Blogs

Good afternoon,

Yet another week has passed, but we haven't aged a day.

I can't believe I completed my 7th week at CMOP already!  Time is certainly flying by.  This week the interns were treated with a visit to the CMOP outpost in Astoria.  We were taken on a tour of the facility and were given talks on the equipment they use to measure various metrics in the ocean and on the Columbia as well as a brief overview of some of their current research projects.  I was fascinated by the gliders that they use to collect data.  The engineering that goes into the gliders certainly piqued my interest.  It was just a subtle reminder of the ove

 This was a very exciting and productive week. I finally received access to the DB 28 model run that I need to use for my model-observation comparisons. Again, DB 28 extends from Bonneville dam to Longview, WA. I spent most of Monday extracting the data from the run (temperature, elevation). I then converted the elevation to what we know as depth, but in a model it is referred to as the water column. I did this by adding the grid depth to the elevation arrays.

       This week was a big week because all of the interns had our mid-term presentations to give on Friday. That meant we had to bring together all of our current data, conclusions, and next steps, and format them into a five-minute presentation. It may seem like a simple task, but with all of the experiments and data I have already collected, it was a little daunting to try and sort through it all to find what was relevant. So, along with the tests I ran, I also spent the rest of my time doing just that.

The weeks are really flying by. I am already at the halfway point! I have already progressed so far in my project and have learned so many valuable skills. I have spent the week working to quantify and characterize the phylogenetic placement of Form I Rubisco large subunit (cbbL) genes in the Warren Cave metagenome. Rubisco is the enzyme used by plants, algae and bacteria to fix atmospheric carbon dioxide into biomass via the CBB cycle (Badger and Bek 2008).

             This week started off with me analyzing 42 dinoflagellate DNA sequences collected in different parts of the Columbia River estuary and at different times of the M. Rubra blooms from last year.

 This week, I ran trials of the second munition compound we're looking at - DNAN, 2,4-dinitroanisole. We were just trying to get an idea of how long it would take for hydrolysis to take place in all of the different conditions. For TNT, the fastest complete hydrolysis was finished in under 10 minutes, apparently. DNAN was a bit slower - somewhere between 5 and 24 hours for the fastest hydrolysis, and possibly over 3 weeks for the longest one. At least there are colors to help me see how the reaction is progressing. Hydrolyzed DNAN turns a nice yellow color.

Midterms have passed?

Our measured data matches model predictions?

The world is filled with rainbows and gum drops??
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Here we are in week blah, and I could not be happier. On Friday the other interns and I presented the current status of our projects (*Sigh of relief for putting that behind us). It was amazing to see how much progress everyone has made since our first meeting. All of the hard work and suffering seems to have paid off.