Tuesday, 10 July 2012

After a successful Friday – we were able to finish all bridges and install the soil gas and water collectors at the peat circle and peat plateau (see picture) sites - we packed our stuff and started the walk back to Seida, were we had a relaxing weekend with "banja" and enough sleep.

On Saturdays our group is always looking forward to eat some homemade bread, freshly baked by a local woman. It's a small thing which makes the field work more comfortable (see picture).

Sunday afternoon we planned the working tasks for every group member and on Monday morning we went back to the tundra site to continue the preparation of the mineral soil field site. More bridges had to be built and soil gas and water collectors were installed.
The main task for Monday was to install a data logger for moisture and temperature measurement at different soil depths down to 45 centimeters to our mineral tundra site. This included digging a hole next to the flux measurement plots in such a way, that vegetation and soil wouldn't be disturbed too much (see picture). In addition to that we will install a second data logger at a peat circle/peat plateau site this week.

Soil profile logger, photo: University of Eastern FinlandWe could manage to finish this task quite late on Monday under let's say "moist conditions" – during digging the holes it started to rain. Due to heavy rainfall all night some of our team members had to abandon their tents and move to the field cabin during the night, which is getting more crowded now. According to the weather forecast this rain is supposed to continue until next weekend. As a result we decided to work "inside" today and prepare e.g. electronic installations for the second soil profile logger, water collectors and, most importantly, the CO2 measurement chamber for the coming gas flux measurements which we are planning to start soon.




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