Coring with Charlie and Nina

Coring with Charlie and Nina, a set on Flickr.

For about the first time since 1993, I actually did some field work (well, field collection) yesterday.

My student CM is due to head out to sea soon, and will be doing experiments with deep water sediment cores while she's there. So that she's had a bit of practice before getting there, she decided to have a "dry run" with some sediment cores collected locally. So, she persuaded a colleague NR and myself to give her a hand collecting cores from the shoreline of nearby Hamble.

Though it was a bit of a drag lumping the equipment to the sampling site (see map), and certainly a chore tramping (while sinking) over anoxic Hamble mud, it was actually a lot of fun doing the sampling. After a single aborted core, CM got into the swing of it, and before too long we had a full set of 8 cores. I had a go myself at one point, but while I got a good core in my sampling tube, my seal wasn't too good and the whole lot slithered out before I'd sealed it. Next time ...

Anyway, while I certainly don't intend to give up modelling any time soon, it was really good to get back out into the world and do something a little more real. Of course, now tired and covered in blisters from ill-fitting wellies, I'll maybe wait a bit before my next trip out.