Water samples and geophysics

The second week has now passed and water samples have been collected from wells, piezometers, public water points (fontes) rivers and raingauges. These will characterise the hydrochemistry of the Vagos area and have to be sent to the University today so that the analyses are ready when our students return to the Netherlands in 2 weeks.

However, before the samples are shipped with a courier to our lab, we need all data that describes these samples, such as location, pH, EC, alkalinity, nitrate concentration, filter number and other hydrological details that would seem completely useless to other people. Collecting these data in the field is rather easy, but to put them together in a nice table requires quite some organisation within the groups. So there was a lot of frantic computer activity in the Barra resort in the early morning. Two students even went out at 6 am to collect their last samples, what a sacrifice! The image below shows the activity in the Barra Beach Resort's cave room.

Vincent and I then went on to ship these samples, planning to use FEDEX, which would have an office in Aveiro. But no, the office had long gone and FEDEX web site is out of date, bad practice!!! So we shipped elsewhere and samples will be analysed in time.

One of the groups was already out near the village of Rio Tinto playing around with the EM-34 electromagnetic meter that can map geological structures (sand, clay laters) and can tell you how much water can be stored in the soil for many useful things, such as food production. The coils (or hoolahoops as some people call them) are moved over a field and Vasiliki thoroughly enjoyed herself, even eating some Ovos Moles while moving the large coil.

In the meantime Vincent was digging in a pile of mud (better known as Cretaceous clays by our geologist students) from a freshly made well - while answering desperate phone calls from another geophysics teams - and found his first fossilised dynasaur paw imprint, or something like it.

Even after six years of field study, this area keeps surprising us...