too. And the spare core we had brought was incomplete. And something had gone wrong with the sections we had managed to core before the barrel packed in. Oh dear! Now what?

Suzie walked into my office, wondering what mood I was in. Oh dear. That promised bad things. Then it came out: would I be willing to aid in somehow getting a core log to the students? We discussed the options. And we settled on me doing a log of the 2016 core, which I hadn't even helped core. I suppose Jaco did the honours that year! And we ask the students to log the sections on an A4 each, and then summarise that all one one A4. If we do this for real, say, on the James Cook, we need some 3 A3s for such a core so doing it on 1 A4 (I would skip the 7 A4s stage) would a bit weird. But the fastest way!

It still wasn't overly fast. I had to go get the core from the cold store. I carried everything in one go! And regretted that. My arms were sore by the time I reached the lab. Then I got my stuff together: core log sheet, pencil, eraser, radio, ruler. And set to work! And let David know I was doing it; he could come in and take a good core pic. And he did!

As it all had to fit on one A4 the writing would have to be small. But still legible! So that sort of meant I had to make the final log digital. That took a fair while too. But then in the end we had a log! And I'm sure it'll come in handy for years to come. And I had rather prepare my lectures but that's the life of a scientist!