As field instructors, Vincent, me (Maarten), Henk, Richard - and in other years Boris and Michel - are the faces, together with those of the hydrology students, that appear on the Portugal Field Course blogs. However, there is a team of very dedicated people behind this course that provides support throughout the year. I think that now it is time to acknowledge their important input and thank them on behalf of staff and students alike.
Frans Backer (and Michel Groen) always manage to get all the right equipment ready in time for us to load it into the van. You have seen pictures of this equipment in earlier posts and, believe me, there's a lot of organisation involved to get everything together for our students. We are always afraid to forget some key part when we leave Amsterdam but so far they have always managed to get things complete and in working order. Thanks Frans!!!
We are also very proud and grateful to the mechanical and electronics workshops, who do such a perfect job, not only of maintaining the equipment, but also of developping new tools. An example is the spiral drill, operated by Margreet in the above picture, that allows us to easily sample water at different depths in saturated soils. This is something that you cannot buy anywhere and the results will be used in research publications. Niek van Harlingen, Hans Bakker and co-workers, many thanks from students and staff in Portugal!!!
Ron Lootens and co-workers of the electronics workshop maintain electronic instruments and develop new gadgets for us, such as dedicated dataloggers and other fancy stuff that our students use in the field. Last week, during one of our island measurement sessions, a new idea to measure groundwater levels in minifilters popped up. We contacted Ron and within two days we had the material in Costa Nova to test our ideas. We did this yesterday, as shown in the picture, and it seems to work! Ron, excellent work and many thanks for doing this, and many other things in the past, on such short notice!
We should also not forget the laboratory people. Our students collected 100 water samples (and some soil samples) that are now in the VU laboratory where John Visser analyses them so that the results are there upon our student's return to work with. This is a fast and secure job and we are glad that John is always there for us at this time of the year to make the course a succes. Soil samples will be analysed in Martin Konert's laboratory where Martin is always happy to assist us. Thanks Martin!!!
From the University of Aveiro, Teresa Melo, got us to this excellent area in the first place and helped us setting the course up. Thanks! Jan Jacob Keizer (light green shirt) is so kind to arrange a one-day excursion to his reaserch sites where our students learn about the impact of forest fires on soil, erosion and hydrology. We appreciate this very much. Thanks Jacob!
No comments:
Post a Comment