Let us Soxhlet that for you

Good times today in the old North Seattle chemistry lab. We set up a soxhlet apparatus for the purpose of practice. The thing we extracted?-- chlorophyll and triglycerides from some home-grown (well, lab grown, really) algae. Thanks Kat and Marian for parting with some of your babies in the name of science.

The purpose of conducting this experiment is to have a solid handle on the set up and procedure before it's used for microplastics. Rather than algae, we'll be soxhleting virgin polypropelene pellets -- which will now and forever be referred to as 'virgin pp'-- and hopefully be able to quantify the concentration of PCB's leaching into the suckers from Lake Washington. After the leaching, the pellets must be referred to as 'tainted pp', because the term is more scientifically accurate.

Befriending the Fisheries

Arni H Litt of the UW School of Aquatic Fishery Science was kind enough to let us tag along on her boat Tuesday to retrieve microplastic samples out towards the center of lake Washington.

It was a gorgeous day and our faces even got a little sunburned (November in Seattle-- can you believe it?!) We learned so much about field research just from watching Arni conduct her own field work. Years of experience were displayed when we were shown superior methods for net handling and sample transfer techniques. Such a great trip!

We do regret, however, the eventual murder of hundreds of the zooplankton, Daphnia. Sorry little guys! I wish you didn't get caught in our net.

Another Outing!

We have now, thanks to one Debra and Leo DeCastillo-- who stuck it out on Saturday-- two samples for each site we have sampled. This means when they're all fully processed we can start making some hypotheses about the total plastic accumulation in Lake Washington!

First!

Next Saturday, Moira and I (Lauren) will scurry back through the sites and take third data points. And-- oh my goodness-- we can say we're done with the field work!

Best thing so far: A Bald Eagle swooped down and grabbed a fish in front of us while we were sampling
Worst thing so far: Dead white rat in the water at Log Boom Park in Kenmore. Also, just the state of the water at Kenmore. So much debris, you wouldn't believe it. And yes, that is a half-submerged picnic table we saw at Log Boom Park.

Our Second Outing

We were able to obtain samples from North Lake Washington near the Sammamish river and Western Lake Washington near the University. Pulling that net, whether it be by Kayak or Row Boat, is hard work due to the drag, but the data is worth it! Much thanks goes out to our advisors Kalyn Owens and Ann Murkowski for lending us wet suits to keep warm on that very cold day.

Another Day Another Dollar

Our Abstract has been formally submitted for the symposium. (Yay!)

All of Julie's samples are processed and the data is in her electronic hands. (Yay again!)

Now Team, we need to get a boat and tow our manta net through some Lake Washingtons!

Tuesday catch-up

Came to our attention on Tuesday that we had a couple samples from before the break that hadn't been processed, so we boiled down the Comm Bay (pm) tow and the QMH tow. Both samples were then placed in they drying oven for Weds processing.

Wednesday approacheth

For Weds we've got a pretty complete draft of our abstract to play with, and Deb's husband has made some equipment for us so we're going to hike out to "the pipe" and see what happens. I think we also need a progress report - I'd be happy to type that up, its much easier now with the blog, you just summarize the last few posts!

See you all on Weds - I'm eager to get out into "the field"