Last weekend, I worked through the weekend - both Saturday and Sunday - to finish sampling the first set of data at one of my sites. Then on Monday I made the standards for the GC (gas chromatograph) and ran my samples. It was really exciting! As you can see in the picture to the left, I get quite excited about data, especially running my own data. This is data I took and ran myself (with some help from the guys in my lab who know how to work the GC, but I took it all the samples all by myself!)
Let's back up a step. So what were all these gas samples I ran on the GC?
They are methane samples. I have vegetation plots (native, Phragmites, and mixed plots) out in the marsh. There are metal collars that two guys that I'm working with put in last summer. These metal collars are hammered into the ground, leaving 10cm poking up above the soil. On top of these metal collars I place plastic, metal framed chambers which are 70 or 120cm tall. In the taller Phragmites plots, I stack 2 chambers on top of each other - in fact at one of my sites, the Phragmites is so tall this early in the season that the next time I'm out sampling, I'll be stacking 3 tall chambers! There's hole with attached tubing on the top of these chambers from which gas can be extracted using a syringe. I extract an initial gas sample and 4 subsequent samples every 30 minutes for 2 hours. I have several of these chambers running at any given time, so it's always fun to organize the timing to bop between them. It's these gas samples that are then run on a GC to give methane concentrations. After the GC runs the samples overnight (there's a robot that samples the gas from the vials for me every 8 minutes!), a program is run to spit out a bunch on numbers - giving me exciting data to explore!! Look at that color coordination and fascinating figures! I spent Tuesday and Wednesday collecting methane flux data at my other site.
On Thursday, I had the shocking realization that the month of June was coming to a close! Where does time go?! And in order to say I took pore water data in June, I needed to get out there and take it asap! So that was my Friday, taking pore water! Having done my own I have so much more respect and understanding now for people who have several harsh words to say about collecting and running pore water samples. It's hard to collect from depths deeper than 20cm in the Phragmites plots - I was trying to collect at 20, 40, and 80cm. It smells horrible - imagine a mix between manure and rotting eggs. It's a struggle to filter! It takes so much more time than I thought it would - I went out to sample around noon, thinking I could sample, filter, and run the needed methane before 6pm. I did not finish in the lab until past 8:30pm. That was a longer than planned Friday work day. And I'm so thankful to my labmates Drew and Scott who both stayed late to help me work though my struggles and teach me how to use the old, non-automated GC!
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