Lake Sampling Starts with Lake Siso, Global Lake Sampling (GLS)
May 8th 2010
Early on Saturday May 8th Chris and I headed to the University of Girona, which is located about 69 kilometers (42 miles) from Blanes, to setup our sampling gear in a aboratory on campus. We were a bit exhausted from the long drive the day before and lack of sleep due to lots of German teenage tourist running up and down the hall all night long!
After the gear was setup we drove to our first site, Lake Siso or Ciso depending on who you ask. Lake Siso is a small (very small) holomictic lake with a maximum depth of 6.5 meters (21 feet). Long term extensive limnological and microbiological studies of the lake have shown seasonal characteristics, including an anoxic winter mixing which leads to an almost exclusively prokaryotic population. One of the key driving forces of the lake is the level of dissolved sulfate in the water which is converted to sulfide by the microbes in the lake.
Chris and Carles rowed a small inflatable dinghy to the deepest part of the lake and took a profile of the water column. From the profile two sample sites were chosen and water was pumped ashore into 50 liter carboys.
Two samples were collected, one above the anoxic zone (1.75 m) and one in the anoxic zone (4.5m).
We loaded up the carboys and drove back to the laboratory at the University of Girona, where we processed the samples.
