Tim Kittel, with Sarah Spaulding, took his undergraduate Winter Ecology class at the Mountain Research Station for a winter limnology day on 9 February 2014. They were joined by were joined by Lee Stanish, a former INSTAAR student and postdoc who is now a Research Associate with CU's Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology department, and Ian Bishop, an INSTAAR and Environmental Sciences graduate student.
The group hiked out to Gold Lake on a cold (-1.1° C), breezy day, drilled through the 17 inches of ice on the lake, and took water and sediment samples. They also used a sonde—a remote device with sensors for barometric pressure, depth, water temperature, pH, specific conductance, and dissolved oxygen that is lowered into the water.
After collecting the data, the students returned to the Mountain Research Station to analyze it for physical conditions and biota.
All photos by Sarah Spaulding, except the pictures of the group and of the blackboard, which are by Tim Kittel.