The weather was kind to us today, clear skies and sunshine! (even though it meant a few people are now slightly redder this evening compared with the start of the day) Today’s goal was to visit 4 different lava flows and see how the vegetation varies between these sites in respect to their age. The theory being that the later lava flows ‘should’ have a greater abundance and diversity of species present compared to the later sites. This is what we were here to measure and test.
The students were broken up into groups and they had to decide on their own sampling strategies to carry out the work for the day. The first site was at a lava flow from 1669, the oldest lava flow. There was plenty of vegetation to record and with the help of Chris Joyce and Ray Ward students were able to identify most species present, I personally could help with one species… Also, added to the day was a remote sensing element, curiosity of Graeme Awcock, via two digital cameras. These cameras had special capabilities to detect the near infrared wavelengths of light. The near infrared (NIR) end of the electromagnetic spectrum is important because vegetation reflects large amounts of NIR, therefore healthy vegetation will appear bright in the image. The students used this technology to record images within their quadrants.
We then visited a site which had two lava flows present from different ages running parallel, these lava flows were much newer and therefore had much less in the way of vegetation. Lunch was the next order of the day, which I was very happy about! After lunch it was then time to visit our last site and then the coach trip back to base camp.It was beautiful day out on mount Etna and everyone managed to cope with traversing the slopes of the lava flows (no casualties). The students were a great group and after a long day I think we all deserve a nice cool beer. Tomorrow, coastal pollution, water and health!
Looks like you had a wonderful day, weather was much better than the rain we had whilst there! see the volcano isn’t etna-taining you this year either!!!