After the Burn

While some of the researchers' work was completed yesterday, many of us spent an additional day working at the site doing post-burn sampling. I and my colleague Anne hope to understand the impact of deforestation on the release of mercury to the atmosphere, so it was critical to sample before, during, and especially after the burn to understand how the balance of mercury in the ecosystem has changed. It is a bit early to tell, but our data suggests that deforestation is a big source of mercury to the atmosphere.

The post-burn site is really interesting, most areas are heavily burned with only ash remaining on the ground, but some are largely untouched. What surprised me yesterday was how slowly the fire progressed through the site - it took over an hour to work through the small area we had cleared. What is also surprising is how much biomass remains. Dried leaves, brush, and small branches were by and large completely burned, but most of the large tree trunks remain on the site - though most are scorched. While the fire is now out, some areas of the site are still smoldering as you can see in the background above, and these areas are still very hot. Luckily the area I am working in burned quickly and relatively completely yesterday, so it had cooled off by today - it was only a couple of degrees hotter than the 100 or so that the sun supplied.