USGS Week 3

So far this week of my internship has been the most exciting. On Monday I had a day trip to LaPlace to take part in a "tree school" activity lead by LSU's Dr. Urbatsch. He is a wetland plant taxonomy experiment as we walked a trail and identity differrent trees and shrubs. This was all brand new to me as I have not even taken the dendrology course yet. The most surprising thing I saw was the size and structures of some of the poison ivy plants out there. Some were bigger than I even thought poison ivy could grow. I posted a picture of one of poison ivy plants I saw.

The rest of my Monday was spent preparing to leave for the field on Tuesday. On Tuesday I traveled to the Houma area where I finally got my first experience with field work. We took an air boat to different CRMS sites to collect data for a new decomposition study underway. Cotton strips were put in the ground in order to find tension of the soil. The reference cotton strip was put in than immediately removed, and three others were put in and will be collected in two weeks. This was done in three different areas of the each site visited. What I did at each site was pull soil cores. I would take a 100 centimeter aluminum core rod and push it into the ground to pull it up. After retrieving the 100 centimeter soil core from the rod it was then cut into 2 centimeter segments and placed into individually marked baggies. This was done to see how the river is flowing, moving, and the time of these things happening. A lot of organic material would show still flooding and a lot of decomposition. More silt and clay would result in more flooding in that area. At one site it was very difficult to pull cores as it contained a thick layer of compacted clay. I visited both fresh and saline marshes so I got to see a variety of vegetation and wildlife. I saw a lot of alligators and even an eagle. In the two and a half days in the field we visited eight different CRMS sites. I had a lot of fun in my first experience in the field and a learned a lot to make my next time even better. I am excited to see what the rest of my summer entails.