Change of Plans

Unfortunately, the trip to Norway I had planned is going to have to be cancelled.  My project-analyzing benthic communities using an AUV-requires good weather and the likelihood of getting good weather is constantly decreasing as winter draws near.  So, in order to be sure not to miss opportunities to go out to sea early in October I have to cancel my planned attendance of a 10-day seminar in Norway.  This is really a downer, but it’s a sacrifice I have to make to ensure that I’m doing my best to get the project under way.  
Today  I went with a friend out to look at the possibility of doing a smaller project analyzing the populations living in a mud flat near my home.  It turns out that the mud is far more coarse than I thought and we’ll have to rethink our plan.  But the good news is that we found two of the species that have been identifies as new to Iceland (although they are common in other areas of the ocean-isn’t global warming fun?).  One is a polychaete worm-your basic seaworm-that builds a little (8-10”) tube by cementing grains of sand or sediment together.  The other is a sand shrimp it’s a cute little bugger that sits in the sand at low tide and is easily filtered out with a fairly coarse filter.