Blogs

This week I was finally able to compile the SELFE program and then get it to run. It was very exciting because it meant that I could finally start getting my data for the ETM.

It was a short week for me last week, as I took a trip up to seattle with my family on Thursday--I have relatives from China over, so we were definitely busy entertaining. I also got to see some of my best friends in Seattle, so that was a great weekend.

This week was also filled with more method testing. We tried a new experiment which involves even more harmful chemicals. Since acetaminophen does breakdown once entered the body, we decided that we should probably also find a way to test for the most common breakdown product (p-aminophenol). Though we redid the test several times at high concentrations; we still could not get decent absorbance readings from the spectrophotometer. When I think about it, I think that I helped turned the Needoba/ Peterson lab from a simple oceanographic lab into a seriously chemical one.

I haven’t written for a while. In part that is due to my lack of actually being in my lab, well Paul’s lab. Last week I spent the majority of my time in Phoenix Arizona at an Alpha Chi Omega convention. Yes, I am a proud sorority woman. I had a fabulous time. What it really comes down to is Lois A. Herman. Not only was I privileged enough to hear her speak, but she sat at my table for lunch and I was at a loss of words. Now as a rule of thumb, I am generally not like this. In fact, I am generally someone who is accused of having too many words. But Lois can have a way with people.

We collected water samples at different depths today with Niskin bottles attached to the CTD. The water goes to the scientists in the wet lab for filtering and measuring chemical properties. Today's video blog has Byron Crump giving a tour of the wet lab and the work being performed.

This morning we docked at the Port of Astoria to switch out some scientific crew members and to pick up our Argos drifters. Our coring team of Mouzhong Xu, Mindy Ingebretson and Paul Walczak got off the ship and were replaced with grad student Caroline Fortunato, undergraduate intern Lauren Vice, and webmaster/videographer Jeff Schilling. We made a run to Fred Meyer for some more buckets and some dry ice for transporting sediment core samples back to OHSU. We also relaxed a little. Many folks went bowling in Astoria.

After we finished sampling the La Push line we spent the night steaming back to the mouth of the Columbia to start a Feature Tracking exercise in the 'young' plume. Grant Law from the modeling team provided a list of way points/times designed to sample across a range of surface salinities within the plume, including a point just outside the plume front. This is a challenge because the plume is very dynamic and changes shape and size dramatically with the tides (see attached movies).

After completing our work on the Cape Falcon line, we spent the nighttime cruising up the Washington, casting the CTD at station along the 100m isobath all the way to LP-12 on the La Push line. We then moved inshore to LP-4 to start the La Push line. We casted the CTD at 10 stations going east to west (LP-4, 6, 9, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 42, 52), collected water samples at three depths at four stations (LP-6, 17, 32, 52), measured primary production at one station (LP-6), and collected sediment cores at two stations (LP-17, 52). Our team is now processing samples with confidence and ease.

Now that I am up to speed on how to operate the CTD, Justin and I performed a cast every half hour for 12 hours straight. Byron was chasing salinity in the Columbia River estuary. Tired and a little haggard, I recorded this video blog around midnight at the end of my shift.