Azores

Day 4: Team 2…..the worm charmers

Posted on 17 May 2012 by Pete

Well I realized that in my enthusiasm to tell all things team 1 (the W-men) that I totally ignored that team w were also in motion. After the two teams split Luis collected the vulcanologist and headed for the none volcanic transplant site. One of the major experiments is to take earthworms Amynthas gracilis (also
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Day 5: Transplantation to the Furious Furnas

Posted on 16 May 2012 by Pete

Here’s a ‘Audio Boo’ to start the day….for those uninitiated to techy talk thats a sound recording. Just Click this link. Azorean Audio Boo ….yes no cars just glorious bird song. But there was no time to enjoy and relax, there were earthworms to catch and catalogue. Again we needed to split the man power. Luis
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Day 4: More volcanic worms

Posted on 15 May 2012 by Pete

Live from the Azores Volcanic hot spings. What a morning, an hour finishing cataloguing yesterdays inventory then we split into two groups, Luis and Marta with the geochemists to do the south side of the Fogo volcano and collecting for the transplantation with Joca driving Pete, John, Mike and Mark doing the North side of
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Day 3: Sampling on Steroids

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Pete

For me the day started extremely well with coffee….no one has designed a better drug for starting a day in my opinion and the coffee and breakfast the apartment staff organized was excellent. But this was a short rest-bit from the really work of sort through the previous days samples and before half eight we
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Day 2 – First Day in the field

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Pete

Day 2 – First Day in the field Before starting are earthworm search we had to drop into the local supermarket and pick up a few essentials…..first aid kits, lunch, sunblock and swimming trunks for Mike – yes they do stock these in Azorian supermarkets !! We then set off in bright sunshine to the
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Day 1 – Cardiff to Sao Miguel, the Azores

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Pete

Day 1 – Cardiff to Sao Miguel, the Azores Set out from Cardiff in good time. Avis was asked to provide a big car…….they obviously interpreted this as meaning engine size as the plush BMW they provided had such a small boot that we ended up with suitcases on the back seat and on our
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Pre-trip preparation. The Kit – Software and hardware

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Pete

Pre-trip preparation. The Kit – Software and hardware You may assume that the equipment for collecting worms is straightforward, a garden fork, a bag and a pen to label your specimens. Well if this was your assumption you would be wrong…….you need much more. The simplest item, such as the fork, is replaced by a
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