Bog Water Collection

This past week I stepped outside of the local Ordovician rocks and went to Brown's Lake Bog in North-Eastern Ohio with a group of friends from the geology department. As part of a field methods class we are off to the bog to sample water from a variety of sources.

We had amazing weather. The trees are just starting to bud, but we were still able to collect leaves from the canopy with the help of a slingshot ;)

Here I am using a bailer to clear out the monitoring well so we can be sure to be sampling a fresh recharge.

YES... I said sling shot :) We shot beanbags into the tree to release leaves from the top of the canopy.

Here's my friend Julia collecting water from the bog.

We will be running carbon and oxygen isotopes on each of the sample next week to think about the source of the bog water. These samples are apart of an ongoing research project so I wont be going into details, but I'll have to have some photos of our new mass spectrometer to show you when I am done.

After we were done with the bog we went over to the small lake and used a pump and filter to collect particulate organic matter (POM) at different depths. POM = dijon mustard of the lake

At the end of the day we packed up our gear and drove home, collecting samples from various waypoints along the way.

Next week... science happens :)