Science Report
11/20/2014
Paul Knightly
The soil vapor sampling program progressed today as I was able to test deployment of the soil vapor probe. The deployment environment was far from ideal, but the concept was proven to work and the full system, soil vapor probe and photoionization detector (PID), ran as expected.
The PID did not detect any volatile organic compounds, which was expected given the environment of deployment. I got a pump warning on the PID while it was running, which is usually indicative of soil or dirt getting lodged into the device somewhere. The pump still works, but any results could be skewed and will have to be validated some other way. A part broke off of the foot lever of my
soil core sampler after collecting a core and so it sat out during the rest of the EVA. The repair should be relatively simple and I expect it to be in operation again soon.
Otherwise, it was a very good day for samples. I collected roughly a dozen distinct surface samples, including some shale which appeared to have some oxidation staining and a good spread of fluvial samples from the creek bed. I also collected a hydrated sample of clay from the hand auger at my last borehole location of the day. While the moist clay was still at a shallow depth, it represents
the most ideal environment thus far for my vapor probe to be deployed. I did not have enough time to deploy the probe but the environmental settings were well documented and barring a revisit to the location, I hope to find some similar settings in the future.