Percolation

I am not measuring metals in cornfield groundwater...

Pictures

Martin from the USDA emailed a few more pictures from our last sampling trip. The next trip is in just less than 2 weeks. Carla, an Earth Sciences undergrad, is going to come out with me to sample and set up the Licor (measures CO2 respiration from the soil). She will be completing her undergraduate thesis working with me (Thanks Berry!). She'll examine alkalinity (or the inorganic carbon flux) associated with different landuse types we are examining: forested, corn till, corn no till, mixed, and unimproved pasture. She is also planning to compare this with samples gathered from Peru this summer. It should be an interesting study because both glacial and agricultural watersheds have high erosion rates.

Thank you

Here's a picture of my dissertation defense committee: Anne Carey, Berry Lyons, me, Bryan Mark, and Lonnie Thompson. It was a good road to my PhD with their input and support. (And the support of Andrew Fountain who served on my dissertation committee). Recently, I had the chance to thank my adviser, Berry, for making my Antarctic dream possible. As I move forward leading my own research endeavors, I hope that I am able to give back as much as I have received. I could not have had better role models.

Adventures in Tilth

While at a recent conference (GSA-SSSA), I learned a new word: tilth. Tilth is all aspects of soil that relate to its fertility and productivity. Understanding tilth, includes examining the storage and loss of essential elements.

This weekend we dedicated ourselves to tilthly knowledge.

Pictured tilth crew activities: 1) Jen, volunteering from Metro High School (she's also been working on some data from Peru); 2) the mixed landuse field plot and the white groundwater monitoring building); 3) Klaus, Ilan, and Jen; and 4) Jen showing off her foot after retrieving her shoe from mud and Martin smiling at our muddy feet.

Carbon in Cornfields: all altitudes and latitudes considered

Well, the bottles are all lined up in a row for next weekend. A high school student and an undergraduate (now anonymous, but not for long) will be joining me heading out to Coshocton in the quest to understand the link between agricultural practices and the storage and loss of carbon from soil. But, I can't help but think of the cornfields high in the Andes, hanging from the sides of mountains. I'm looking at this landscape wondering how many hours of manually tilling and toiling would be needed to grow an acre of corn? And what is the rapid increase of temperatures at high altitudes and human industrial spewing of nitrate doing to those fields now.....???

Welch Crag

Yesterday my good friend, Kathy Welch, learned she had a crag named after her! (After she won a service award at Byrd Polar Research Center).

Welch Crag: 77°17'08"S Latitude, 160°36'37"E Longitude. A steep rugged peak, which is marked by secondary spires rising to 1500 m in the north-east part of McSaveney Spur, Willett Range, Victoria Land. Topographic Map: Webb Lake (1:50,000).

Here's to Kathy! She'll be blogging from the Antarctic soon in her 16th field season!

Till, no till, here we come!

Monday, I went out to the field with Andrea Grottoli so that we could get on the same page with our sampling effort. We're both transferring skills from different research arenas (glacier melt- me, and coral chemistry- Andrea) to understanding carbon storage in the pastures and cornfields of central Ohio. Andrea is very pregnant and wanted to make sure that her research tech/postdoc, Yohei new where to sample come mid-October.

The Peruvian side project is going well, I'm drafting a paper on the craziest metal concentrations ever observed in glacial melt .... and will get the draft and remaining data to Jeff and crew by the end of the year. The success of the Peruvian project is mostly due to the efforts of 2 undergraduates and now, 1 high school student (They are so good!!!!)

Update from the office

Hey all! OSU is on its own power grid, but large chunks of Columbus are still without power after Hannah and Ike made their way inland. Our trees are rather spindlely and we may have to push back a few fun cookouts to deal with the remnant limbs strewn across the yard. We are lucky to not have had further damage and wish those of you who are dealing with worse the best (especially those closer to the coast).

On the science front, I'll be heading to the December American Geophysical Union meeting to present some of the results from Peru (phew good data!). The water was as wacky as predicted... but plenty of data sorting and interpretation remains! The preliminary results are very exciting, this was not temperate glacial melt....

Also, next week is one more recon mission to the Coshocton Cornfields before the real deal begins. The fields should be glorious this time of year!

Making/Setting Standards

One month post Peru and I'm heading to the lab today. A history undergraduate with growing lab skills and an interest in the environment, Michael, has prepped the samples for analyses. Today, he, Catherine, and I are headed to the OSU Trace Element Research Lab to make some not-so -trace standards to measure the amount of metal in Peruvian water samples. I've taught Catherine the art of making ppt standards, but in today's refresher course we will move up to multi-element standards at high concentrations. We will make a 40 element 100, 10, and 1 ppM stock standard. (1 ppM is a grain of salt in an Olympic sized swimming pool...even so, many heavy metals are toxic at the 10 ppM level). To achieve this feat requires a lot of concentration (no pun intended), and good recording skills. I also think, hand-thumb coordination is a plus for pipetting small volumes of liquid.... if all goes well we will have some data soon.

High Altitude Footage

Dr. Jeff Bury (UC Santa Cruz) shot some footage on our high altitude trip...

Back at Byrd Polar

Made it home last night! (After catching the rojo ojo to Newark and a 6 hour layover I am safely home with my sample cooler untouched by customs!)

I'm back to work already, starting in on those dissertation edits stacked up on my desk and noticing the postdoctoral soil samples drying on the clean bench. (Thanks Jaika, Kathy and Berry for going out with the backhoe while I was away!)

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pics including me and Kyung-in at Yungay, dos Sara(h)s with Jeff M. Bryan and me in Quilcayhuanca, and Jeff B., Adam F., and me after our hike above 5000m!
(most of these are from Bryan's camera).

Familiarity

We (Jeff M., Jeff B., Sara K., and Michel B.) left Huaraz yesterday on the same 8 hour coach we arrived on... Lima feels more familiar with the constant street noise and neon lights and lack of poultry running around the street. (Pictured are some scenes from Huaraz). Bryan met us at the bus station and we all went to have pollo and papas one last time together. Bryan was on TV yesterday while we numbed ourselves on the bus. He discussed glacial retreat and was questioned about his 'friend' Al Gore. This experience included makeup, but all and all it sounds like it was a big success!

Sara and I are heading out to explore Lima before we catch the red eye. We were given the name of a cafe in Mireflores (the rather ritzy part of Lima) to start with. We will meet Jeffs, Bryan and some of the Peruvian Glaciology Group for lunch later... and best of all, I will be home with my wonderful husband, Trey, toasting us with the clean water straight from our tap in less than 24 hours.