South Carolina

Carol and Zoe have been on a tour of the southern Atlantic bight and first stop was the Santee Delta. As normal we were traveling light...

TSA particularly like our poles and rods taped together with some padding to prevent 'taking an eye out'

We have an ongoing study in the marshes of Cape Romain to look at the lengthening (aka headward erosion) of small creeks. These creeks have large regions at their ends, barren of all vegetation and intensely burrowed by little tiny crabs.

Carol sitting in a creek head - you can see the crab holes and you can also see where the channel is forming - the area with water still in it.

At high tide, the creek heads are full of water and, as the marsh drains, the water is funneled through the creek heads which are lower than the surrounding marsh platform.

Carol perched precariously on a sinking plank in about half a meter of water watching for fish.

In these photos we were trying to determine once and for all how active the burrowing crabs were during higher stages of the tide and whether they were actually digging up sediment while the marsh was inundated. They were not. But Carol and I "enjoyed" a four hour stint, sitting on a plank up to our armpits in water (at high water). Still we were able to get some water samples of suspended sediment over the tide, a few extra velocity measurements and draw a definite conclusion about the experiment being a waste of bloody time... And some people pay a lot of money to float in tanks of saltwater and get covered in mud, so it was a bit like a spa day.

We were also joined by the crew from University of Houston, who inspected the creeks and their vegetation and found out that this year the creeks have grown even faster than previous years.

No photos please! Steve is protective of the *star* graduate students Huy and Carol....

While we enjoyed a bit of coring, some sed-pad deployment and a little shear strength measurement, the highlight of the trip was, of course, measuring the SET again, but second to that was taking a bit of time at high tide to go and visit Light House Island. In a recent storm the shoreline was breached and the barrier island overwashed. (And we were able to sunbathe on the sand... which is much nicer than MUD).

Overwash on the barrier island - you can see waves breaking on the offshore (left hand) side. The water only breaches the island at high tide.

The sand from the barrier beach has been washed back into the marsh by large storm waves. Now it covers the marsh grass in lobes.

Carol's toe made a friend

Peace

Thanks to all our friends at Belle Baruch where we stayed, the Baldings who lent us their boat and the fisherman in McClellenville - especially Bob and his wife who provided wonderful lemonade after a 13 hour stint on the marsh.

Next it was off to Sapelo Island in Georgia (courtesy of the University of Houston taxi service otherwise known as Prof Steve Pennings and Huy Vu).

TIDE

The TIDE project has begun its field season, adding extra nutrients to a tidal creek and comparing its behavior with other creeks (which are not 'nutrient-enriched'). The project was initially started to look at how the ecosystem in a marsh would respond to increased nutrient levels (for example due to fertilizers washing off of agricultural land). The TIDE team noticed a geomorphological response going on too - plants are really important in the soil structure of marshes, so if the plants grow differently, the soils might behave differently and the landscape may change shape. This was what instigated the LENS project being proposed (and funded).

Anyway, before the TIDE team began their arduous work in Rowley marsh, we helped them put together the tank they use to deliver the fertilizer to the marsh - it involved electric screwdriver-drills and balancing stuff - how could we say no?

Sir David Samuel Johnson (PhD) of the Marsh gives instruction to Zoe as to how to screw the big platform....

Carol coverts the MBL drills....

 Building a huge (camouflaged) wooden structure on a very flat marsh is actually quite enjoyable and it made up for the fact that we had had a terrible day. It was actually Good Friday but we had to rename it Bad Friday after Zoe lost a piece of the shear vane. An important part. So we got very little done on Bad Friday except some elevation surveys and, of course, installing the tank.

Kate totally rules

 Kate was very pleased with the tank.  And we celebrated with some group portraits - although I am pretty sure someone promised me a mimosa.... hmmm....

Hat shot (to celebrate completion of the tank). You might not be able to tell, but the tank is camouflaged...

Collapse shot, in remembrance of the missing part of the shear vane.

Shear Pain...

Kate freezes on the bank for scale....

Wednesday till Sunday was the big shear vaning marathon at Rowley marsh. We are part of an NSF funded project to look at the impact of nutrients on the geomorphology of marsh platforms. Its called the LENS project (although I am pretty sure none of us know what that stands for...) and its being run in conjunction with a Long Term Ecological Research site at Plum Island Estuary (we call that PIE-LTER). Another NSF funded project at the LTER is artificially introducing nutrients (like nitrates) into the marsh to see what effect it has on the ecosystem (that project is called TIDE - we are very good at acronyms around here...).  But the folks at TIDE noticed that the geomorphology at the nutrient enriched site seemed to be changing compared to the control sites. Cue LENS. Which among other things looks to see how the channels are changing shape and if it differs in the nutrient-enriched and control sites.

We have lots of little studies that fit into LENS, but one of them is to look at the strength of the soils in banks of the creeks, both in the control and at the enrichment site. We use a shear vane....

Shear vane fully inserted horizontally into the creek bank. 

Not yet inserted on a vertical profile on the banks of Sweeney Creek. Its raining.

Here you can see the dial - you twist the black knob till the soil 'breaks' and then read off the number

Between Carol, Kate and myself, we did 2 horizontal and 2 vertical measurements at 36 points on 4 different creeks. Thats a LOT of bending over....

But we made it through... and now we hope that the big fat Spartina alterniflora roots don't cause too many crazy high numbers and we can see the trends.

BIG FAT ROOT that topped out my shear vane measurement....

And thanks to Kate Morkeski from the TIDE project for all these photos and for coming and helping us (and being a great sport in the field because Carol and I do sing quite a lot but mostly because it was cold, windy and rained, all except the last day).

More about the TIDE project folks and how we tried to help them in return soon....

A Day of Crate Building

Just putting up some of the pictures Joel took of Chris and I building our massive crates to ship all of our equipment away to fake France. These crates were all built from scratch and now weigh a ton (not really joking!) There was a fair amount of head scratching, but we measured twice, and most of the time only had to cut once! I skipped out at about 1ish, but Chris and Joel were working til the sun went down. With a lot of man power and the BU forklift hopefully the equipment, stowed safely in their new homes, will begin its voyage to fake France on Friday. See you on the other side!

 The raw materials!

 Using the sides as a model runway!

 Relaxing in my coffin or large bathtub!

Well done Chris and Joel!

Once more unto the beach...

Knee pads compulsory....

So, technically, field work started in March this year with a trip to measure the SET's in South Carolina.

Carol and Zoe measuring shear strength on the marsh platform in South Carolina

But it's going to really kick off soon with a five day event measuring the marsh strengths in Rowley, MA (and grilling/beer drinking at Marshview) with the MBL folks. The Boston-based crew are then off to 'Faux France' for a week in May... (aka Canada). And we have a new field site to scope out for work in July with UNO investigating tidal bars in Georgia (open invite to anyone who doesn't eat much, doesn't really need to sleep and likes to carry heavy stuff around all day).

Anyway before long, Carol will find herself living the dream...

and we won't be able to get the mud out from underneath our toenails until the end of the field season (luckily for you no illustration). But we will take photos and keep you posted on the science we will be doing...