New moon means great sampling conditions!

We had a great day sampling this past Wednesday. It was sunny and the water sure was LOW! Why was that? Wednesday was a new moon, causing us to experience very low and a very high tides throughout the day. Scientists call very low and very high tides spring tides. Spring tides occur when the sun, moon, and earth are in a line. Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon. When these two are aligned, the gravitational pull of the moon and sun are combined leading to very high tides and very low tides. The super low tide (-1.2ft) allowed us to quickly walk out to our sampling site... even in our heavy mud boots!