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"Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and that they dwell therein." ~ Zora Neale Hurston, African-American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, playwright and anthropologist

If you like the outdoors and all the unpredictability that goes along with mother nature, fieldwork is for you! One of the coolest things about biological research is that a lot of it can take place in the field. You can literally find jobs that will pay you to play outside. Not only that, but research and field work can take you all over the world.

Where In The World Are My Friends Doing Research???
(click on the colored dots to find out)

Over the course of the semester, fieldwork at Nahant got increasingly difficult due to bad weather, shorter days, and daylight savings time. I made a total of four fieldtrips to Nahant, but my research project was only conducted during the last two, on Oct. 27th, 2004 and Nov. 12th, 2004. The major problem I encountered in the field was low visibility due to low light from the onset of dusk and cloud cover. Because the best low tides always occur in conjunction with sunset at this time of year, the amount of time and light I had to work with for taking pictures was limited to a couple hours at best. In the end, I was only able to do one transect (a line of quadrats) with nine quadrats on Oct. 27th. Fortunately I managed to sample the entire vertical width of the ascophyllum zone, the place where mussels hang out the most.

Nov. 12th was an even more challenging field day. Not only was it the first snow of the 2004 season for the Boston area, but I was racing the clock just to find my quadrats again, not to mention getting pictures. On top of that, when I took the camera out I discovered that it was running very low on batteries, so I was also quite worried that it was going to die on me. Note to self: Always carry extra batteries for field equipment! It took me a good twenty minutes to find my first quadrat, and up until that point I wasn't even sure the labeling tape glued to the rocks had worked. I quite literally jumped up and down for joy when I discovered that they really had managed to hold on for over two weeks. With Dr. Robertson, Dr. Livdahl, and Lexi's unwavering help, I managed to locate seven of my original nine quadrats before we all froze and lost light. In spite of all my hard work, however, I unfortunately didn't have enough time to analyze that set of pictures. I'm also not sure that when I do have time if I will be able to lighten them enough to see any mussels. I ended up working with a digital video camera on the 12th as well, versus Camilo's amazing Cannon on the 27th. Many of the pictures I gathered on the 12th were videos, which I would need to take a still frame from in order to look at the mussels, and those still frames are often very blurry. I didn't find any of this out until after we got back to the lab, however, so for those few hours in the field, I was ecstatic; I actually got data!

Varying Conditions in the Field

Nahant, Massachusetts at the end of August. It was around 75ºF at the coast that day, and 85ºF in Worcester

A gorgeous sunset and calm waters at Nahant in mid-October

Searching for giant snails at Nonsuch Island in Bermuda before Tropical Storm Nicole blew through

Right: packing gear in the field on Oct. 27th. It was cloudy, but not rainy.

Below: sea surges remind us of the previous day's storm.

Frantically searching for my quadrats in the freezing cold sleet on Nov. 12th. Thank goodness for pocket warmers!

After collections, observations, and measurements are taken in the field, it's into the lab to try and make sense of it all.

The Cycle of Science

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