MBFE - Day 4 - MUD!!!

Remember when your mom told you not to splash in that puddle or to stay out of the mud and keep your clothes clean?  Today was the day that all went out the window.  Why?  The topic for the day was mud flat communities.  We spent the previous few days working in the rocky intertidal zone, but there's more to near shore marine communities than just rocky shores.

The crew spent the morning digging in and studying life in mud.

Our destination was the mud flat adjacent to the Charleston Harbor just upstream of the South Slough Bridge in Charleston, OR.  That's a convenient place to go since we just pulled on our boots, grabbed buckets, shovels and other gear, and took a nice half mile stroll to the mud flats.

The plan was to plot the vertical profile of the mud flat area from water's edge to the top of the flat. The class was divided into four teams who spent time digging in the mud every 5 meters along the 150 meter transect, observing what they saw, collecting specimens from their sites, and then sharing data with each other that evening.

Here are a few action shots from the day.

Here are several of the crew (L-R Courtney, Danielle, Jessica, Kelly (fore), Eileen (back), Skyler, Isaac, Jennifer, Rachel S, and Shannon).

Here are (L-R) Jennifer, Shannon, and Rachel getting into it.

Here are (L-R) Eileen, Skyler, and Isaac.  They loved to dig!    

Jessica and Danielle were not to be outdone.

They LOVED it!  Even though it was breezy and a bit rainy.  The crew found all kinds of clams, worms, and mud shrimp.  

We wrapped up the work day by attending the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology weekly seminar. The presenter this week was Dr. Yizhen Li of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Massachusetts.  He presented work he has done to help improve our predictions of harmful algal blooms (i.e., red tides) in the Gulf of Maine.  It was pretty impressive stuff.

It was Friday night, so it after dinner it was time to relax at least a bit.  Several members of the group decided to join Dr. Holyoak for a movie, "Guardians of the Galaxy."  It's a very silly but fun show. Some of the University of Oregon students who are studying here at OIMB were a bit envious that we had a professor-student movie night.

Stay tuned for more updates of activities and adventures of the Marine Biology Field Experience at OIMB.