Connecticut Week 2- The Project

           Wow, the past two weeks have been amazingly busy! I’ve been back out on the boat to collect more data, filtered and weighed hundreds of samples, travelled around the area both for geology and environmental studies and for fun, and most importantly decided on my project topic!

            In addition to continuing the CTD and water samples data collection from last week, we got to go out and get a few core samples. Collecting cores is a process that involves hammering a hollow plastic and metal cylinder, or core barrel, several meters into a river, pond, or lake bed and pulling it back up. The result is a cylinder full of mud and sand layers that are preserved in the same order that they exist in the ground. Because these cores are the result of hundreds or thousands of years of sediment deposition, they can be dated and examined for a variety of chemical, biological, and environmental changes through time.

           Our group got cores from an entirely freshwater cove of the Connecticut River last week and tomorrow we’ll be getting some from South Cove, which is in the saltwater section of the river.

A core that was just pulled out of Selden Cove.

Cutting open the core barrel to expose the sediment.

An opened core from Hamburg Cove. Some color and compositional changes are visible.

            How do these cores relate to my thesis project? Well after about a week of library research, talking to all experts that I could find, and a slew of trial and error test runs, I decided that studying the plastic particles in the Connecticut River wasn’t the project for me. Although all of the researchers that I talked to thought it would be a great project if it worked, each of their emails began by informing me that they had no experience with such small particles of plastic or a river setting and that while they wished me luck, they couldn’t be of much assistance in developing a protocol to use since it has never been done before. While I would love to be able to claim that I invented a new method of plastic diagnostics and came across groundbreaking results, the sad truth is that I simply do not have the time or persistence to do an innovative but potentially unsuccessful project.

            Instead, I decided to pursue a project studying diatoms, single-cell phytoplankton algae with complex silica cell walls. Their skeletons are well preserved in cores and because each species lives in a very specific environment, they can tell us about the environmental conditions at they time that they formed. I haven’t worked out all of the details yet, but I’ve decided to do an analysis of the marine diatoms in the saltwater cores in hopes of finding evidence of changes in sea level and water quality.

Several species of diatoms. Cool huh?
From: http://www.urbanrivers.org/drawingdiatoms/diatoms.html

I’ll keep you updated on my progress!

Liz

Getting Started in Connecticut

             Now that Kelly has gotten our blog off to a great start, I’ll tell you a bit about myself and my summer geology project in Connecticut- a beautiful place but definitely different from Bend, Oregon!

            I’m Liz George. I’m a rising senior majoring in Geology and Environmental Studies. This summer I’m doing a project with the Keck Geology Consortium, a program that joins eighteen universities in an effort to provide enriching research experiences in the geological sciences to undergraduate students. I’m working with geology professors at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT as well as five other students from Beloit College, Wesleyan University, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Our project is a study of the dynamics of the lower Connecticut River in terms of salinity, tidal characteristics, and sediment transport. We’ll all end up doing slightly different projects using the data that we’ll be collecting together during the four-week program.

I'm here! 

            I’ve been here for a whole week already (sorry for being so slow to blog!) and the experience has gotten off to a great start. After a painfully long drive up here from Atlanta, GA, I got settled in the dorms and familiarized myself with Wesleyan’s beautiful campus. We spent the beginning of last week learning about the river, hearing about previous research projects, and figuring out all the high-tech equipment that we’re using to collect our data.

            The Connecticut River is 650 km long, flowing from Quebec to Long Island Sound. We’re studying the lowest section of the Connecticut River, the tidal river channel and estuary, where the salt water from Long Island Sound and fresh water from the river mix. Environmental organizations, such as The Nature Conservancy, protect some stretches of the river, but the 400 towns and cities along the river’s banks have taken a toll on the quality of the river, despite it maintaining a remarkably pristine appearance. The area that we’re studying contains important biological habitats but suffers from human efforts to make the channel navigable for boats and resistant to flooding as well as from pollution due to the extensive industrialization that has occurred in New England in the past two hundred years. Hopefully our research this summer will help us to better understand how the Connecticut River functions and responds to human activity, which will be useful in efforts to protect it.  

A marsh on the bank of the river, home to Osprey, eagles, and many other species of wildlife

A marina near the mouth of the Connecticut River

A lighthouse near the entrance to Long Island Sound

            Finally, on Thursday, the real fun began- spending the day on the river collecting samples! Since we still haven’t picked which individual projects we’ll be working on (I’m hoping to study the amount of plastic and other man-made materials being transported as sediment in the river), we all got to have a turn using all of the equipment.

To collect dredge samples, this clamp is lowered using a pulley. When it hits the riverbed, it fills with sediment which we then pull back up to the surface and take to the lab to analyze.

The CTD sensor which takes temperature, salinity, and depth measurements.

            After collecting over 200 water and sediment samples as well as CTD data, we got to work analyzing it in the lab. Hopefully we’ll get through the lab work quickly and have another day out on the water again soon!

          Liz

The journey to Bend

Since this is my first post, I figure I should introduce myself a bit and talk a little about where I'm working this summer. I'm Kelly, a rising senior Environmental Studies major with minors in Poverty and Education. This summer I will be working with the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) in Bend, Oregon. ONDA’s mission is to “protect, defend, and restore forever the health of Oregon’s native deserts.” With the help of dedicated volunteers, they work to identify and protect wilderness areas throughout the state. Their ultimate goal for most of these areas is to have them officially designated as wilderness by Congress. This ensures they are protected forever. 

Getting to Bend was the first part of this summer adventure. I had the opportunity to drive out to Oregon from Houston with my friend Karen, and it was amazing! It took a little over 10 hours to actually get out of Texas, but once we made it out west, we had a great time.

Our route to Bend

Snow-capped peaks on the drive from Durango, CO, to Utah

My favorite stops were definitely in Utah. We visited Arches National Park and Canyonlands, and they were both spectacular. We had a great little hike around Arches and got a little lost at one point, but we were able to see some amazing stuff!

Landscape Arch

One "O" of Double O Arch

Canyonlands

La Sal Mountains

After a night in Salt Lake City and then Boise, we finally arrived in Bend. It was a lot colder than we Texans are used to in the summertime! We went on a drive up to explore around Mt. Bachelor, but we were turned back because of snow. Then it was on to Portland so Karen could catch her flight home.

Mt. Bachelor

Starting to snow on Mt. Bachelor

Three Sisters - Faith, Hope, and Charity

Mt. Hood

And that was the end of our adventure! I just finished up my first week at ONDA, and it's been great so far. We're going on a hike and outreach visit tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that goes and tell you more about the project I'll be working on for the summer!

Kelly