Out Of Left Field Cafe

HOW DO SCIENTISTS PASS THE TIME AT FAR-FLUNG RESEARCH SITES?

- Mary Alexandra Agner

A volcanologist, a marine biologist, and an ornithologist walk into your corner café. From where you sit—the comfy couch, of course—you can almost hear their drink orders. You wonder if they’re tea people or coffee hounds. When they meet up with some friends and take the table behind you, you can easily hear them discussing their fieldwork: on site at Mount St. Helens, at the shrinking Great Salt Lake, or in Lower Athabasca, Alberta. Then one of them mentions sometimes being a bit bored. The others chime in. You’re curious: what do scientists do during their downtime in the field?

Snail Numbering

Kay Behrensmeyer, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian, mentions one trip to Pakistan where it rained nearly an entire week. Now that could be dull! However, she and her colleague used the time to write an entire scientific paper—on an early laptop, using electricity from a generator—describing their new method for documenting fossils.

Anna Armitage takes a different view regarding downtime. “Think! Eat! Explore!” she exclaims. Armitage, a marine ecologist, studies the effects humans have on coastal habitats, places like tidal mud ats, sea grass beds, and salt marshes. As for being bored, she says, “Sometimes, that [word] means you feel like there is nothing to do. Fieldwork is rarely like that—it is usually very busy! But, it can be tedious. Repeating measurements over and over can feel boring.”

You angle yourself toward the scientists’ table, curious to know more about what a marine ecologist does. Armitage continues, “I did an experiment once where I glued tiny numbered tags to the backs of hundreds of snails, and then measured their lengths each week to see how they grew in restored marshes. at was tedious, but busy!”

Rock Watching