It is purely depend on your plan of work, long back we did sediment analysis in the mangrove forest using the transect, for that purpose we have collected the soil samples from the edge of the water front ( creek/channel/river branch) to bare zone where there is no mangrove vegetation. we have collected the sediment samples at 5 M interval up to end of the forest. The texture of the sediment samples was determined by the method of Postwa (1954) and Folk(1980)
Storage protocol of sediment and it's preservation depends on the nature of analysis one is planing to conduct. If you are planing for metal analysis along with Organic carbon and Available Nitrogen I would recommend these following articles to you, they can be helpful,
Yours ever,
Abhiroop
Article Identification of metal tolerant plant species in mangrove e...
Article Assessing the ecological health risk in a conserved mangrove...
Michael,
Your question may have a number of answers depending on the objectives of your study. However, I have use sediment cores in the past and I am attaching a review paper by Ellison 2008 as well as papers by Allison 2004 and Kristensen and Alongi 2006 that may be of help. Have a look at their Materials and Methods sections and follow their references. Using cores you will get a sediment profile not just a surface sample. Once collected the cores can be cut into sections as desired and once back in the laboratory they can be dried in drying ovens and stored for future analysis. Sediment cores can also be frozen, or stored in a preservative. Again it all depends on your study objectives. I hope this helps a bit.
Tom
Tomas (Tom) Tomascik
Tom, how would you suggest to conserve soil samples if I have to extract, salinity, ph and eh redox? Struggling with the same issue.
A
Hi Ada,
If you are interested to measure salinity, pH and Redox potential in mangrove sediments then you really should do so in the field (in situ) for the best results. To measure these 3 variables you really don’t need sophisticated field equipment.
If you are not able to obtain proper field equipment for field sample analysis and your lab is not too far from your study site, then maybe you could consider bringing the core samples packed in ice to the lab. I assume that you know how to collect core samples. Once you collect the desired core (the sediments plus the interstitial water) you need to store them properly by placing each core sample in a glass container with a tight lid and then placing it on ice ASAP (in ice cooler). The sample container must be tightly sealed and kept in dark. You should transport your samples back to your lab as fast as possible and do the analysis in the lab as soon as you can. You should not sore the samples for more than 7 days. Once in lab move your samples to a refrigerator set at 4 degC. When working with your samples the key is to reduce any potential oxidation. Gambrell et al 1991 used N2 or Ar to do this, I attached their paper. Also look at the materials and methods in the paper by Livesley and Andrusiak 2012, and the “Handbook for sediment Quality Assessment”. If this is not enough info for you go to “Google Scholar” and conduct a search on your topic, you should come up with some more papers on the subject. Again my recommendation is to do these 3 easy measurements in the field.
Good luck.
Tomas
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