Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 06/06/2013 - 12:37
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Arctic Wetland Dynamics in Finland

I see you were analyzing samples collected in March. How long can the gas samples be stored before being tested? I'm really enjoying the journal updates. Enjoy!

Fri, 06/07/2013 - 13:26

Carol Scott

Hello - thanks for the message and question - good one!In a perfect world, we would analyze the gas samples immediately. That
is what the laser is capable of, if it ever makes it to Kevo. We have
been keeping the samples in a cooler, sealed with the para-film.
Kim says the carbon dioxide stores poorly, and should be analyzed within
a month. The methane does not degrade as rapidly, and should be
analyzed within 2-3 months.
The samples we just did from March already had been analyzed for carbon
dioxide - we just ran the methane analysis on those vials. The rest of
the samples we just analyzed (both for carbon dioxide and methane) were
from May.
Cheers -
Carol