Thursday, March 29, 2007

Molecular Scientist for a Day!


Zzyzy,CA~ Today's field experience consisted of soil sampling on the Silver Lake dry lake bed with Linda Powers. We did an initial site survey and deemed it not dry enough to survey. Our second site proved to be worthwhile in going forward with the survey. Heather, a graduate student working with Dr. Powers, explained how to collect sterile samples and label them appropriately for their current research. The samples were to be labeled MJ07-06(then lettered based on site). The initial MJ is for Mojave, the 07 is for 2007 and the -06 was because it was the sixth site that had been surveyed in Mojave since their arrival.

We took a total of 13 samples from the entire site. The survey included a main site with samples at the crust layer, six inches, one foot and two feet. At that time, based on readings from the Mahana, we took nine additional samples that also included one wash area.

The Mahana is an instrument that uses light to measure biotic activity (remnants leftover from respiration). It did not determine the actual form of the biotic activity just whether it is there or not.

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