Little Boxes on the Hillside... (or at least on the riverbank

The free Internet at the local library won't talk to Blogger, so it's time for a cell phone update. We have been busy collecting samples of mud for the magnetic study. Every two meters along the bank, we stuff a 2 cm plastic cube with sediment, mostly mud. The boxes have been pre-weighed and numbered, so we have to keep track of which is which and where they get filled. Today, we collected oriented samples to look for magnetic reversals. In order to preserve the orientation while getting it into the box, we had to carve little pedestals of mud and slip the boxes over them, then measure the orientation of the box before cutting the box off of the outcrop, trimming off the excess, and putting on the lid. 9 boxes took 6 hours.

Tomorrow is a field trip then one more day in the river before heading home.