Urban ecosystems and green spaces are paramount to the mental well-being of communities. Lakes and ponds in particular provide a critical venue for recreational opportunities from swimming and fishing in the summer, to ice-skating in the winter, and in some cases provided drinking water to local communities. Because of their proximity to residential and industrial developments, urban ponds are also vulnerable to local sources of pollution such as road and lawn runoff and factory effluent. No pond typifies both the importance and vulnerability of urban ponds better than Providence’s Mashapaug Pond. Continue reading
Limnology Field Trip
Yeah, we take limnology seriously
Well, classes are wrapping up at Brown and my official duties as Limnology TA are done. But my unofficial duties aren’t complete until I get some more awesome limno field trip pictures online. The class does two trips to Pout Pond (Belmont, NH) each year. The first trip is in winter (see previous post), and the second trip, shown here, is in spring.
Sediment Coring in Rhode Island
Chris pounds the core tubing into the marsh.
Hi. I hope that my abundance of field-work related pictures does not lead you to believe this is all I do. The vast majority of my time is spent in the lab or on the computer analyzing samples and data, and making figures and writing. These are all very exciting things to do. None-the-less, I am sharing more field work pictures because they are prettier. Two field projects I helped with this spring involved sediment coring in Rhode Island. Continue reading
Limnology Field Trip
Hello blogosphere! Happy 2016!! We survived winter and the geology field season is ramping back up in the northern hemisphere. To kick off the 2016 fieldwork campaign I went with Brown University’s Limnology class, taught by Jim Russell, on a field trip to New Hampshire. The goal of the class is for students to become familiar with and proficient in all things related to lakes, and this includes field sampling. Six students, Jim, and I went to Pout Pond, near the town of Belmont, NH to take water measurements and samples. Students measured lake temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, alkalinity, and secchi depth, and took water samples to measure salts and nutrients.
Here are some pictures from the beautiful day.
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- Brown University Limnology class, 2016 (Well, half the class anyway. The other half of the class will sample Pout Pond from a boat later this semester).
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- Yinsui uses a kemmerer water sampler to collect water from 1 m depth increments. The vertical profiles of water chemistry, temperature, etc. can tell a lot about the state of a lake. For example, in 10 years limnology field trips, Pout Pond has remained permanently stratified, with a salty, dense layer of water at the bottom. Lakes with permanent stratification are called meromictic.
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- Patrick measuring alkalinity using a colorometric test kit.
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- Patrick, Nick, and Rebecca collecting water samples.
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- Alkalinity titrations.
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- The class samples Pout Pond in Belmont, NH on a beautiful winter day.
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- Yinsui and Sydney filtering water for anion, cation, and nutrient analyses.
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- What’s the secchi depth, Jim?
Blood Moon Pictures
I recently moved into a house on Transit St. in Providence. Legend has it that the house was built by the aunt of composer George Cohan (this was a big selling point for me, no doubt). But, that is only kind of cool in comparison to the etymology of the street name itself. Transit Street was so named because in the 18th century, it was considered one of the prime locations in the world to view the Transit of Venus (the passage of Venus between Earth and the sun) and astronomers from New England gathered there to watch the event in 1769.
The pictures below are not the Transit of Venus, but they do represent a planetary transit that I captured earlier this fall. It is the blood moon – a combination supermoon and complete lunar eclipse. I took pictures at 30x optical zoom with my Nikon point-and-shoot camera mounted on a tripod. I was pleased with the outcome from such a small camera. Enjoy.
The start of the lunar eclipse
Just about fully eclipsed
The Blood Moon.
For Love of Limnology 