SkIO Visit: July 24th-August 5th, 2016
For her third research trip, Emily spent two weeks at Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (SkIO) in Savannah, GA in order to evaluate the current sediment sampler prototype in SkIO's flowing seawater flume. SkIO is located on Skidaway Island and is a former cattle farm which was owned by the wealthy Roebling family, who donated the facility to the state of Georgia to establish a marine research facility in 1967. Under the guidance of co-PI Bill Savidge, Emily carried out dye-injection experiments aimed at shedding light on the flow characteristics around the sampler. The first few days were spent preparing the 8-m long flume for the experiments. This involved buying numerous 50-lb bags of sand from Home Depot and filling the working area of the flume with 900 lb of sand. Once the flume was ready, Emily inserted the sampler into the sand and visualized the flow around it by injecting rhodamine dye at points in the sand near the sampling probes. She took pictures at regular time intervals to produce visual time-series of the spreading dye. The flume can be adjusted to provide different flow rates, and she assessed the flow field at a number of flows corresponding to tidal velocities expected in the field. Emily's early results indicated that the current prototype design significantly affects the flow field in the vicinity of the sampler, which is undesirable given that this will introduce sampling artifacts. Subsequently, Bill came up with another sampler prototype design. Once this prototype has been constructed by the engineers at SRI, both this and the previous prototype will be evaluated by Emily in upcoming experiments to see which is the superior design. Emily also practiced methods to measure the porosity and permeability of sand samples, which will be useful for future field tests.
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SRI Visit #2: May 22nd-27th, 2016
After the academic year at Boston University ended, Emily made her second visit to SRI where Andres and Tim brought her up to speed on the developments to the PS and bench top MS systems. Emily was also introduced to the new Transpector MS computer program, which controls and collects data from the MS. Under the mentorship of Andres, Emily conducted three different experiments. The first was a gas calibration in which the bench top MS was used to monitor several gases of interest (methane, nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide) for four different solutions. The second experiment, conducted using the PS system, aimed at measuring the pressure drop as a function of flow rate across the system’s two measurement loops: the sampling loop, and the loop connecting the reference and MS lines. For the third experiment, the PS system was integrated with the MS system for the first time ever! Despite some unexpected setbacks (which meant that Emily gained a lot of valuable trouble-shooting experience...), enough data was collected in order to create an example methane calibration. All in all, the week was very productive with most of the planned activities successfully completed.
On the BU end, most of the parts required to build a replicate PS/MS system have been ordered. Once all of these supplies have arrived, one of the SRI PI’s will travel to BU to assist with setting up the PS/MS system. This is expected to occur in June, so stay posted for updates on progress during this exciting time!
On the BU end, most of the parts required to build a replicate PS/MS system have been ordered. Once all of these supplies have arrived, one of the SRI PI’s will travel to BU to assist with setting up the PS/MS system. This is expected to occur in June, so stay posted for updates on progress during this exciting time!
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SRI Visit #1: August 10th-14th, 2015
In August 2015, PI Wally and her Ph.D. student Emily travelled to St. Petersburg, FL to visit SRI International for the first time and meet PIs Tim, Andres, and Strawn in person. Wally conducted a seminar on the role of nitrogen cycling and the impacts of climate change within ecosystems such Narrangansett Bay, RI, which is the designated study site for the extensive field tests planned for the pore water sampler in Year 3 of the project. The team also held a meeting on the proposed design of the pore water probe assembly, with a new design to be constructed by the SRI and SkIO team members. Wally and Emily were introduced to the pore water sampler (PS) system and novel valving system, and a supply list of the necessary parts that Boston University will need to purchase in order to build their own pw-MIMS system was compiled. Emily stayed on to conduct a couple of experiments under the guidance of Andres, to (1) test the capabilities of the new valving system, and (2) to get a feel for the expected flow rates through the pore water probe while it is submersed in a column of sand. Overall, this proved to be a productive and enjoyable trip, and provided the stimulus for the next phase of the project!
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