It’s plastic with a bright orange lid, and it definitely looks like it shouldn’t be floating around Lake Tahoe. But if you happen to see these containers washing up on local beaches in the next few weeks, don’t throw them away.
They are “floating robots,” and if one rides the wind to your stretch of the lake, please return it to the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC).
Researchers deployed a fleet of these bottled robots to better understand the surface currents of Lake Tahoe. UC Berkeley scientists teamed up with TERC for the project, which attempts to understand how contaminants and other unwanted stuff floats its way around Tahoe.
On Nov. 12, 32 drifters were deployed in Lake Tahoe on a north-south and east-west line. They were to be tracked and replaced for two days with 32 fresh drifters.
The positions of the drifters were mapped over the entire four-day period, offering scientists some insight into how surface currents move invasive species, urban storm water, and floating debris around the lake.
Units that weren’t retrieved by the end of day on Nov. 15 would lose battery power and therefore can’t be tracked.
TERC is asking anyone who stumbles on one of the deactivated robots to return it to TERC Director Geoff Schladow or Brant Allen, a research biologist. Stay tuned for more information once the experiment has been conducted and results are available. Info: Allen, (530) 604-6551; bcallen@ucdavis.edu, Schladow, (530) 902-2272; gschladow@ucdavis.edu
