06 August 2023

Long afternoon in the field

My MSc student had requested another day in the field with the expensive GPS, which means, another day with me. He can't take that thing out on his own! But I was glad to be there, as I wanted to keep an eye on how he was getting along answering the research question. Going into the field is one thing; answering your research question is another. And maybe I could steer things in the field itself.

As low tide was late in the afternoon we didn't leave until noon. We made sure to load both our bikes into the back of the school vehicle, and the GPS, and our normal kit. And we set off to the remote part of the estuary. I suspected that was where the action was. He had created quite a comprehensive picture of the north, which was, as expected, less complicated. But then that's clearly not where the most exciting science is to be found.



We first had to do their grunt work of surveying in all the locations he had take an observation, as before. And that is quite some work! The going is tough; the higher part of the marsh is quite inhospitable. It is densely vegetated, and has a lot of barely visible ditches and pits, are you can easily step into them in sprain your knee. That's sort of terrain really slows me down and tires me out. I am really thinking about every step I take! Not so much my student; he has the advantage of youth, and probably solid construction, so he just walks without paying too much attention to where he puts his feet. It means he ends up in said ditches in pits very often, but it doesn't bother him at all. I would sprain a knee! 

Once you get to the lower part of the marsh it gets easier. There is less vegetation, so if there is a ditch or a pit, you can see it coming. The sand flat has its own challenges, though, because the sand can be quite soft, and that makes the walking tiring. 




It took us quite a while to survey all the points in. To be honest, I was tired and ready to go home. But we hadn’t actually been to the most interesting part of the marsh. There are some fossil layers of saltmarsh sediment exposed on the beach. They fascinate me; given that there are some six layers exposed in rapid succession, there must've been some sort of environment in which saltmarsh must have accumulated for a while, got covered in sand (as that is what is between the layers of salt marsh sediment), after which another saltmarsh grew. And that must have repeated several times. What was going on there? Can it still happen?

We had a closer look. We looked at the full outcrop, which is quite long. We surveyed several points in, took transects, and took samples, but you could tell we were getting tired; we regularly had to go back because we had forgotten something. It was clear me that we at some point had to call it a day! And we did. I was glad to get back to the bikes, stow away the gear, and ride back to the car.


When we got back to campus I initially thought I'd just store the kit in my office and worry about putting it back where it belongs the day after. But what if someone needed it? The batteries would have to be charged. No one had told me it was booked out the next day, so I was probably overthinking things, but I still made sure to put it back. I did set off the alarm doing so. Oops! Luckily I know how to turn it off again.

The next day I retrieved the data (with the help of Martin, as I don't have an SD card reader in my desktop, and I had forgot to bring one from home) and could send it to my student. It had been hard work, but worth it! I look forward to seeing his final thesis…


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