Delor and Jim tinkering with the temperatures in the header tanks that feed water to the channels. |
Delor will be in charge of running the streamside channel experiment where we are warming a cold stream to 5 different temperatures and 6 levels of nitrogen enrichment. As a result, she has been working with Jim Hood to get this experiment set up and to learn the ins and outs of managing the flows, temperatures, and nutrient additions so that she can troubleshoot the experiment as needed throughout the summer. I was happy to hear from them as they returned from the field quite late last night that the experiment is now fully up and running. This is a huge accomplishment and we are grateful to them for their amazing work on this. So, it looks like we are now officially underway.
Tomorrow, we also start adding 15N (a heavy naturally occurring isotope of nitrogen that can be used to track the movement of nitrogen in our streams) to 4 of the streams in Hengill that span our temperature gradient. We will sample the stream intensively over the next 5 days and continue sampling over the course of the summer to monitor the movement of our isotope through the bacteria, algae, and invertebrates. So, we are ramping up and the team is learning all of the procedures needed for the sampling. We can feel the calm before the sampling storm.....
Bree hiking close to the channel experiment site. While the landscape is still a bit brown and snowy, the hot pots are steamy! |
Bree and Abbi arrived last Sunday and immediately went to the field to help with the channels. They had a chance to do some hiking that day as well, and just yesterday they spent some time exploring Reykjavik. They will be crucial members of the team this summer and I am excited to get our sampling underway this week. In fact, we will be camping out at Hengill a few nights this week to collect diel samples - we will be collecting gas samples from the streams every hour for 24 hours and helping to check the 15N drips. So, more to follow soon and we will be sure to get a few team photos!
View of Reykjavik from the top of the Hallgrimskirkja. |
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