We deployed the mobile lab on Monday! I had a great time out in the field. It was really exciting to get the ball rolling on my project and see the well pad where we will be collecting data from.
That’s the positive part, on the down side we are running into some issues with the remote connection and the baseline of the GC ( the gas chromatography instrument that will be measuring the BTEX mixing ratios). We are hoping the strange baseline is associated with a contaminated line, but if it’s not then we will have to remove the GC from the mobile lab and take it back to NOAA or the manufacturer… On top of that we may have to move the lab to another site because the oil and gas company may be drilling elsewhere. My mentor tells me these kinds of setbacks are normal and just apart of field research, but it is frustrating none the less.
Hopefully I will have some good news about the progress of the mobile lab in the next post!
I am excited to see the finding from this. I did a research project on fracking water earlier this year. It is amazing how little we know about the consequences of oil drilling… thank you for sharing!