March 3-10 Santa Rosa Island Research & Spring Break
My field research continued at the beginning this month on Santa Rosa Island. This was my last opportunity to record the most current shoreline position on the Island. The day of surveying was completed during neap tide and was very eventful but malnourished sea lion pups put a damper on the day.
Sean Clark identifying a fern species on the island
Most of my time spent on the Island was spent helping my colleague Sean Clark with his plant collection on the island. The plant collection with contribute to 5 herbaria for local universities and botanical gardens. It has been great to learn about and key native as well as non-native species of flora found on the Island. It has been in invaluable experience to learn from Sean as he explores his passion.
The rest of my time was spent in the research stations libarary/GiS lab where I continued to finalize my historic and seasonal shoreline positions. I am now in the analysis phase of my research. Using USGS Digital Shoreline Analysis System I will be able to calculate inter-annual and intra-annual shoreline variation on Santa Rosa. Completing error analysis for historic shorelines will be the next step before analyzing my final data.
Conducting a shoreline survey on Skunk Point, Santa Rosa Island
