Woods Hole

Earlier this week, I visited the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to work on my dissertation research. While the actual town of Woods Hole is cozy and small (kind of like Saugatuck I think, for the Holland folks), the actual research center is quite large, employing more than 800 people. There are also several smaller campuses with different names. I got a little lost on my way there (and went past it), but I asked someone, who directed me back up the road to the right turn off. The area I went was a collection of research buildings that looked rather like large houses or medium-sized inns. Here is a picture:


I had some fruitful discussions with the guy who will be taking my samples through their final step of analysis. Here he is next to the machine he will use. It is a GC (like I have used before), but it is modified into a 2D GC, which will be able to seperate the mutlitide of compounds in the samples so he can get enough space around the compounds to examine the carbon isotopes in a couple specific compounds. The good news is that he thinks there is a good amount of actual residue, so he won't have any problems having too little carbon to work with. The bad news is that the chromatographs are really complex and have a lot of peaks, so he needs to try to increase the seperation to get enough space around the compounds to get a clean read on them. I thought they were really difficult GC results, so it was gratifying to hear the same thing from someone with a lot more experience in the field.

Lastly, here is the view out of the lab's window. Yes, that is the ocean. It is really a beautiful place to work, with plenty of green space and coastal access. I was only visiting for the day, but I do kind of envy those who work here.