Stuck on Science




Today was a whirlwind of a day! We started off the day heading to Pigeon Creek Estuary. On our way there, we made a quick pit stop so that Team Meiofauna could collect some samples. The bottom of the water looked stable, however, it was more like quicksand. Derek, who graciously volunteered to help, ended up getting stuck. We also found a flat worm floating in the water that we appropriately named Flat Stanley! Once we finished collecting samples, we headed to the estuary to look at urchins. We all jumped in to help both of our urchin teams in collecting data. Along the way we paused to marvel at some Acetabularia, a single celled green algae.



After a long swim and some chilly water, we were ready for lunch. We stopped at French's Bay for lunch and because a few extra group members joined us, we were short a few sandwiches, but we pulled it together and enjoyed our view.

From there we headed off to Telephone pole reef for more data collection! Team Patch Reefers, and the Urchin groups headed out on another round of data collection, which proved to be very successful. After we got out of the water we headed to Wendy's Snack Shack for some much needed ice cream. Then we hurried back to the GRC for a shower and dinner! After all the time in the sun today the cold showers on campus felt very refreshing. Now it's time to work on yet another figure analysis before a seminar on Christopher Columbus tonight. We can't wait to see what tomorrows adventures hold!

-Becca and Alex

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1, 2, 3, Seagrass Yippee.

Image
 Our morning started off with delicious pancakes and bacon to fuel us for a morning of counting seagrass. After breakfast we made our way to Graham's Harbor before stingray shuffling our way into the water just to find out that the tide was too high for counting seagrass in the shallow waters. We made our way to the deeper waters where Mike setup a transect line separated in 7 meter segments and at each segment we laid our quadrant. We then proceeded to take estimates of Manatee and Turtle seagrass coverage where visually, point intersect, and individual blade counts of the 2 different grasses were performed.   To help Liz count the seagrass Breana stood on her back to hold her down while she counted... very scientific.  Altogether we counted roughly 4000 blades of seagrass this morning... thanks Michael. When we plotted and viewed our data trends during lecture we noticed significant standard error. This trend exposed how amateur we were at counting sea grass. After escaping the n
Read more

What Happens in the Cave Stays in the Cave

Image
Bright and early, our alarms went off at 5:45 am to walk the half mile to Grahams’ Harbor to watch the sunrise. The view was fantastic, and a great way to start our day. After a delicious breakfast of French toast, bacon, and oatmeal, we loaded into the back of the truck for our daily adventure. Our first stop was at Dixon Hill Lighthouse where we climbed up a steep spiral staircase to reach the top, about 160 feet up in the air. We were given a short lesson on the historic oil mechanisms and weights that helped the lighthouse function. After all of us had a turn admiring the view from the top, we came down to inspect the millipedes that were crawling on the stairs and sign the guest book. While hanging out at the base of the lighthouse, a friendly dog approached us and was excited for pets and playtime. We decided to name the dog Mikey Junior, after our fearless leader Mike. In the process of playing with Mikey J, he ended up stealing the human Mike's hat!  Following our stop at t
Read more

Exam Day Fun

Image
1/9/23 We all woke up bright and early and after looking at the new bug bites we got overnight, we walked over for a 7:30 AM breakfast of French toast and sausages. Right after breakfast we got in the truck and drove to Rocky Point - our snorkeling location for the day. Rocky Point was a reflective beach located about 200 feet off the road from where the truck was parked. The weather was sunny and the air temperature was approximately 76 F and the water was right above 80 degrees.  With slates in hand we entered the after, ready to write down any observations or questions that came up.  The water around this patch reef was very clear and we were able to see lots of different species of coral, sponges, and fish. The reef was dominated by sea fans in bright colors, and lots of the fish that lived in close association with this reef were parrotfish, such as the rainbow parrotfish.  With high energy waves crashing onshore, we were able to feel the water movement even farther from shore lea
Read more