Today was our third day here at FGCU Vester Marine lab, so far everyday has been an adventure. Our first day was core sediment sampling day. Dr. Jo Muller gave a brief lecture about Estero bay's (where Vester lab is located) geological history, and explained a bit about sediment stratification in different ecosystems. We also discussed how to identify when an ecosystem may have undergone change through the sediment changes. It was very interesting! Then we loaded the boats and headed to the field to take some sediment core samples of our own. I have to say I enjoyed this process very much! I believe one of my classmates uploaded a video in case you would like to see us in action! :) We used 4m long aluminum pipes, a handle, total team coordination, and of course our brute strength. We collected three samples in two different locations. We returned back to the lab to open them up and analyzed them. It was really interesting to see the stratification in the samples. We could even see areas called tempest site, which is a layer of stratification usually with shell hash that indicates some extreme weather event. During our analysis we matched specific color to a variety of options proved in a book, the shell coverage, species (that we could i.d.) present, and possible environment. After analyzing the cores we did a write up of what possible morphological changes these sampling site had undergone due to their geologic history. I really enjoyed this day and found the sampling methods fun and the analyzing the samples very interesting.
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Vester Marine Lab facility
bottom left view from my window :)
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Top left clockwise: lecture with Dr. Jo, equipment used,
opened cores, myself and Laura analyzing core #3
(we were in a poorly lit section, hence the headlamps)
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