I think I say this every day, but it was a beautiful day! It’s raining right now. Love the rain.
 |
| Lexy and I in the lab |
Followed the morning routine today for the most part. I love my new little caffé maker, it makes a great brew so we indulged in that. I figure we have to make 10 caffé’s on that little guy to have it paid for itself. So, 8 more to go! Whohooo! Now I have to figure out how to get some sleep on caffeine. We left for the university around 8, got there shortly after.
Scott was in the office today so that was helpful. I think I mentioned Monday that there is a shortage of the deionized water and we were waiting for instructions whether we could use tap water or not for cleaning the sediment. We can!! Yippy!!! We had to slightly alter our procedure for the storage process. Initially we were just placing our samples in a vial, and because they had only been exposed to the deionized water there was no issue with degradation of the sample. Since we switched to tap water for cleaning we had to add a drop of 10% hydrochloric acid to the vial. HCl is a strong acid which is able to neutralize any ions left from the original tap water that could degrade the sample.
 |
| The organic matter from the core under the dissecting microscope |
I performed the same job I had last lab day, I was Microscope Girl. I really want a cape! It made the most sense because I have more experience with plants as well as using microscopes than Lexy does. She rocks at the chemistry and math stuff so I’m more than happy to handle the biology stuff. Not that bits of leaves that are hundreds of years old are really life anymore, but I digress.
We were able to clear about five samples before lunch. Since Scott was there I shared with him some of my concerns about the samples. I’m not exactly sure what to look for so he offered to walk me through a sample. The one we had ready didn’t seem that great, and it really wasn’t. However, like a typical scientist, he looked through the microscope and was instantly excited! He saw some little moon shaped objects I’ve been writing off as the carapace of some insect, and while I was partially right, they are apparently interesting. These moon shaped objects are the mouth parts of something called a Chironomid. This is one of the aquatic stages of midges, those little bug you see flying over water. (You may also know that term if you like fly fishing! And if you do, teach me!!!) Chironomidae are found in water at a specific temperature therefore the Chironomidae act as an identifier for the status of the lake at that time. I was able to pull out a whole bunch of these so Scott can potentially send them to a colleague of his. He also pointed out the Ostracods again, these look like little white or clear beans. I need to look these suckers up, I don’t know anything about them. We also found a few gastropods in the sample. Now, who can tell me what “gastro” means!!? You may have heard of a gastroenterologist, they would study your stomach (and other attached organs). Pod you may know, and not as a device that plays music. Foot. So gastropods literally have a stomach foot. Snails are gastropods. So, what I see in the microscope are little shells that look like mini snail shells. Very cute!
 |
| Diatoms and other particles. 200X |
I had a bit of down time between samples so I was able to hop on the other microscope and check out the smear slides again. The diatoms in some of those slides are so amazing. Claire taught me more about the importance of the diatoms; the researchers are looking in the different layers of sediment for diatoms because diatoms are specific to the body of water they are in and they are also very susceptible to temperature and pH. By finding key diatoms that have known temperature and pH tolerances they are able to extrapolate those conditions for the lake at that time. In the picture to the left the diatoms are mostly the canoe shaped objects. They do come in many different shapes, but those are the most abundant varieties in the samples so far. I really like microscopes.
Lunch was very similar to yesterday, except for the rain. It’s so beautiful. A soft little sprinkle. We all ate lunch inside, still visited our caffé, then back to work. Lexy and I completed three more samples. On the last one I asked one of the resident plant experts named Alfredo to help me find plants. Alfredo told me I’m going to be crazy by the time I go back to the States! At that moment, after staring through the scope all day I'm sure he was right. Alfredo found a small leaf for me and in my excitement I promptly hit the petri dish by accident!!! I searched forever and I still couldn't find that darn leaf again! We did however find one pretty good sample today, I was able to get some very nice leaf fragments out of it. Even Alfredo thinks they may be terrestrial.
 |
| Gianluca talking to Scott, Alfredo looking in the microscope |
That pretty much wraps up today. Picked up some new music on my iTunes because I was desperate, and the .69¢ bin on iTunes has some good 80’s music. OH! For the record, typing on an Italian keyboard is a headache. There were three symbols on one key, and I for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to get the one I wanted. So glad I brought my Macintosh! We are coring Lake Ventina tomorrow, so that will be fun to explain. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this goes, and it helps that this is a swimming lake. Nothing like science and a tan!
No comments:
Post a Comment