On Monday, we reached the northernmost point of the cruise track and we were in thick ice. This meant that it was time to get off the boat and do an ice station. The ship pulled into the ice and “parked” in order for the scientists to disembark and begin a sampling station on top […]
It was a foggy snowy day on the Healy yesterday as we steamed north towards St. Lawrence Island and the northernmost section of our cruise. In Sunday tradition on the Healy, lunch was a barbeque on the helo deck. The big grill was pulled out on deck and the rest of the food was served […]
In the fog, we were steaming to our next station in the morning. We are in the southern part of our cruise again so we are out of the ice, but we are heading north so we should be back in the ice shortly. One of the first orders of the day was to collect […]
Out in the cold and dark early morning the zooplankton ecologists wait for a net tow to come up from the depths in order to collect krill and copepods for their experiments. Once the net comes up, they put the “bugs” into coolers and get ready to go into the cold room to sort them. […]
Today has been a slower day. The sun is shining and the sea is calm. It was a beautiful morning with temperatures around freezing here in the open water. We are heading towards the shelf edge to do some benthic sampling before heading back to our process station to assess any changes on our quest […]
Yesterday, I had a chance to sit down with the chief scientist, Dr. Carin Ashjian, a zooplankton ecologist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to find out more about the mission of the cruise, her role as chief scientist of the expedition and her research.
The mission of the cruise is to determine the importance of […]
I started the day photographing some net tows in anticipation of learning about the mesozooplankton (copepods, krill, etc) grazing experiments being conducted by a team of scientists on the ship. I stayed out on deck for quite a while to observe, as various plankton was being collected along with some bottom grabs of mud. It […]
As we made our way through water sampling stations, we all anticipated the approaching ice edge. We were heading north so it was just a matter of time and we all hoped that we would come to it during the day. The day was cold and started out calm and cloudy but by midday the […]
I have spent the past two days learning about the multi-core, a state of the art benthic (sea floor) sampling device. The multi-core is unique in its ability to preserve the sediment water interface while sampling. This is a critical zone for the exchange solutes between the bottom and the water. Nutrients, dissolved gases, and […]
We are still in open water working at a deep station. The weather is beautiful with calm seas and bright sunshine. Yesterday some of the scientists deployed a floating sediment trap that drifts in the sea for about 24 hours until they go and retrieve it. After completing the multi-cores, we head off to find […]