Our journey back started early with a 6:20 am departure to Khanty-Manisysk airport, we flew to Moscow and then London for our trains back to the North of Scotland. We wish to express a big thank you to Yugra State University and everyone from group of Environmental Dynamics and Climate Change for hosting us and … Continue reading And now we go!
Author: paulgaffney2014
Our final day in Siberia was a cultural tour day. We went on a tour organised by Yugra State University International Office for their summer school students to see around the University and some of the city sights. In the morning we met the rector of the University and then joined in with a tour … Continue reading Day 18 – Mon 18th Aug – Touring Khanty-Mansiysk
On Saturday we completed our fieldwork at Mukhrino by taking in our first round of BVOC samplers and measuring the soil water pH and conductivity. In the evening Roxane prepared the final sauna for after dinner. When I went for the sauna there was some torrential rain – it made for a great cooling shower! … Continue reading Days 16 and 17 – Sat – 16th and Sun 17th Aug – Final fieldwork and back to Shapsha
Today we are visiting Mukhrino field station for the final time in our trip. We left Shapsha and headed to Khanty-Mansiysk for the boat trip out. Instead of going to the previous pick up point across the Irtysh River, well out of the city, we went with Yaroslav to the city marina where the University … Continue reading Day 15 – Fri 15th Aug – A long boat ride back to Mukhrino and a Russian party!
Today we are having a repeat of our first day back after Mukhrino. Sorting out the peat samples and drying the vegetation in preparation for C and N analysis.It’s also a chance to update the blog as we have good internet here! It’s very sunny at the moment; hopefully it will be as warm as … Continue reading Day 14 – Thu 14th Aug – A sunny day in Shapsa again
Today we had an early start to the day and were off for fieldwork at 8am! Roxane, Mark and I were all working together so we got through a lot of work quickly. Roxane did vegetation surveys, while Mark and I collected and filtered water samples and made the other measures like pH, temperatures. At … Continue reading Day 13 – Wed 13th Aug – Fieldwork in Nymto Park and a long journey back!
Now that we were loaded with our special permits, we got through the checks into Nymto Park and drove to our base for the night, which was about 3 hours away. This was at first a journey through a mixture of bogs and some very sandy soils which made me think of a desert. After … Continue reading Day 12 – Tue 12th Aug – Into Nymto Park
Today we began our journey to the second field station we are visiting – Nymto Park. Nymto is 63 °N, while at Mukhrino and Shapsha we are 61 °N. We started our journey at mid-day and headed east towards the city of Surgut, on the way there we stopped at a Russian roadside diner – … Continue reading Day 11 – Mon 11th Aug – North we go!
Today we are in Shapsha again, a good chance for me to catch up on computer work. Outside the field station there is a white tailed eagle with one wing, which was rescued and has been living here for the past years. He is quite a happy looking fellow and likes looking back when we … Continue reading Day 10– Sun 10th Aug – White-tail the Eagle
In the morning there was some lab work to do: drying of some of the vegetation samples we had collected and some subsampling of peat cores taken from our measurement sites at Mukhrino. After lunch we had a walk around Shapsha village which seemed very small and quiet. We later heard lots of loud music … Continue reading Day 9 – Sat 9th Aug – A trip around Shapsha
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