Week 4: The carpets of green, the glimmering white, and the Parr 6725 semimicro bomb calorimeter.7/24/2023 No matter how many times I step out onto the seagrass beds, they will never cease to amaze me. The beautiful blades of grass overlapping, matting the ground emerald green with streaks of white –flowering shoots– looking almost painted on, it’s quite the sight to behold. Lucky for me, this week was the spring tide series, and even luckier for me, that means going out to the beds. Unlucky for me, however, that also means waking up at 5 AM and racing against the tide to get shoots counted and collected. Monday was the first day out in the field, and after some minor boat problems, I accompanied Ali to Valino Island where we did density surveys and collected shoots for the OSU Crew™ (Lara and her two REU students at Oregon State, Zahra and Amber), while they did the same at Collver point. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the start of what would be a very long day. The next day all 5 of us went out to Clam Island, where we ran the whole operation again on another beautiful and sunny morning. Wednesday was the last field day, and my first time visiting one of 2 other sites I hadn’t yet been to, Fossil Point. While the weather may not have been as beautiful and the tides not as forgiving, it was one of my favorite field outings yet simply because of all the critters we saw. Every time I looked down, a shimmering sea hare or a scuttering juvenile Dungeness crab caught my eye. Even once we got back to the lab the fun didn’t stop, as upon going through my samples I found a little gift that Zahra and Amber had left for me; a large five-spined crab at the bottom of my bag of shoot samples! Anyone who knows me knows there's nothing I love more than looking at little sea critters, and this week had me overjoyed. Sadly, however, it can’t all be fun and games, as this week also saw me contest with my newfound nemesis: the Parr 6725 semimicro bomb calorimeter. The energetics part of my project is something I’m really excited about, but it’s taught me that science can often be trial and error, and more error. Though PhD candidate Caitlyn Plowman from the Young lab had given us an amazing training session on running the machine, at the end of the day it’s a complicated machine and one where mistakes are easy to make. The first run on Monday took us a while to figure out, and ended up giving us an invalid result. Though a little disheartening, it was a learning experience and by the end of the day we had kind of got the hang of it with 2 back to back successful runs bookending a 13 hour day of work. Naturally I came in on Tuesday with an air of confidence. Spoiler alert: the confidence was unfounded. After one unsuccessful run to start the day, we ran into a problem as the bomb (the part where the sample is combusted) refused to pressurize. After trying nearly everything I ended up having to leave for lunch, and thankfully Ali was able to figure the problem out while I was gone. Though I was quite frustrated, and at one point even willing to completely give up on this part of the project, Ali was extremely encouraging. It was an important lesson, things don’t always go your way, but even if the process continues to give us trouble I’m willing to give it my all. Outside of research, this week wasn’t too crazy. We had a fun Sunday as all the Interns from Oregon State came down to OIMB and we got to give them a tour of our facilities and the CMLC. It was fun meeting so many new people, explaining my research to a fresh set of minds and answering their questions – hopefully good practice for our presentations next week! Other than that, on Tuesday I spent a majority of the day doing a kayak training session at the marina with Eric from SSNERR’s education program. It was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had here, kayaking alongside harbor seals and laughing as we all horrendously attempted newly learned maneuvers. It was a great bonding experience for my fellow interns and I, especially the rescue portion of the training where we had to capsize our kayak by flipping over to our side and plopping (for lack of a better word) ourselves into the water. Watching and laughing at each other flip over was the most fun part of my week, and shout out to Lara, the “rescuer” for the day, for safely getting me to shore.
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AuthorHey guys! My name is Shreyaan Seth and I'm a rising junior majoring in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and Econ at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I was originally born in Davenport, Iowa, but have spent most of my childhood growing up in Gurgaon, India. This summer I'll be working with Ali Helms from the SSNERR on eelgrass seed functional diversity with implications for restoration of the seagrass here in Coos Bay! ArchivesCategories |
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