We have hit the halfway point in the summer! This past week has also been super exciting! At work, I finished up searching for sea surface temperature values. I found a NOAA climate change portal where you can set the variable you want to look at (sea surface temperature), set the time period in which you want to see the change (2000 to 2100), set the RCP scenario (4.5 and 8.5) , and you can zoom in on the region you want. Although this map wasn’t interactive and I used approximate estimates based on the contours and legend, in the future we can extract the data and use ArcGIS to get the exact zonal mean for each ecoregion. Unfortunately, I do not have ArcGIS on my computer so I won’t be able to do that task. Instead, I have moved on to finding pH thresholds for decapods and pH and aragonite saturation thresholds for bivalves. My mentor, Henry, decided that in addition to using aragonite saturation as the variable for ocean acidification, we should use pH because the acidity can affect the chemistry of an organism, and this way we can also examine the impact of ocean acidification on non-calcifying organisms.

Also this week, I went on the mudflats with Austin, Dan (his mentor), and Anthony (the other intern working with me) and helped collect and measure juvenile crabs from pit traps and shell bags. We woke up at the crack of dawn and headed down to the middle Sally’s Bend. Within the first ten meters of the flats I got stuck and Dan had to help me get unstuck. Fortunately, I acclimated myself to the flats and never got fully stuck after that. We also visited Sawyer’s Landing and Sally’s Bend East where the mudflats weren’t as soft and the distance to the traps weren’t as far. After we were out of the field, Anthony and I helped Austin record all of the crabs that we couldn’t measure out in the field—we were in a hurry because the tide was coming in. It was an amazing experience and I saw so many different organisms! In addition to Dungeness and Hemigrabsis crabs of all sizes, I saw hermit crabs, mud and ghost shrimp, polychaetes, jellies, sculpins, cockles, and oysters—something that I would never experience sitting in the office.

I also had an exciting social life this week! On Wednesday the Hatfield residents put on a potluck and there was so many delicious dishes! I brought a simple salad but I ate samosas, stuffed peppers, crab legs, beer cheese soup, banana bread, nachos, mashed potatoes, and a ton of other really delicious foods.

On Friday I didn’t have work because of the Sea Grant mid-summer check-in. We listened to Mariah explain how to communicate science and present properly. It was really helpful and will surely be useful in future presentations, especially our final symposium. We also listened to everyone give presentations about what they are doing this summer. We then got free passes to go to the aquarium! It was really cool seeing a lot of the species I have been reading about. We saw crabs, eels, anemones, jellies, sea stars, seals, sea lions, otters, sharks, rockfish, and a ton of other species.

After the aquarium, we headed down to Beverly Beach for a barbeque and camping and saw some amazing sunsets.

The next day after the camping trip, some of the REU interns and Ron and I went to the beach and spent the 80˚ weather basking in the sun. We also went to Rogue to celebrate someone’s birthday and had a bonfire on the estuary.

It was a satisfying week and weekend and I can’t believe we only have five weeks left!