Marine Dynamics at Leigh Marine Lab


Spent the last two days at the University of Auckland's marine laboratory up at Leigh (Goat Island Marine Reserve). We arrived at Leigh, welcomed by beautiful sunny weather at 9am on Tuesday morning. We spent half the day at a computer graphing light composition versus depth. But after lunch we got to go out on the university's boat for the best part of the field course.

I'm pretty sure that one year of my tuition fees paid for the boat, and then the next semester of fees paid for all the fancy equipment on board. It was really neat to see it all up and running. We used an underwater camera to see the differences in kelp at different depths around the harbor. A diver working for the university pulled up some samples and we measured and weighed them...to be graphed this week.

We were finished for the day by 4:30, which gave us time to explore the tide pools around Goat Island and hang out with other classmates. That night we were in the onsite dorms, which were brand new and very nice. The only downside was having a snorer in my room, so I didn't get much sleep last night.

Today was all marine physics. We were taunted by the sunshine while we sat inside and worked out equations on jet streams created by tiny crabs. But it was very interesting to see more of the marine lab, which is all under construction and will be a very nice facility when it is completed.

I'll be going up again in a week for three days for fish biology work.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Smalahove

Image
Many Norwegian traditions are distinctly regional. Even recipes are variable by region to go along with dialects that can be different by town separated by just 50 kilometers. This tradition, that both Marius and I were new to trying, was from a town just about an hour and a half east of Bergen called Voss....smalahove, or half of a sheep's head that is cooked in a broth for several hours. Smalahove comes from two Norwegian words: smale = sheep, and hove = head. It is served before Christmas with potatoes, mashed rutabaga, and red cabbage. Many of my friends were telling me that the cheek is supposed to be the best part, and others were saying that they wouldn't dare eat it. So I can now say that I have done something that many other Norwegians haven't dared try. I actually really enjoyed it! It had a texture like corned beef and had a very nice flavor. Marius went as far as to try the tongue, and thought that eating the eye was a normal thing, so tried that as well...bu...
Read more

In case you missed it, I moved back to Bergen

Image
But only temporarily, as of yet. In the beginning of the month I took the train from Oslo to Bergen. It was a beautiful trip cross-country ascending to over 1000m above sea level and back down again. My friend Knut said that I could stay at his place until an apartment was available to rent. I picked up the key from his mom, dropped off my things, and went back downtown to go to my Norwegian course. He was out of town for the week for work, and my first day of work was not until the following Monday. So I used the next five days reacquainting myself with Bergen....mainly by running around my old neighborhood. On Monday (Nov 10) I started my new (tempoary) part time job at UniResarch Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology...UniSars for short. Technically I am called a "research technician", but I'm more like a glorified dishwasher at the moment. I made sure to tell the researchers that I am more than capable to help them if they need an extra pa...
Read more

FIFA 2010 South Africa

Image
FIFA 2010 kicked off on June 11 and today, New Zealand will today make a return to the world’s greatest football stage exactly 28 years to the day since their FIFA World Cup debut. The All Whites will take on Slovakia at 11PM (New Zealand time). It is hard to say whether it will be a good game or not; however, the fact that NZ is in the world cup for the first time in so long is enough of a reason to stay up so late. Saturday morning was the big USA vs. England match. The Americans are so happy with a tie that the New York Post had this as its front page: The time difference makes it a bit hard to keep up with seeing the games, but it's always fun to rub in the fact that the British tied the US in their first World Cup game this year to some British friends. Next exam is Saturday for Invertebrate Diversity. And only 20 days to go til Thailand!!
Read more