Yesterday, Blaize, Max and Kayla sampled for macroinvertebrates at Shuchi or Pike Lake.  Max got an immediate boot full of water as soon as we got down to the lake and was a little bit grumpy the rest of the time.  The substrate is like quick sand, and we had to constantly wiggle ourselves free.  The sample consisted of extremely cloudy gray fine silt and it took hours to look through a fraction of one out of our three samples.  Being in the lab until one in the morning, we learned our first field lesson.  Our sample sizes were too big to thoroughly sift through for the tiny creatures we were searching for.  We did find many species of annelid, snails, and fly larva.  With a smaller sampling method, Kayla and Max will be sampling a variety of lakes and streams and comparing the marcoinvertebrate diversity to the surrounding vegetation, geography and information from other projects such as dissolved oxygen, dissolved carbon, etc.

Although Blaize found the search for macroinvertebrates to be very interesting, she wishes also to pursue a project looking at the formation and patterns of Thermokarst lakes, which are lakes that have been formed due to permafrost thaw. Right now she is in the process of forming a hypothesis.

It’s not science all the time though.  Living in the barge is always an adventure.  We have been able to try out Blaize’s fishing pole with no return, shower in mother nature’s milk (a tributary to the Kolyma River) and work on our Russian skills by chatting, eating Russian cuisine and listening to live Russian music.

Kayla & Blaize