Day 23: Last Field Day

Today started bright and early, some of the hydro group walked over to Dr. Becker’s house to talk about what we would be doing for the day. After having a small pow wow I headed off into the valley, I would begin collecting data near Atlantis. My idea was to recollect some points along the stream channel in order to correct my stream profile. Both fortunately and unfortunately it began to rain! My trimble wasn’t picking up enough satellites to produce a better stream profile so I gave up on that idea. Instead I walked the channel and took notes and pictures of what was happening since the water had actually risen. The closer I got to the area where the water ‘disappears’ the more nervous I got. One of the possible answers to my question is simply that there isn’t enough water flowing through the stream channel to keep a consistent amount of water above ground.

To a great surprise I walked into the disappearing area and found a flowing stream vanish! This is great news because it solidifies the idea that there is some other phenomenon working around the area that is causing the water to go underground. But the question remains, why!? I walked back to base camp and found Kerry and James. James was about to collect some data for his project so I accompanied him, as it is hard to collect and record data.

Dr. Becker was back in the valley and it was finally my turn to use the GPR! After walking around the area near the geologic contact point we soon realized the GPR wasn’t going to work. The ground penetration wasn’t picking up things clearly enough for what we were looking for. So we decided that the visible contact point was enough for the purposes of my research.

I ended the field day by Narnia, making sure the water was still reappearing in the same general area, and it was. The only peculiarity was that the amount of water wasn’t as different as it was deeper into the valley.

Tomorrow will be the day I put together all of my data. Hopefully I can come up with some kind of conclusion!