Investigators Ashlee Dere, University of Nebraska – Omaha, and Sam Nath, University of Oregon, begin field installations for two new erosion experiments aimed to quantify erosion fluxes in Shale Hills and along the shale climosequence.  This multi-year investigation will use Erosion Pins and Young Pits, deployed at mid-slope catena positions, to estimate sediment loss across the soil surface and volumetric creep within the soil profile, respectively.  Collaborator, Talitha Santini, University of Queensland, joined the Nebraska team to collect a series of ridgetop soil cores from across the Shale Transect sites.  That project aims to analyze the microbial composition and function with depth in ridgetop shale derived soils to further the current understanding of subsurface biota and their relative changes across a climate gradient.  After a long day in Shale Hills, the team continued south to field sites in VA, TN, and AL to repeat the experiment layout.