Several of my courses this semester have on site field trips. I've found that all but one of my courses here have some sort of hands-on field component. It's wonderful because it gives me a chance to get out into the Australian environment and familiarize myself with it! Previous places I've done this in have included Vancover Island, Bimini, the Mojave Desert, the Big Island in Hawai'i, and Kauai, and all of those places now hold a special place in my heart, so I am excited to various environs here to do the same. Another great thing about field trips, is that Wash U pays all field trip expenses so I get to go to some amazing places for free. Aka, Wash U is paying for me to go to Fraser Island and the Great Barrier Reef for Mid-semester Break (It's not Spring Break here because it is Autumn) :).
My first of many field trips was with my Mars2005 (Australia's Marine Environment) class. We went to Stradbroke Island. It's about an hour and a half from Brisbane. The city is up the Brisbane River, and if you drive to the coast and take a ferry to Stradbroke. UQ owns a research center there called the Moreton Bay Research Station, so we stayed there for three days and conducted experiments.
The first day was really fun! We did a Beach Seine, a survey with a net where you catch everything between a certain point and the shore, record it and throw it back. I did these in High School, so it brought back some memories. We caught a lot of predatory fish, as well as some squids! Later that day during low tide we went for a walk to check out the different intertidal habitats. The research station is near a huge tidal flat, where there is a gigantic difference between high and low tide (see above), so at low tide there are lots of unique environs exposed. And with those comes some really cool animals! In the exposed sea grass beds we found some Toadfish (below top left). They're little pufferfish, that change color. They would swim around wildly when disturbed and then try and burrow (unsuccessfully) in the sea grass, as my tutor put it 'Panic, panic, panic, hide.' We were able to pick them up and observe them, and then release them back unharmed. They're really pretty and puffers are some of my absolute favorite fish so it was great to see them here! In the sea grass we also found these gigantic sea cucumbers (below bottom left)! When you picked them up they expelled water at you, but they're really harmless. On the sandy bottom environment we found a ton of different kinds of crabs. Firstly we found a huge hermit crab (below top right) He wasn't as shy as usually and popped out of his shell to look at us. We also got to see these awesome crabs called solider crabs (below bottom right). They are blue in color and don't have pincers, they can also walk forward instead of sideways. They are called solider crabs because they move together in these huge groups called armies. They are really cool to watch, and when you get to close they corkscrew into the sand!
After a wonderful day of exploration we put our heads together to figure out an experiment for the next day. My group used some of the observations we made at low tide to come up with an experiment examining the effect of burrowing 'ecosystem engineer species' on bioturbation (life disturbing the sediment) of the sand by measuring the depth of the anoxic layer (no more oxygen in the sand). This experiment required us to be up at 5:50a to get out on the sand flat at low tide, so the next morning was an early one! We constructed our experiment by taking quadrats out on the sand flat. We counted the coverage of the burrows of 3 different species Stingrays (below top left), Soldier Crabs (below top right), and Sand Bubbler Crabs (below bottom right). Then we took 5 sand cores from each quadrat, and measured how far from the surface the anoxic layer was in the sand (below bottom left). This was easy to do because the sand is turns black so we were measuring to the change in color. I was initially taking the core samples, but I ended up bending 2 of our coring devices (my usual clumsiness coming through) so my group moved me to measuring the cores instead :P (I was much better at that)
We had 24 hours to construct, conduct, analyze and present this experiment. As science goes, that's way way to short of a time to get meaningful results, so not surprisingly we found no statistical relationship between the depth of the anoxic layer and the burrows in the sand. It was still a fun project to do though, and it was nice to get some field work experience.
The third day we drove to the oceanward side of Stradbroke Island and got to hike and swim. It was an amazingly relaxing way to end the trip. We hiked George's Trail, which goes along point look out and it had some spectacular views of the ocean and geology. The day was clear and the water was a brilliant turquoise blue (below top right, but the pictures don't do it justice). We watched the huge waves crash below us as we hiked the well maintained trail. There were rocky parts jutting out from the trail where I was able to get a great view of the coastline. And, me being me, also got to appreciate some really great sandstone features. I unfortunately was the only one who was actually interested in the geology, but the geology on the island is really fascinating. North Stadbroke is the world's second largest sand island (Fraser Island, where I will be visiting later in the semester, being the biggest). This means that it was formed by the accumulation of sand, this sand eventually was compressed into sandstone, which formed the enormous cliffs at Point Lookout (Below bottom right). There were also these well worn flat top areas of sand stone (below bottom left) that we walked out along. The waves crashing on the shore were enormous (below top left), and I was glad that we ended up swimming on a much calmer beach.
After our hike we got some lunch. Fish n' Chips (an Aussie favorite) for everyone else and a veggie burger for me and the other vegetarians. We then had some gelato at a nearby shop :), I got banana and it tasted like actual bananas and was really refreshing on the hot day. Then we went swimming for two hours before heading back to Brisbane in the bus. I really enjoyed my time here and it was nice to get back to the ocean. I also really like learning about the marine environment specifically in Australia, it's wonderful to be able to apply what I've learned about other places to my home for the next couple of months. I can't wait for our next trip with this class, it's to Heron Island, which is on the Great Barrier Reef!!
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