Monday, December 3, 2007

Twitchel Island field trip

We took a field trip last Friday, to remind our students that wetlands were more than boring chemical analyses and stressful reports. We went to Twitchel Island in the San Joaquin delta. The whole region used to be tule marsh, and is now mostly precariously diked farmland and orchards. But on this island, there are some restoration efforts to recreate some wetland environments and use them to study carbon retention and other nifty biogeochemical cycles. Robin here was our tour guide.
She is showing us here the impressively organic 'soil' core from the middle of her marshesIt was quite windy and cold, and the cattails were in the process of letting loose their seed.Even in winter, wetlands can be beautiful

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi!!!!! I miss you guys!!!! I was just looking at your pictures of the wetlands class field trips and I got nostalgic and jealous. It sounds like you may even like your new class better, too! (thats ok, I wouldn't blame you that much) Anyways I hope you are doing well, and I hope things in the lab are good also. I'm trying to find some time to come up and visit, so as soon as I can get away from work I'll let you know. Tell Emily, Eliska, and Jenise hi for me, and have happy holidays if I don't talk to you sooner!