July 29, 2006 - Packing Gear, Different scientists have different needs Options

[Jason_Petula]

Packing is normally not an exciting way to spend an afternoon. However, it is extremely important to pack carefully. Once you are deployed to the field there is no opportunity to obtain anything accidentally forgotten. Given there will be ten people on this research expedition to the Colville River, the amount of supplies are quite large.

Because we will be camping in bear country, particular attention is focused on minimizing scents that may incite a bear’s interest. Take for example, a large bag of sunflower seeds. Once it is opened, odors from the bag can leak out. To prevent this, all food is removed from its original container and transferred to Ziploc bags. Another strategy for minimizing bear encounters is selecting food with a low stink-a-fication factor.

The research team consists of different types of geoscientists. For example, some of the scientists are paleontologists interested in studying the dinosaur fossils located along the Colville River. Others are interested in ancient soils and pollens found at the site. Each team has its own equipment requirements, such as the one thousand pounds of plaster needed by the paleontologists.

Once all of the equipment was gathered, it was transported to Wright Air Service. Some of the supplies will be flown tomorrow with three team members to Umiat, the starting point for the expedition. The team members heading off to Umiat are Dave Norton, Kent Newman, and Thomas Adams. One of their goals is to build the boats needed to travel down river to the research sites. While they are at Umiat, we will continue packing the remaining gear. I find it interesting that each plane can carry two-thousand two-hundred pounds. We will use four planes. That is a lot of gear!


Team members unloading gear at Wright Air Service