{"id":5391,"date":"2012-02-16T00:02:04","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T08:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2021-03-18T14:41:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T21:41:04","slug":"its-a-wonderful-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2012\/02\/16\/its-a-wonderful-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Wonderful Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Diane Wyse<\/a>, Physical Oceanography Lab<\/h3>\n

In a day that some might describe as \u201cthe ideal lab experience,\u201d four Moss Landing students set out to perform water sampling techniques for their chemical oceanography class, and enjoyed a day filled with surprises and adventure on the Monterey Bay.\u00a0 Those students, from the phycology, physical, and biological oceanography labs, took MLML\u2019s \u201cHurricane\u201d Zodiac boat out to nine sites around the bay to collect seawater.\u00a0 Along with two other groups that explored sections of Elkhorn Slough, the sampling effort was a snapshot of the concentration of silica in the surface waters of the bay and slough.<\/p>\n

The day began with a lesson on instrumentation for determining temperature and salinity at each collection site.<\/p>\n

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Biological oceanography lab student Nicole Bobco checks the temperature and salinity measurements on the YSI field sampling sensor. (photo: D. Wyse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Chemical oceanography professor Dr Kenneth Coale waves to the bay crew as he and students head off the explore and sample from the upper Elkhorn Slough. (photo: D. Wyse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A handful of pinnipeds seen enjoying the beautiful weather on the bay crew’s ride to the first sampling site. (photo: D. Wyse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Biological oceeanography lab student April Woods reaches over the side of the Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) to collect a sample of seawater. (photo: D. Wyse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

En route to one of the sampling sites, phycology lab student, experienced boat driver, and keen marine mammal spotter Mike Fox caught sight of a pod of over 50 dolphins! \u00a0As the boat slowly approached, a handful of the common dolphins gracefully whizzed along by the boat and gave the delighted marine science students quite a show.<\/p>\n

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(photo: D. Wyse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A dolphin surfaces near Nicole at the bow of the RHIB. Despite the mammal’s apparent curiosity and playful antics, the dedicated students thought better than to join it with a swim in the chilly water. (photo: D. Wyse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not to be outdone by playful charismatic megafauna, Mike and the team of oceanography students spotted a patch of Nereocystis luetkeana, <\/em>otherwise known as bullkelp.\u00a0 During a brief seaweed sampling side project, Mike held up a blade to explain how the spores on the blade of the bullkelp release by tearing off to facilitate reproduction.<\/p>\n

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Mike Fox holds a Nereocystis blade with spores present and detached. (photo: A. Woods)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Nereocystis spore packet, or sorus. \u00a0(photo: A. Woods)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The crew smoothly cruised\u00a0over the big, rolling swell to return and process their samples in the lab. \u00a0 It was a field trip the students wont soon forget, it certainly was not just another day on the bay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Diane Wyse, Physical Oceanography Lab In a day that some might describe as \u201cthe ideal lab experience,\u201d four Moss Landing students set out to perform water sampling techniques for their chemical oceanography class, and enjoyed a day filled with surprises and adventure on the Monterey Bay.\u00a0 Those students, from the phycology, physical, and biological […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":5401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[170,213],"class_list":["post-5391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drop-inblog","tag-marine-mammals","tag-phycology-lab"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21518,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions\/21518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}