As you may be able to tell from the year-round addition of blog entries, participation in the Polaris Project stretches far beyond our month-long stay in Siberia. Right now, many of the Polaris participants are finishing up their preparations for the trip. Today, for me, this meant building piezometers.

Piezometers are essentially specialized observation wells to measure the hydraulic head of groundwater. In my case, they’re made of a section of well screen pipe, which is a PVC pipe covered in small slots which allows surrounding water to enter, topped by a section of unslotted PVC pipe to prevent runoff water from entering the well.

Gluing together the piping

After around two hours of measuring, sawing, and gluing the different PVC pipes and fittings, I had five completed piezometers ready to pack and bring to Russia!

In Russia, the piezometers will be buried in the ground, where they will fill with ambient groundwater. Hopefully, these piezometers will allow me to make simple measurements of Shuchi Lake’s hydrologic gradients and collect groundwater samples to measure their chemical properties.

Can’t wait to test them out!
Joanne