River Mud

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Britta Voss samples riverbank sediment from the Chilcotin River in British Columbia in October 2010, when low water levels exposed its banks. The Chilcotin, a tributary of the Fraser River, drains the dry interior of the basin and has cut steep canyons in the bedrock (visible in the background). Voss and others joined WHOI scientist Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink on expeditions to sample the Fraser and its tributaries, studying how land disturbances and climate change in a river basin can affect the river’s chemistry.(Photo by Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)