6/20 Field Science!!!

Before leaving the university last night, Scott sat Lexy and I down to discuss today’s (Thursdays) plan.  Meet outside Porta della Verita at 7:30, hit a café, head to the vegetative sampling site, lunch with the mayor, then more sampling.  This was quickly followed up with Scott saying, “Course that’s just the plan.”  I suppose when you compare the two stories, there aren’t too much in the way of deviation...  I’ll let you be the judge!

Lexy and I met Paula on a bench at our meeting place outside Porta della Verita at 7:30.  Around 8, Paula had the smart idea to check our phones for texts.  Voila!  Last night Scott sent us a message saying to meet at the winged statue at 8:25.  Sooo, I grabbed Paula’s kayak paddle and we walk over there to meet Scott.  Turns out there was an issue with the cores that were being shipped back to the US, so we had to run to the FedEx to take care of that.  Finally around 9:30 we leave to head to the lakes.  The ride to the spring took an hour and a half,  there was a little family of very protective swans paddling around.  Even with the fence between us I was a bit worried I’d get attacked!!!

Swans on Lake Lungo

 Those swans were big...  So at this point Paula is going to take some samples, and Scott is going to do vegetation.  I’ve been saying all week I’m doing vegetative samples, right?  Well, remember that paddle?  I end up with Paula in a truck heading to Lake Lungo.  Oh my gosh, this was the beginning of a hilarious sampling session.

Lake Ventina, notice the logging
on the hill in the center

Lake Lungo is a peaceful little lake surrounded by tall grasses and lily pads a few meters into the lake.  No trees, basically farm land all around.  The rangers we had with us brought a nice little boat to take us out in the lake, and they were awesome about setting the boat up.  I should explain these two.  I couldn’t understand a word they said, but boy were they great.  Paola and Andre, these two are the most compatible argumentative coworkers I’ve ever seen.  They were lowering the boat into the lake, Andre did it too fast, Paola seemed to correct him.  Paola was in the boat trying to get the motor to work, Andre was correcting her.  Paula and I were laughing the entire time.  Ok, enough of that, down to business.

Paula is a diatom person.  Diatoms are little tiny guys, microorganisms that can be found in any water (well, minus bottled water).  They are beautiful little things, they look like little pill boxes.  Each type is unique to the water they are found in.  We traveled to the middle of the lake to take some readings

PH Test Strip

from the lake.  It was very interesting watching the equipment Paula brought, things I’ve used before but I’m not too familiar with.  First we did some test strips, and after a few mess ups we were able to get readings from them.  (Turns out some you have to leave in the water, others you let sit out of the water...  At least the instructions were in English!)  We were able to get a basic chlorine, nitrite, salinity, and pH readings from these.  Next Paula brought out salinity probe.  This probe has a long lead that goes deep into the water so we were able to take salinity readings at different depths.  The lake was only 4 meters deep, so this was a quick process.  Next came a device I’d never seen before, a secchie disk.  This is basically just a white plate with a cord attached to the center of the disk.  With this you take a reading of how clear the water is by judging how far down you can see the disk.  The

Oakton Pen

water of Lake Lungo is fairly clear, Paula could see the disk down to about 3.5 meters, not bad for a lake only 4 meters deep.

Then came out the  Oakton pen. The Oakton pen is very simple to use; place the tip underwater, and it takes several reading for you.  Temperature, salinity, conductivity, pH, and dissolved particles.  After taking these samples it was time to return to shore.  On our way back to shore, Paula used a sock like device to help “sift” out some phytoplankton from

Paula collecting
phytoplankton

the lake’s surface.  Paola was able to use the motor to get us relatively close to shore, but those darn lilly pads were not good for the propeller, so the two of them rowed us to shore.  (Yes, I sound lazy here, but I was at the very back of the boat.  When I tried to row it was very useless.)  While Paola and Andre battled the boat, Paula and I gathered some small vials of diatoms and phytoplankton from the shore.  Paula had me get the ones off the dock.

Me collecting samples from the dock

After the lake, we took a little detour to a small market/cafe.  I wanted a cold coke, no surprise there I’m sure, so we all ended up going in.  There was a lady at the door giving out samples of something, so we all took one. It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. Turned out to be deep fried (or something like that) zucchini flowers with just a touch of salt. So Good! I could have eaten a field of them. I ended up getting some pizza (not pizza, but pizza.  Ok, I’ll stop confusing you.  They call the bread pizza is made on pizza.  It’s quite good on it’s own) and my coke.  But wait, there’s more.  As I was passing by this nice gentleman walked out and out recommended the cremosito.  I’m always good for a recommendation.  Andre bought us all one of these little delightful frozen coffees.  He is my favorite man in the world at this point.  Not sure which I liked better, the cremosito or the zucchini flower.  But I digress!  

We collected three more water samples after our “lunch” at some nearby springs.  These were all very small in the farm land that surrounds Lake Lungo.  No boat, so easy to take the measurements.

Me with the Mayor!

After sampling, Andre and Paola dropped us off and we then had lunch with the Mayor of Rieti.  How cool is that?  I don’t know who the mayor of Reno is, but I’ve dined with the Mayor of Rieti, Italy!! He has a beautiful house.  Very down to earth guy.  After some silly jokes about loving to eat pasta but not liking to buy it, so he just bought a wife that makes pasta (she laughed more than he did at this), he told us about his efforts to help the environment in Rieti.  He complained that the politicians in Rome don’t know about the environmental issues of the surrounding areas. To better inform the Roman politicians he has entertained them at his house for lunch so they can see first hand exactly what is going on.  A very smart man who cares about the environmental challenges facing his constituants.  Such and honor to meet the mayor and enjoy a wonderful lunch. A great memory I'll never forget.

Next we visited some Roman ruins.  It’s interesting because these tie back to the whole project

Me in the Roman Ruins

proving that there were people in this area who were affecting the landscape and flora. Their activities effected the pollen in the area by both logging or planting crops.

Since we left Viterbo late Scott still wanted to take one more vegetative sample.  Fine with me!!  Plants are awesome.  This time Lexy went with Paula, so I went with Scott.  We went out to Lake Ventina (I think...  I need to double check this).  This is a beautiful lake.  A swimming lake.  This is the one we are coring next week.  So, Scott and the rest of our crew took off to the woods.  I had something completely different in mind when I was all excited about this, but at least this did end up entertaining.  First we had to scale a rock wall of sorts. On the side of the road there was a steep hill we had to climb up. At the top the foliage looked thick, which I hoped would open up into a clearing.  No such luck!!!  There were points where I couldn't even stand up because there were so many branches overhead.  We traveled just a bit from the road, it was so difficult to move and there was no visible change in vegetation.  We collected mosses to process for current pollen trapped inside them to compare with historical samples.  This will help to give us an idea of how the vegetation has changed around the lake.

Wow...  Long day.  Lots of sampling, creating more work to be done.  Gotta love it!  Ok, going to eat some dinner and crash.  Spoleta tomorrow!!!