A Glimpse Into The Past

As Groundhog Day continues, a 7 AM wake up was followed by a breakfast of cream of wheat, eggs, and a choice of either banana nut or blueberry muffins as we repeat meal menus. Mike made his rounds, getting opinions on departure time. The group landed on 8:45 AM as a happy medium. The truck was loaded up and then we were off to the fossilized reef. Again. This time around, the waves were more tame; like a toddler at the end of a tantrum as Mike would put it. At the fossil reef, we used the point contact method to determine percentage cover of corals with quadrants along 4,14 meter transects. Quadrats were placed on the 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 meter marks.



We observed multiple types of fossilized corals, with Staghorn, Elkhorn, Brain, and Star being the most abundant. We also spotted numerous intertidal snails that had been washed up onto shore and went as far back as the Australian pines that bordered the area. 




After collecting data we wrote our field notes for this site in our notebooks while enjoying the sun and playing with the hermit crabs! 



When we returned to the station, we had about an hour to ourselves before lunch. Hot dogs, leftover pizza, beans, and some delicious lemonade with a chocolate cake dessert was served for lunch. 


By this time all of us were starting to feel the exhaustion and burnout from the trip. Therefore, the remainder of the day consisted of free time in which most of us caught up on figure analysis and some much needed sleep. 


Today's figure analysis was on a study performed on the exact reef pictured above! This allowed us to get a deeper understanding of the paper and actually perform a mini replication of their methods. 

Dinner rolled around and we enjoyed some chicken, black beans in rice, Mac n cheese, coleslaw, and vanilla cake with frosting! 


During class we discussed the paper and our hopefully set in STONE plans for tomorrow of exploring a cave and visiting the highest point of the island at the Dixon Hill lighthouse! This lighthouse towers over the island at a whopping 163 ft and on clear days gives viewers a visibility of 19 miles. 


See you tomorrow! 


-Breana, Camilee, and Helena 


Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 15, 2023 at 7:27 PM

    Glad you made it to the fossilized reef. That sounds really cool. I bet you’re getting a little tired and burn out but you sure seeing some amazing things. And you’re avoiding all the nasty weather here in the states.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2023 at 9:39 AM

    Fabulous!

    ReplyDelete

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