I rose early today to prepare my last sampling trip to the BAY Site today. I have also tested packing the snow sample bottles, which have to ready by tonight (although I still have to verify that). Otherwise I started packing, once I got back from sampling.
I headed out for sampling around noon with two armed guards. I bravely steered the trusty Nuuk off-road down to the inlet. The snow was deep and wet with small pits appearing. We made it fine down to the inlet. I hauled my gear onto the ice upwind from the truck – 500 m onto the inlet – passing a few cracks on the way. Water had already started melting on the ice surface, giving the impression of open water and the boots sinking occasionally deep into melted snow.
The armed guards followed bravely, then stayed and watched, while I was busy sampling air and snow. I never felt so safe in my life – after telling them not to mistake me for a polar bear, when I had
put on my white clean sampling gear 😉 Sampling went well – SPME with air & a canister, snow in glass bottles and HDPE containers. The snow was already in a state of advanced metamorphism and quite high in liquid water content (read: slushy). I sampled three layers of approximately 9 cm each after digging a nice pit. We got back just in time for dinner.
After a quick dinner I ran the remaining SPME fibres, where I had ad-sorbed compounds sampled from air. Because of the humid conditions, the water in the fibre holders and the needle froze, resulting in the breakage of one of my fibres. Thank God – it is the last day, today. I let the other fibre warm up a bit (risking a loss of compounds, though), but this one was fine.
A comparison of GC Traces showed no differences between the two fibres, so even the broken fibre ran successfully, so surprise – the broken fibre pieces desorbed fine stuck in the liner.
