And So It Begins: A [very] Brief Look at my Thesis

This might not be a super exciting blog post to many of you, but I am too damn excited to care! I just bought the first materials for my thesis work and my first outing is this Saturday. But before I am run away with my emotions, let me explain what exactly I'll be doing.

Remember this blog post?
http://sharkysauge.blogspot.com/2013/03/marine-plastic-post-about-raising.html

Yeah...I didn't think so. It wasn't very popular because, well, let's be honest, it was boring. It wasn't about saving the whales or global warming or even the 'island of plastic in the Pacific' (which isn't a thing, btdubs). it was about the little-itty-bitty plastic pieces you find along the high tide line, kinda like in the picture below. (Exactly like in the picture below.)



Well folks, I'm sorry that I'm not sorry, but this is what I'm interested in. Plastics. Micro- and meso-plastics that is. Roughly translated, small flipping plastic pieces! This is what I'm doing my thesis research on. Here's a full explanation.

To start I will tell you that I had planned on using my SEA research for my thesis, but seeing as how that research completely bombed, I switched gears to something else I was deeply interested but was a whole heck-of-a-lot easier to do. Basically I am going to visit 7 different [popular] beaches on 7 different occasions and collect small plastic pieces out of the high tide line. Then I'm going to stare really hard at these plastic pieces until they tell me everything they know. Things like how big they are, what color they are, what type of plastic they are, etc. I'm going to science the crap out of those pieces and see if there are any correlations. Which, who knows? There just might be. Any data is good data.

There are a couple good things about this research that I'm also super stoked about. 1) It's easy to do and doesn't involved living creatures, which can be a pain. 2) I can continue this research long after my thesis 'ends'. 3) It's easy to teach and easy to understand, which is why I'm going to popular beaches; maybe someone will see me... 4) It's important. Marine debris, and plastic in particular is a big deal and we have yet to discover what it's actually doing in the aquatic environment. 5) It's basically community service, and I am more than happy to help.

My first trip is scheduled for Saturday February 1st and I will be hitting
1) Seaside
2) Cannon Beach
3) Rockaway Beach
4) Pacific City
5) Lincoln City
6) Depoe Bay
7) Newport
before heading back home to Dallas.

Like I said, I'm very excited and I'll be sure to give y'all an update on Sunday sometime!

p.s.--Thanks for all the love everyone. It's exciting to know people actually read your blog and follow you! Make sure to "officially" follow me if you have a Google+ account!