Valley of Desolation no vacation paradise

by Magda Havas

One misconception people have about universities is that during the summer, professors are on holiday. Not so. Summer is research time. For those faculty not teaching or involved with administration, the summer provides time to do research and for those involved with field work in Canada or abroad, this uninterrupted time is vitally important.

So you can image the look I get from friends when I tell them I'm going to the Island of Dominica in the West Indies in July to do research. To them "research" is a code word for "vacation". No amount of protest on my part removes the knowing look that says "your secret is safe with me." Oddly enough when I say I am going to Sudbury in February to do research they are not nearly so interested.

So what brings me to Dominica? Simply put--Nancy Osler--a graduate student in the Watershed Ecosystem Graduate Program at Trent University.

Nancy visited Dominica 5 years ago and fell in love with the small tropical volcanic island and its people. On one of her trips to the island, Nancy visited the Valley of Desolation, a UNESCO Heritage Site. This area has active sulphur vents belching gases into the atmosphere. The ground is warm underfoot and pools of boiling mud hiss and bubble. Traces of yellow crystals of sulphur coat the rocks. As its name implies, the normally lush tropical vegetation is absent. And while most of the area is covered by exposed or newly formed rocks, some vegetation does survive even these harsh conditions. It was these plants that prompted Nancy's curiosity. How do they do it?

Nancy came to Trent in September 1999 to do graduate work under the supervision of Professor Tom Hutchinson. Tom has worked on air pollution for the past 3 decades and has studied plant adaptations to acid and metal stress. He's worked on smelter emissions at Sudbury and on natural acidic emissions at the Smoking Hills in the NWT. To him, the Valley of Desolation and other Dominican sites are a natural laboratory providing a tropical contrast to his temperate and arctic sites.

I'm a member of Nancy's supervisory committee and have come to Dominica to help her select her sites and design her sampling and monitoring protocol.

Our first trip is to the Cold Soufriere an area in the northern part of the island on Morne Aux Diables at an elevation of 1000 m. The narrow roads with numerous pot holes hug the mountain side as they coil their way to the top. Guard rails are unheard of but despite this there are surprisingly few fatalities.

We stop a few kilometers from the site and hike in with a local high school student who is our guide and field assistant. The hike is first uphill to a peak with a spectacular view of both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Dominica is largely mountainous terrain with several peaks above 1000 m. It is about 48 km long and 24 km wide and has a population the size of Peterborough.

We begin to smell the sulphur on our downward hike to the valley where a river undercuts the path. The stream water bubbles with gases as though it were boiling but it is cool to the touch. The pH meter tells us it is very acidic. We see white precipitate in the water that may be aluminum and we take samples for analysis. We examine the vegetation and take specimens for identification. We record what is present and its relative abundance. Nancy measures the sulphur in the air. We collect water samples and soil samples for chemical analysis before we move on to our next site.

Once our work is completed at the Cold Soufriere we head to the southern part of the island, a mere 48 km as the crow flies but it takes us a full day because of the winding roads.

The information Nancy collects will help us better understand plant adaptation to stress. It will provide a good marker for the response of tropical plants to air pollution whether from natural sources like these volcanic vents or from man made sources.

Nancy plans to share her findings with Dominicans and with tourists visiting the island since her research sites are popular tourist attractions. I doubt very much that this will be her last trip to Dominica.

And yes, I did get some time to see sites that weren't research related-Scottshead, the southern most part of the island, Roseau-the capital, Trafalgar Falls and the Parrot Reserve. But, in my opinion, the most interesting sites are the one's Nancy is studying.

Magda Havas is a Professor in the Environmental and Resource Studies Program at Trent University. She can be reached at mhavas@trentu.ca


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