Rebecca - Sanchez Park and Sand Fleas

 My helpers and I were able to make it to Sanchez Park in Ormond Beach to do some water sampling. The Sanchez Park website says it abuts the Tomoka River. After some internet research, it seems that the body of water I sampled is actually Strickland Creek, a distributary of the Tomoka River. My helpers took turns being the photographer and filling the sampling bottles. They did great filling the bottles and even reminded me to shake it before we dumped it. They could use some photography lessons though (not a single picture of me!). I did make a mistake in my field journal but I just drew a line through it and continued with the sampling.

Emerita talpoida

For my project, I've been doing some research on Sand Fleas. At least, I've always called them Sand Fleas. It turns out that they're really called Mole Crabs. The scientific name for them is Emerita talpoida. Mole Crabs are harmless crabs that burrow in the sand and can be up to an inch in length. They come up to the beach in the warmer months of the year. Once it gets cooler our they return to deeper waters. Since it's still quite warm here in Florida I should be able to find a decent number of these little guys. I've already established that I will need a sand flea rake to collect and count them. I'll also need something to collect sand in so I can sieve it and collect data on the sediment size. When we did the dune surveying in geography, we used ziploc bags to store sediment samples. That seems like a cheap and efficient way to transport sand and would probably work for me.