Week 3: July 7-10

Monday: I gave a presentation that I had worked on last week. It was about turbidity and salinity in the estuary and their patterns. After the presentation, I recieved some reading from Nirzwan about ETMs. Using that paper and some of the data I have, I am supposed to gather some ideas for finding the ETM and suggestions for where to collect water samples. After some brainstorming, I decided that it would be possible to use information about the tides to predict where probable locations would be, as regions of high turbidity are typically found just upstream of the salt wedge. Also, the ETM will be more aparent during spring tides because there is more energy in the water.

This picture is a depiction of the relationship between turbidity and tide. The turbidity is high when the tide is changing. Higher energy tide changes create higher turbidity.

Tuesday: Grant gave me four more papers to read!! That brought me to a total of five. I spent the majority of the day reading. Many of them were difficult to understand, and I had to read parts multiple times.

Wednesday: I was asked to try to understand some of that math that was contained in the previously mentioned papers. It was very confusing, as there were many variables and terms I was unfamiliar with, but I was able to understand many of the equations and concepts. I was also insturcted to create a power point presentation for the parent pizza dinner. One slide described my long term goals, one described my short term goals, and one was an example of the work I had been doing. The example was similar to the presentation I gave earlier in the week.

Thursday: After becoming familiar with some of the variables, it was much easier to understand the mathematical equations I encountered in the papers. I also read most of the information on the following website: http://depts.washington.edu/cretmweb/CRETM.html.

On Friday, I am going to the ASE Midsummer Conference at OSU. I am looking forward to it!