Sampling day in northern Michigan

Hello Blog!!

Welcome to Pellston, Michigan! That is where we have been since May 18th and are leaving tomorrow, the 20th. The University of Michigan has a research station located here that they allow researchers to come and use their facilities. This research station is call the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS). Located next to Douglas Lake, it will become a summer home to nearly 200 people, including an REU program, many graduate and faculty researchers. We were able to stay in some of the cabins and use their cafeteria, which was a nice break from cooking for ourselves.

On the 18th, 5 members of the team came up to put plates into the sampler boxes and set up the field sites. While 3 of the team members started to put plates into boxes, Kathryn (one of the project principle investigators) and myself went to each of the field sites and ensured that they are appropriate for our balloon. For this second half of the sampling month, we will have some new challenges with the balloon-borne samplers because we have moved into examining how forested ecosystems differ in their contribution of airborne microorganisms from the grassland ecosystems we sampled out west. We were able to put anchors into the ground and other equipment at the sites to reduce site set up the next day, which makes our sampling days a bit easier. Though - it is mosquito season in northern Michigan right now, and the mosquitoes were very enthusiastic about participating in our project as well.

One of my unique tasks for the project is filing notices to airmen (NOTAMs) to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). NOTAMs warn pilots of numerous things, but in our case, the balloon is considered an obstruction. I file 3 NOTAMS, one for each helikite, 24 to 72 hours before sampling. In order to do this, I need the latitude and longitude, elevation, distance and heading from the nearest airport for each site.

Sampling Day - May 19 - So far we are flying well without a tandem balloon attached to the flying line. The wind is nice and gentle from the northeast and is cooler than all of the rest of the previous sampling day. This was one of the easiest days we've had for most of the teams, so we had a chance to rest and catch up on our blog posts in the field.

Hopefully the rest of sampling day goes without a hitch and we will have a smooth time taking out the plates this evening. Next stop is back to Kalamazoo to prepare for our tour towards the east coast on Monday, weather pending of course!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!