Fourth microbe group post

Hello again from the microbe group!
 
We have had another successful sampling run that left the day shift exhausted. We processed five cores in one 12-hour shift, which is the record so far! This means we have used up all our sampling time and will not collect any more cores. In total, out of 64 coring attempts, we successfully recovered 51 cores! The shortest core was 28cm and the longest was 5.26m.
 
The coring team members from TAMUCC have had a lot of post processing to do of our samples. They collect the water from the core segments, called porewater, to analyze for different compounds so we can learn about the geochemistry of the system. This information will help our microbe group decide which samples to extract DNA and RNA from to get sequenced. 
 
I have also started my last set of silica incubation experiments. Geological and chemical processes have been the focus of the silica cycle, but my experiments help show the biological effect on the silica cycle. I set up 50 tubes with water and sediment per experiment; half the tubes are the live treatment, and the other half are the dead treatment since they contain extra chemicals to kill the microbes in those tubes. This way when we measure the different silica pools (dissolved silica and particulate silica) we determine the microbial effect by looking at the difference between the live and dead treatments. 
 
Dr. Katie Howe
University of South Alabama