Another busy day on Monday, with completion of the collection of our soil samples from the plant boxes. Not an easy task (as it involves balancing on the wooden sides of the pallets that contain our marsh sections and that are lined up next to one another outside of the flume building) – but a task that has to be done: We want to know what the soil properties are compared to those that exist in the field location where the plants came from and we also want to know how the soil changes throughout the experiment.
Taking the samples was like scrambling around a saltmarsh surface at the coast – not least because the rain had made the plants wet… So, as we would have done in the field, we got cold and covered in water and mud in the process…
The calibration of our pressure sensing equipment that followed was a welcome relief: in the warmth of the control room with plenty of computers humming away generating heat… and we managed to complete the calibration of all six pressure sensors as well as work out how to trigger and time the velocity profiler instruments via the central GWK data acquisition system.
So now that all sample cores are stored safely in the fridge and most of the instruments sorted it is time to catch up with the team and finalise travel arrangements for those coming to help with moving the vegetation next week…