Research in Antarctica

Greater Number of Samples?

2006-01-29T23:40:00.000-03:00

My last entry had a huge gap before it and I would just like to give you an idea of why things have become so hectic. We started the season sampling from the zodiac to collect two bottles per depth, a 1 liter black Teflon bottle for our delicate samples and a brown plastic gallon bottle for our pigment filtrations. Pigments are a sample taken to define the types of biological matter present in the water; this is frozen and sent back to the US for HPLC analysis. These were taken in this order and each depth would take about 5 minutes to sample from. This has increased to 8 bottles and the time required to sample each depth is about 15-20 minutes. So things have changed more than slightly. I thought over the next couple days I would run through the reasons for increasing the amount of samples and explain what these samples are used for.

Back when we were experiencing early growth of a pretty large phytoplankton bloom, we realized that the DMS samples (delicate gas samples) needed to be sampled out on the boat instead of trying to re-pour the samples after getting them home. The reason for this is that the phytoplankton are more apt to create DMS while being disrupted. There is not really any good way to keep from disrupting them while transferring them from the black bottle into a sample vial. This is one of the difficult sampling situations we had decided against back in the beginning of our stay. This is unfavorable for us due to the increased amount of time out in the boat pushing our very full day back and potentially sacrificing our ability to perform well on rough sea days. We fear this from the aspect of seasickness and loss of good sampling technique.

Since we started this type of sampling we have had better reproducibility until the bloom really started to produce. A couple samplings later it became obvious that there was still some DMS production occurring in the samples. Too many of the phytoplankton were getting into the samples so we had to resort to increasing our time out on the boat again. This time the answer was to pass the water through a Nytex mesh screen to remove a large portion of the phytoplankton. Since the transportation of the samples with the phytoplankton still insolution was the cause of extra DMS, this simple screening keeps the DMS levels stable and our analysis more exact.

The next issue…

Too long of a pause.

2006-01-28T19:12:00.000-03:00

Wow!  It has been a very long time.  We are getting near the end of our stay here and it is really starting to become obvious how much we have to complete before we pass the whole operation over to Maria.  If I have not said it before Maria Vila is a Graduate student from Barcelona Spain who is here to take care of our project for the last month.  She has had a whirlwind training period but she will have everything under control.

So in the last seven days all of the ships have left and gone on their way, mostly everyone who stayed were holding out for our hurricane to have passed.  Yes we recorded hurricane force winds here; up to 78 knots!  Not only did this event clear up keep us inside but it completely changed the dynamics of the phytoplankton colonies that we were investigating.  This changes things for us but it is a part of the natural organization here.  Well now that all of our sailing friends are gone we are all alone.  This is good but it has been very nice having visitors.  We have built great relationships with all of the people here at the station but when people are limited to anything we crave a little variety.  Plus the people that have made it all the way down here on their own boats are a special breed and bring great stories.

Kerry and I are really starting to crave home but that should be expected from anyone that has come down here to work endless hours in the lab for almost four months.  We also have many things to catch up on like my thesis needs to be finished this semester, something I was supposed to have time to work on down here.  But all of this pull to get home will not completely outweigh the erg to stay here with our new friends.  I am already starting to realize how difficult it will be to leave.

Oh yeah… today is my sisters birthday! Happy Birthday Joy!  Another reason to get home is to see my family.

Successful sampling and Boats galore!

2006-01-21T14:13:00.000-03:00

After yesterdays failed sampling trip we were determined to succeed in sampling today.  We were so lucky for the weather that we had today.  It was so clear and beautiful that we were able to see the Mountains in all of their glory.  Better than that our sampling went smoothly letting us soak up the sun and take in the sights.  While we were sampling at station E we saw the Clipper Adventurer entering the area from the Lemaire Channel.  The Clipper was due for tours of the station earlier today but had some better sights to see on their way.  We left E and while sampling at station B the 338 foot cruiser came by us with only three people out on deck watching their entrance to the harbor.  I don’t know, but they must have been serving drinks or lunch inside for so few to be out in the beautiful weather.  If I had paid $10,000 to get on a boat in Antarctica I would be stapled to the bow.  This makes four boats in the harbor right now, Amazing!  I had no idea that we would ever see anybody down here except for the scientists and staff.  I have to say that it is not bad to have people coming around asking questions about what we are doing and being truly interested in hearing about science that we are conducting.  It is also nice to see new faces and hear about the outside world.  The New York Times is not always the way to get information.

Our other guests are the Canadian vessel Sedna IV, the Chicago Vessel of two Onora and the Spirit of Sydney from Australia.  These boats are all sailboats.  The Onora and the Spirit of Sydney are family owned boats that are on fun trips while the Sedna’s trip may be fun their goal is to complete a documentary about climate change in Antarctica.  The crew that will be on this boat for the next year, during a winter over deployment, is the very same crew that filmed a documentary on climate change in the Arctic.  They have very kindly given the station a copy of the series; it is five DVD’s filmed in HD.  This series was on the Discovery channel.  Last night they visited us and gave us a wonderful overview of their early filming and a nice little talk from a scientist on board studying cold tolerance in Antarctic birds.  This was very nice and educational.

The Onora crew joined us for this presentation making this gathering even more special.  Jim and Jean Foley have been circumnavigating the globe throughout their retired lives.  This is their second long trip lasting 1 year.  But 10 years ago they went on a 3 year tour of the world and traveled around the entire globe.  They are documenting their trips on a web site at www.foleysail.com .  We are all looking forward to seeing more of all of these people, we are talking about having them over for dinner tomorrow.

Slammin Seas

2006-01-19T18:22:00.000-03:00

At 7 o’clock this morning I thought I had had my great experience of the day when I stepped out of the bio lab front door and almost fell over an elephant seal. He was very playful and cute but this very cool sight was greatly lessened by the awesome seas that we experienced today. We could see this morning that the winds were going to make going out and sampling station E very interesting but we really had no idea what was really happening out there. Let me explain this a little better. The southern side of Anvers Island is where we are located. We have no protection from the raw ocean. There are some rocks here and there that help a little, but not enough to call protection. So when we get a northerly wind it brings us open ocean built waves, we saw what this really means today. So after two days of a steady wind and a low pressure system quickly approaching, we should have known better. But the wind measured at the home station was only 13knots, so we headed out for our Thursday morning samples. Just after we had made it out of hero bay the waves picked up to 3-4 feet and they were tight spaced. By the time we made it out to the tip of Bonaparte pt. we were pretty well shaken. We had determined that we would make it out to station E and determine the feasibility of sampling out there. We motored on rising up and down in the swells which had grown to 5-6 feet. The waves would twist the boat allowing waves to plow over the side of the boat burying Maria in water. Every time we twisted I would correct to stop the flooding, eventually we were heading the wrong direction. I looked down to check the GPS, not 2 seconds later the boats’ nose was in the air and we were falling off the backside of a huge wave. We landed hard and the boat momentarily bent in half. All of our equipment made an attempt to evacuate the boat, and we almost lost Ron and Maria over the side. This was the turning point. We were still more than a mile away from station E and we had been motoring along for 20 minutes. Turning around in the waves that had built to 7-8 feet was a little hairy but we made it fine and we were on our way home, with the waves. Lots of Fun!

RAD VAN

2006-01-18T23:16:00.000-03:00

So it is the running joke here that “I live in a RAD VAN down by the Ocean”.  For those who don’t know why this is funny it is from a line in Chris Farley’s sketch about the “Inspirational Speaker”.  He tells kids how it is so important to be good and finish school or “You Will Be LIVING In a Van DOWN BY THE RIVER”. This is applied to me because I am always down in my radioisotope lab that is a cargo van converted into mobile lab space usually found on a Research Vessel but used here due to the lack of space available in the lab.  My Van is located at the end of the pier away from all personal interaction, and a place that is viewed as the place no one wants to be.  I have to tell you that I am so happy to finally have the chance to run some real experiments here, but I will be totally burned out soon.

Today was extra boring, no sampling and no boating due to strong winds.  Boating is prohibited when winds reach above 25 knots and a good portion of today we had a steady 30 knots with gusts into the 40’s.  That is ok I had plenty of other tasks to tend to.  We are investigating a possible contaminant in our samples here.  In analyzing samples for DMS we are seeing production in the vials while they wait to be analyzed.  We still have yet to discover what is going on in these waters, and this is much more complicated now that we are having a heavy bloom period of phytoplankton.

We have visitors staying here in Arthur Harbor for the next week or so.  They are a Canadian film crew here to film the daily happenings around the station and they will be trailing some of the science crews around here that are involved in animals and plant research.  No love for the chemists.  I can understand that it can be difficult but chemistry has the ability to define many things in great detail.  I will write more about this later.

The Photolysis Experiment

2006-01-16T14:49:00.000-03:00

The photolysis experiment that I talked about the other day is used to measure photolysis of DMS while determining what bandwidth of solar radiation is causing the breakdown of DMS. What I mean by bandwidth is what range of sunlight is responsible for this. I built a black PVC box with separate cells within it that hold samples in continuously flowing fresh seawater under a cutoff filter. The cutoff filter only allows wavelengths of light above its cutoff through. We have cutoff filters at 290, 300, 320, 340, 360, 380, 400nm. From this array of filters we can determine which portion of the solar spectrum is causing photolysis. We are able to determine the strongest degradation by reaction tracing with 35S isotope. DMS labeled with a 35S isotope is added to the samples to determine what percentage of the sample is photolyzed.

I have not finished the analysis but when I am done I will give an idea on what we are observing here.

Guidance from my home Lab.

2006-01-16T03:54:00.000-03:00

I have had the chance to chat with some of my friends back home, they are also my lab mates, to get some information on some analysis techniques down here. They answered my questions swiftly and correctly, thank you Jordan and Emily. In the process of gaining this much needed info I ask Emily what she thinks I could do to try and interest some people to continue reading my fading blog. She told me that it would be a good idea to just tell what I am doing on a daily basis and to get some background on the other projects that are being conducted here. So I am going to do just that. I need a little time to get a better idea on what the BIRDERS, BUGGERS, PHYTOS, and the KRILLERS are actually doing out there, but I will try and fill these pages with some cool stuff about what is being done here. Maybe there is something down here that you might want to do.

I have finally had the chance to run a Photolysis experiment. My personal focus on being down here in the Antarctic Peninsula was to study the effects of solar radiation on DMS. Although I am here to run analysis on many other aspects of the organic sulfur cycle a major portion of this cycle has been found to rely on my area of focus. What is photolysis you ask? This is a molecular breakdown of a substance that occurs when a photon bombards it. Photolysis is observed in daily life through the lose of color in carpet in front of the sunny window or fading of the upholstery in the car. The sun can also cause the holes that seem to just appear in the deck umbrella and can cause a plastic chair to collapse under you. The sun has the power to break down color and the actual structure of cloth fibers; it will weaken plastic and break down the integrity of many materials. The sun plays a very large role in chemistry, not to mention the huge role it plays in the breakdown of simple molecules found in the surface waters of the ocean.

The sun plays such and important role in the cycling of chemicals from the oceans due to the huge area that they cover, totaling somewhere around 75% of the surface of the Earth. This gigantic area is continuously bombarded by solar radiation and many organic compounds are being broken down and recycled to be used for another purpose. In the case of the Sulfur that we are interested in, DMS (dimethylsulfide), it is broken down into Sulfate molecules and is returned to the atmosphere. Sulfate in the atmosphere will help form water droplets and then form clouds and eventually the sulfur will be returned to the Earth. Turning into sulfate aerosols is not the only pathway that a photolized DMS molecule will take; this is a large part of my studies.

I will tell more about how the experiment was run and what it shows us tomorrow, right now it is time for bed.

Sampling introduction!

2006-01-08T21:36:00.000-03:00

Our new comers made it out in the boats today for a deep sampling out at Station E. The purpose of this event was to try and determine where the DMS concentration in the water column drops to 0. Other side points to going out were to give everyone a good idea on how things work out on the boat and why it can take so long to complete sampling. Unfortunately this was not one of the best days we have had out at Station E, but it also gave a good perspective to what types of things can go wrong while out sampling.

A couple of the problems that occurred out here started with a malfunctioning depth sounder. The wind combined with the current was moving us off station; therefore we did not know what depth we could lower our bottles to safely. Plus we were given a new measuring pulley, called a block, for sending the bottles down to the specific depth and this block measured in feet. We have been operating with a metering block since the beginning; it gives us time to stop the winch in the correct place, it was more exact and meters are the unit of measure that all of the teams use out here. This just tested out math and ability to remember conversions. We also found out mid drop that the block was slipping and not measuring, leaving us with incorrect depths. Wait there is more… We decided that since all were feeling a little green, some more green than others, that we would head back with just a 10 meter and surface sample. In bringing up the bottles to the 10 meter point the waves picked up and the first bottle hit the side of the boat, breaking off the sampling valve and spilling the sample. We needed to come back with something so a new bottle was recocked and sent back down, even though none of us really felt like doing anything else. After much time being invested this sampling was successful. Ron performed DMSPd filtrations right on the boat to determine what type of effects can occur to the samples while they are in transit back to the lab and waiting for us to filter and prepare. On Research Vessels, where we are used to performing this analysis, we have the ability to process samples instantly, we feel this gives a much more precise measurement.

Our new members now have a great appreciation for the difficulty involved in the sampling process.

Arrival of the January Crew

2006-01-05T23:29:00.000-03:00

Our team has arrived! The Biocomplexity group is finally together again. Ron Ray and Maria were on another trip that I took last summer to the Sargasso Sea, right in the vicinity of Bermuda. Yes we were in the Bermuda Triangle and nothing happened out of the ordinary. Back to Palmer… Everyone had a great crossing but they were all very happy to have arrived. Now it is time to try and get resituated around here. Lab space will need to be reallocated and the stations residents are in store for a lot of shuffling in their cabins. We are going to be fully loaded with 45 residents after we have moved everyone off the ship and everyone else on who is going to participate in the LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) cruise. There are some people losing a person out of their bunkroom and some will need to move to accommodate rooming situations. The most invasive switch here is a lab swap for the phytoplankton group; they have many people leaving on the cruise leaving only one behind. The Phyto group is set up in the largest lab on station to supply enough room for their people and equipment. Some equipment is leaving on the cruise but much will stay behind and will be moved to a smaller lab to open lab space for another large group. They have been working on this transition for weeks. We all have a lot of training to complete, for ourselves and for the newer people. We need to learn processes so that we can take some vacant places in the Phyto group, help our new people to understand our analysis and prep, and to start up all of our experiments that have been on the back burner while there was only two of us here. This is all going to lead to a very busy first week and a half.

New Team

2006-01-02T22:54:00.000-03:00

The Gould is on its way to Palmer as we speak. They are bringing us freshies and much awaited people who will help make our lives easier and more interesting. Ron Kiene, Ray Najjar and Maria Vila are the support staff on route to our humble abode. Ron is one of the first people to get real in-depth with DMSP and phytoplankton. He is bringing us copious amounts of knowledge that we need of the ecology and behavior of phytoplankton, allowing us to perform better collection and analysis of our sulfur compounds. Ray is our meteorological modeler who is here to help guide us in supplying good aspects of data that will help him turn around a more representative model of this portion of the organic sulfur cycle. Maria has been working on her PhD mostly with DMSO from phytoplankton and has much experience with isotope methods to determine chemical pathways. This dynamic team is going to liven up this event tremendously. We are anxiously looking forward to their arrival.

Thick phytoplankton water!

2005-12-27T20:33:00.000-03:00

I had talked back before Christmas about how the water was changing color here and how it was due to the ice cover protecting the phytoplankton. Well today we had the chance to go see how this has affected the sampling out at stations B and E. Our sample depths are determined by the passage of light down into the water column on that specific day. The deepest depth that we take is down as far as 0.5% of the light measured at the surface and is transmitted through the water column. We started sampling earlier in the season to as deep as 90 meters out at station E and our deepest depth today was 14 meters. That is how much growth has happened out at these stations since the beginning of the season. But before the ice came in the lowest depth at E was 60 meters. Having been covered by ice for twenty days increased the organic growth, mostly phytoplankton, causing the passage of light to be greatly reduced thus is bringing our lowest depth to 14 meters. The rapid growth of a bloom due to environmental conditions is a very exciting thing to observe.

Back to station sampling!

2005-12-26T20:12:00.000-03:00

We are finally getting back on the sampling track here. The Gould came and picked up some great people to bring them back to Punta Arenas. It was sad, but we all kept our heads up and a lot of us jumped off the pier to give our best wishes to our friends. As sad as this leaving was it opened up some new opportunities for us. The boats exit from Palmer randomly signaled the winds to start moving the ice out. By afternoon we have enough ice out of the way to sample from station B, with a little pushing of some ice blocks. This was the first time we have sampled from a station in the harbor in ten days; yep that is what happens with the weather down here. Never expect anything! The ice continued to clear and on Christmas morning Santa delivered a perfectly clear station E. Now it was Christmas, and we all took that into account but we had not sampled from station E in 20 days. There is always too good of a chance for the wind to switch direction and leaves us without samples from E for another 20 days. So we went. It was beautiful.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-25T22:21:00.000-03:00

Merry Christmas to all!
We had a great Christmas here on the station. We started the day off with a quick sampling of the ice freed Station E. But soon after that we were enjoying gift exchange and an all out fun gathering. We ate homemade truffles, drank hot buttered rum, told stories and opened wonderful handmade presents. All together it has been an unforgettable Christmas. I miss my family but it was still a great day.

Ice Ice and Tons of Phytoplankton

2005-12-18T23:55:00.000-03:00

The ice has brought us a booming bloom. The phytoplankton are taking advantage of the calm water to grow. Looking out from the pier you can see the brownish green cloud in the water formed since the ice blew in providing shelter for the organisms helping their population explode. Phytoplankton need nutrients and sun to live. Under the ice they have both with no mixing and churning to slow the growth rate. Now we have a nice soup for the first twenty feet of surface water. After the ice clears we will be able to see what long term effect this has caused on the local aquatic environment.

Ice bound again.

2005-12-14T19:48:00.000-03:00

Since we only made it to Station B yesterday the goal for today was to get out to E and finish the series of samples (this is because we are trying to relate changes between the two).  But last night the ice came in.  At this point in time I thought that all of the ice was gone but to my dismay, the wind brought back loads of brash ice and some large icebergs.  Today was utilized in finishing up sample analysis from yesterday, running an isotope experiment, and starting a grazing experiment.

Normal sampling for us includes collection of water at specified depths and analyzing them for dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), dimethylsulfide (DMS), dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), chlorophyll pigments and chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM).  Experiments that show how these compounds behave under specific conditions are in addition to these measurements.

DMSP is important to our study because it an organic sulfur compound that is produced by phytoplankton most likely as a cryoprotectant.  What this means is that DMSP might help protect the phytoplankton’s tissue during periods of freezing.  This compound is also suspected of having antioxidant properties, helping protect tissue against oxidation compounds like hydroxyl radicals.

DMSP is the precursor of DMS.  It is not fully understood why phytoplankton break down DMSP into DMS, but we observe it regularly.  The importance of DMS is that it breaks down under different circumstances to become a sulfate aerosol which acts as a cloud condensation nuclei.  What this means is that the more DMS that is produced, potentially, more clouds will be formed.  This is one of the most important focuses of our studies.  We are most interested in the biogeochemical organic sulfur cycle to see how exactly sulfur effects our environment, and how t is transferring from one place to the other.

Windy Sampling

2005-12-13T22:23:00.000-03:00

When your schedule is disrupted by storms, like we saw yesterday, you jump at the chance to make up the sampling. Today the Winds slowed down to a steady 20 knots and only gusting to 25, so we jumped out in the zodiacs to grab our samples. Keep in mind that 20 knots is the limit for allowing zodiacs to go out with gusts not to reach above 25. So we were just at the line.

For this trip out we took an extra set of hands (John Dacey) to help drive the boat into the wind while Kerry and I do the sampling. This is totally necessary once we reach station B due to the benthic topography. We were headed out to Station E with a big white line across the horizon. As we got a little closer we could see that Station E was completely obstructed by thick brash ice and we had to turn around.

Sampling at Station B made us very happy that we had brought John to steady the boat. We stopped on station, swapped drivers and changed some of the positions of our gear. Within this 3min period we had drifted 500 ft. The wind and waves made every aspect of the sampling event an adventure. The boat is rocking and the person tending the Go Flo bottles legs’ are dipping in and out of the water, while waves are inviting themselves into your lap. This sampling was a bit on the hairy side but was a lot of fun to experience.

Sampling Woes

2005-12-12T22:45:00.000-03:00

The weather took a turn for the worst last night. The wind picked up and was howling. At about five this morning Kerry was abruptly awoken with the sensation of cold water on her face. A couple seconds later she was fully awake, shocked into consciousness by cold rain pelting her in the face. The wind was gusting up to 50 knots and rain was filling the sky. We have a tendency to fall asleep with the window open due to there being only one temperature for the entire floor in the building we sleep in. So the high velocity rain was forcing its way in through the top of our window and had started to soak our bed. Kerry jumped up and closed the window. Shivering, she jumped off the bed and dried off with a towel. Looking out into the harbor I could see that the water had taken on a whole new personality. Waves were reaching as high as three feet, a total 180 from most mornings here. The most amazing aspect of this is that the waves were moving in the direction opposite of tidal flow. It was crazy to watch waves forming away from the shore.

Well the real reason that I told this story was to show the kind of event that would keep us from sampling. Ya, there was no chance that we were going to head out into this weather to sample today. This allowed us one more day to try and get caught up with our samples. True, we have not yet totally excavated ourselves from our built up workload, but we are very close. Two of our GC’s are now functioning perfectly and we are keeping them working at all hours possible. We are pulling shifts to keep things running; this is allowing the “off” person to get some much deserved “me-time”. Things are really great right now, and I even had time today to get back to the RAD VAN.

Seasons Feelings!

2005-12-10T16:52:00.000-03:00

The weather here has been so extremely abnormal that everyone who has been here before is commenting on it regularly. Yesterday we had a stupendous morning. The Temperature was up around 40 and the sun was intense, the regulars started up their normal inquisitive banter about global warming. But by afternoon the clouds had rolled in and the temperature dropped quickly, snow started to fall and all were delighted to see a more typical weather pattern. For me there was a deeper feeling of finally setting the mood for the season. In New York and the east coast I understand that there have been a couple storms so far and the snow might not be sticking around yet but it is definitely obvious that the winter and Christmas season are upon you. To my delight I awoke to find that about 4 inches of soft powder had collect and was now beautifully coating everything. I am starting to get the seasons feeling. We also set up our Christmas tree on this wonderful day.

2005-12-07T13:29:00.000-03:00

Check out our boating range. Now that I have had about two minutes to think about things other than “how we are going to get this stuff done in time?”, I realized that I have been talking about our stations without having shown any maps or photos. David Huang has put together a great bathymetry map and laid the boating limits map over it. This shows us good places to sample safely without dragging our Go Flo bottles on the sea floor. Here you can see that Station B is very close to Palmer station and Station E is way out at the end of our allowed boating Zone. What this means is on any day that the weather permits we are allowed to travel out to this point but not beyond. With special permission, due to scientific needs, traveling beyond the boating limit is allowable. This line is set up mostly for the ability to respond to accidental tip-overs, engine trouble and in the event of ice blocking the passage back. Within the two mile limit there are emergency caches that are located in random locations and there is one outside the limits. This seemed very small when I was first introduced to the idea but since going out sampling I have realized that the limits are very reasonable considering that it takes us at least 15 minutes to get out to station E.

Game ON!

2005-12-06T12:33:00.000-03:00

Things are really starting to work. I have finally gotten our Gas Chromatograph (GC) running in a reproducible manor. WOO HOO! This is the biggest relief ever. Samples were piling up and pressure was following suit. Malfunctioning equipment does not help with team moral. But the tides have turned (knock on wood) this evening. I had great success in calibrating the main GC and I was able to run our most important samples. Life is good now. As long as I can keep the GC in good operating condition, we will have no problems keeping up with the workload.

Other good news is that we were able to sample from both stations today. We have been sampling on Monday from station E and then on to station B on Tuesday. We then have to do the same thing on Thursday to cover two days a week in both stations. It can take up to two hours to get fully prepared to head out to sample. 2 hours x 4 days = way too much wasted time. Sampling two stations per day is extremely helpful due to the decreased amount of time involved in preparation.

Sheathbils

2005-12-03T22:47:00.000-03:00

Let’s talk about Sheathbills. These very cool but gross birds are hated by a lot of people down here, especially the “birders”. Birders are the people who are down here to study the lifecycles of the birds and penguins. The problem with these birds is that they are fearless and disgusting all at once. I have really liked these birds up until today when I found out where they got their nickname. Today there was too much ice in the bay to set our Zodiacs in at our regular launch so we had to put in on the other side next to our outflow. This is a place that we all avoid at all costs. Well there were about ten “S!$@ Chickens” picking debris out of the water and eating it. Yes, it was totally gross. So the reason that people hate these birds is that they will not leave us alone. They will dive-bomb us, hover over us or just plain follow, looking for us to drop something. And knowing the kind of places that they hang out in you don’t want any part of them touching you. These scavengers are also known as the preening crew for the elephant seals; they clear the nostrils of these huge beasts. Yep, gross animals. I have a different view of them now.

Here comes the LMG! (again)

2005-12-01T09:02:00.000-03:00

The LMG is coming again! The Laurence M. Gould has been fixed at port in Punta Arenas. Both engines have been rebuilt and all possible issues have been explored. After completion the ship was loaded with new freashies and sent on its way with all of the things that we have been waiting for. Now, this morning, the LMG was supposed to arrive at 0800 but it has hit some pretty thick ice which has only slowed its progression, not stopped. So we will hopefully see the boat here at 1300. It will be good to see the LMG but no one is holding their breath.

New people arrive

2005-11-28T23:34:00.000-03:00

The Clipper Adventurer was the first non-NSF vessel since 1997 to be allowed to dock at the pier at Palmer station. We have been expecting our scientists and other staff for three weeks, but somehow the ice thought it was a good idea to build up all night and then into the next morning. All spawned by the retched northern winds. The ice makes it impossible to get our Zodiacs out to receive our most precious passengers that have crossed the Drake Passage three times in a row. Therefore the Clipper was not surprised that the head of NSF had no objections to allowing his boat to tie up at our pier. Everyone was totally impressed by this ships agility and speed of taking port. Our new people are here!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving for us.

2005-11-26T22:54:00.000-03:00

Yesterday was our thanksgiving feast day. It was amazing! First there are only 36 people left on station. The amazing quantity of preparation that goes into a meal like this just blows my mind. Our two chefs roasted 5 turkeys and baked 33 pies. Quite a bit of help came from those here that have favorites or just love to cook. This greatly increased the ability to overeat. The food here is always great but last night the variety of foods, vegetarian and regular, was amazing. There was so much to try; I ended up inflicting more pain upon my body than I ever had at Thanksgiving Dinner.

Wish us luck our late arrivals should be showing up tomorrow on the Clipper Adventurer, but right now we are iced in and the captain does not like ice. This is the third time that these people will have crossed the Drake Passage. I hear that they have had mostly good rides.

just a wish for you

2005-11-24T21:58:00.000-03:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are short handed!

2005-11-24T21:50:00.000-03:00

We are short handed now. It is just Kerry and myself. Paty Matrai lucked out and jumped aboard the Clipper Adventurer, a beautiful cruise ship that was coming through the area and traded rides for a couple of our stranded scientists for a tour of the station for its 190 passengers. This was a great experience for both sides of the deal. We were able to talk with people about what it is we are doing here and they were able to learn about a program that does not get much attention. So now our schedule is much different and we are stretched to the end of our capabilities, but we are still having fun.
Our day in a nutshell runs like this. We have been getting up at 530 to hit the gym and wake up, but more recently that has been a luxury that we could not afford. Then on to the lab at about 700 where we start organizing and processing samples left over from the day before. As sampling time gets closer we switch over into prepping to go out in the Zodiac, this would not seem to be that big of a deal but you have to remember everything you could possibly need, including cameras and some food. We head out to our first station about 1100 in the morning and collect out depth profile samples. This takes us about 2 hrs per station. Lately we have been only able to sample one station per day. Our scope is two extreme stations. One is called Station B and it is located within a quarter mile of Palmer Station. It is relatively shallow at a max depth of 65 meters. Station B supplies growth earlier in the season because of its deptha dn location. The other Station is E, located about 2 miles from Palmer. This stations unique aspect is its depth at 165 meters and more a continuously harsher wind pattern. Station E will bloom late in the season and will show different outcomes and activity. After sampling our stations we head back and Kerry starts her long day preparing samples. This process takes about four to six hours, filtering, basifying, acidifying, measuring, pouring, it goes on and on. During this period I get the equipment functioning and start preparing for samples from Kerry and start setting up my isotope experiments down in the RAD VAN. We are almost always still at it until about 2300. It all starts again the next morning at 0530. Well it is keeping us on our toes. That is for sure.

Finally Sampling

2005-11-20T19:31:00.000-03:00

So back on the 17th I had mentioned that the ice blew out in an overnight storm. This gave us the chance to finally get out to one of the closest stations (B) to gather some samples from our depths of interest. This was quite an experience with the winds gusting up to 25 knots and at a steady 15 knots. The air was about 15°F but the wind was pounding us continuously for two hours. The cold is extremely emphasized when you are sampling seawater and your hand and clothes are soaking wet. We were very lucky to have packed many hand warmers, we did not hesitate to break those bears out. The wind was so intense that it did not just cause issues for us staying warm but Kerry and I also had a heck of a time keeping ourselves on station. Continuously running the motor is not my favorite way to ensure that we are in place so we kept back tracking. We started to realize that our motion has been bringing us out of a deep location and into an area where we could possible be dragging one, possibly two, of our $4000 GoFlo bottles on the bottom. (A Go-Flo sampling bottle is a plastic hollow tube with rotating valve ends that close when they are triggered with a solid brass weight. The bottle is then lifted from depth to be collected for analysis.) Our Zodiac is a new rig that has never been taken out before and on this trip we found that we were missing some important equipment, a depth finder. This means that we would not know if we were in the shallow area. We could not attempt to sample under these conditions. So we traded boats with our cohorts from Maria Vernet’s lab and commandeered one of the awesome lab techs from her lab, Austin. He was a tremendous help leading us through our very first time collecting depth samples on a zodiac. We are used to sampling on large ships but this 15ft zodiac is a little more precarious.

Waste

2005-11-20T18:12:00.000-03:00

Waste is one of the most important aspects of having a station in Antarctica. This unique environment provides us with a superb stage for performing research that will hopefully reveal modes of operation in atmospheric chemistry. We can use this so we can better understand how to fix the damage we have already caused and stop further global deterioration. The Antarctic Conservation Act is very strict about preserving the conditions in Antarctica. What this law states is that there can be no effects left by man on any part of Antarctica. This means no interacting with animals other than observation, no species can be introduced here, nothing can be removed and especially waste is highly regulated. Everything must be sorted for return to South America, wood, glass, paper, plastic and organic waste. Reasoning for collection of organic waste is due to accidental release of seeds, vegetable matter, soaps, and especially chemicals. Yes there are chemicals in foods that are not allowed to be released into the Antarctic soils and water. Our sewage processes all drain water to ensure no passage of these compounds. Waste is very complicated and of the utmost importance.

Environmental station?

2005-11-19T13:17:00.000-03:00

I received this comment the other day and somehow it did not go through correctly. If some of you have out in Anonymous comments and they have not gotten posted, this might be due to the Anonymous function. This one was luckily mailed to me, but extremely late. I am sorry about that.

George - I'm curious as to how Palmer station gets its power and how
Environmentally friendly it is.

This is an extremely good question. I had to ask about this because there are not any obvious signs around the station. We produce all of our power by diesel fuel. This is not an environmentally friendly form of power production but currently friendly forms of energy are not stable enough to sustain human life in Antarctica. I submitted that this was a very backward relationship. “We are down here to study how we can repair the damage that we have inflicted upon the earth while we are at the same time we are supplementing the problem.” I was told that our impact down here is extremely minimal. After a little thought it occurred to me that we are a small station of a maximum of 42 people living here in the summer. Plus all of the people here are extreme conversationalists that make every effort to use the minimum of electricity. I am also assured that the station does not use near the quantity of resources that the same number of people do on average in the US. This is due to the quality of structures, insulation and management of resource use.

The LMG has left the Building!

2005-11-17T22:13:00.000-03:00

So the LMG has left the building! The ship traversed up to King George’s Island and was hanging out at the Chilean base where they, and ourselves, were waiting to find out if the plane from Rothera was going to make a visit. They could not. Due to weather in the morning at Rothera then when that cleared the storm had reached us and the last possible window was closed by the lingering storm that covered both us and King George’s Island. That was the end of our chances for our needs to be met and it slipped away in the schedule of the LMG’s much needed repairs. Well the ship is now almost three days distance away and we woke up to an amazing thing. The ice is totally gone out of our harbor. Guess that is Murphy’s Law for you (anything can go wrong, it will). Well I caught a photo of the LGM stuck in the ice. Check it out in my gallery.

No LMG for us!

2005-11-16T11:02:00.000-03:00

Sorry for that pause. We had a very busy day with a new experiment (which I will explain in a comment for those of you who would like to read it). We also had some issues with the LMG (Lawrence M. Gould). The ship, bringing new people, much needed gear, freshies, mail, and not to forget to mention to bring home all of the people that are scheduled to get back to their lives, could not push its way through. The LMG was short one engine and the ice is abnormally thick. So the administration here got to work on alternatives to receive our gear and return our people. This made for a very busy and distracting day, every hour or so an announcement would come over the “all call” saying “We have found a cruise ship in the area, we are trying to contact them and see if they can help.” These type of updates continued all day until finally the LMG had worked its way out of the ice and was back in open water. This opened the scheme of alternatives up much wider. Now the plan was to ask the British base at Rothera to fly our team and good out to King Georges Island and meet up with the LMG to bring back personnel and our most important selection of our gear. We are still waiting to find out what is going to happen… 1600 this evening.

Ship ahoy!

2005-11-14T09:01:00.000-03:00

Today the Lawrence M. Gould should be coming back into station. The arrival time has been a subject of great speculation due to the engine that failed on our crossing of the Drake has failed again. The reason that it is more of an issue on this run is because the winds here have brought in a huge amount of small icebergs. The Captain sounds sure that he will be able to successfully navigate the treacherous blocks, but I still have my doubts about the ship actually making it here.

Comments Please!

2005-11-13T12:53:00.000-03:00

So I have not been getting any comments on this blog. I have gotten a few emails for photos and I took care of those right away. I like being able to convey good information and photos that people want to see but I need more feedback. If you would like to have more information on the social life here or the science that is happening, things like the weather and events that we are celebrating just give me the word. Comments are available to everyone. Press the comment icon and leave a comment or a question. It is way easy!

Iron Time

2005-11-11T09:05:00.000-03:00

Working out has been on the back burner for a long time. We have two weeks invested in getting organized in the lab and adjusting our lifestyles to fit the preexisting crew here. No one like it when new people come in and screw up the schedules. So having been extremely enticed by the gym during our orientation made me crave iron time and muscular pain to a level I haven’t felt in the longest time. This is due to the extremely long days with exhausting ends. Being tired and feeling like there is really no reason for it SUCKS! So since Monday I have been back to it and I am finally starting to feel that great energized extra bit of energy and that spunk that makes the day so much more fun. All thanks to a great gym, I will get photos later, maybe a video.

Oh ya, you have got to check out my gallery for the newest in photos and VIDEO, ya video. Check it out and tell me what you think.

The ice is back in town...

2005-11-10T15:16:00.000-03:00

The Ice has not left! We got back from our little mock sampling trip yesterday and the ice was on its way back. The wind had shifted and the mass of ice flowing toward us reminded me of a creepshow2 story where a roving blob eats everything in sight. Can’t beat that kind of mental visualization while stuck on an island in Antarctica, at least it isn’t the THING. So the point of all that was just to say that the Ice is back and we are repeating the same thing over and over again.

Maybe something will happen soon.

Paty, The PI in charge of organizing everything down here is leaving on Tuesday of next week. She is not happy about not being able to start any real science.

How cool is this place?

2005-11-09T22:46:00.000-03:00

Ok the setup down here is amazing. We have internet service 24-7 and at not too shabby of a connection speed. I asked for some help on a process from one of my friends and lab-mates and he was just able to chat with me on messenger like we were in separate rooms. I am in Antarctica with the internet and a phone. How crazy! The only really weird thing is that we hang out with the same 42 people everyday, and we are confined to approximately one square mile. All is well though because everyone is very cool.

Ice is moving! Woo Hoo!

2005-11-09T09:34:00.000-03:00

Holy cow! We are going nuts this morning. The ice has retreated by about 1000m and it is a good idea for us to get out and take a quick bucket sample of the surface so that we can start to get some ideas about the levels of DMS, DMSP, CDOM, and bacteria. I will tell you more later. Rock on! A’ boating we will go!

Zodiacin'

2005-11-07T13:26:00.000-03:00

Today we had the chance to get out in the water with one of the zodiacs. This was an attempt to see if we could get some viable samples while the ice was still packed in the bay. Hugh, Fen, Niki, and I ventured out in the bacteria zodiac, carrying the call sign “this ice sucks”, to try and get a couple depth samples and a surface sample. We pushed through the pancake ice moving huge sheets from side to side until we finally made it into a clear section to dip our sample tubes. I took a video of exactly how everything works to give an idea to you at home what it is that we are actually doing here. After sampling we started pushing our way back starting to realize that we could not see the path that we took to get ourselves out here. Hugh said slowly in his low tone voice “This is not goooood…”. Not a minute later he had us stuck on top of a huge piece of pancake ice. See, Hugh has this slow way of going through the ice, getting stuck periodically and then just gunning it to get free. Not this time! We did everything we could from chopping ice with ores to pushing with one leg out on the ice and the other trying to keep us safe. That is when the girl in the boat took control and gunned the motor back and forth until we were free. Goes to show that these men have no game over the young girls here. Shame shame shame…. Why didn’t I step in? It’s not my boat baby.

2005-11-03T07:10:00.000-03:00

Today started quite crazy like. We came into Palmer on the Friday of last week that was seven days ago and the ice was still here (check out photos at my gallery). That evening while the Gould was at the dock, and we were still staying on the boat, the wind picked up from the north and started blowing the ice out to sea. The next morning started to show more water and sparse ice, by the end of the day the ice had almost fully retreated, and by the next day all was clear. Now the bay remained clear for two days and yesterday all was calm and the ice rolled back in slowly but surely. This is not a good sign. Our science relies on cleared ice so we can traverse out to our stations, some of which are two miles away. So I woke up this morning and saw the ice is packed in even tighter. Now we are all hoping for a good sized storm. Today is my brothers birthday. Happy Birthday Geoff!

2005-11-02T08:11:00.000-03:00

We have been setting up all of our equipment, organizing the lab and checking our methods to smooth out any issues over the last six days. This was all in preparation for gathering samples from two predetermined stations here outside of Anvers Island. After all of this preparation we are still not ready to go. Working 14hrs a day should be plenty of time to get things running, right? Well not when you are setting up for 10 primary investigators (PI's). Ya, there are 10 head scientists in on this project. Well there are only three of us here, Two SUNY-ESFer's Kerry McElroy and My self. And one other PI, Paty Matrai from Bigalow Labs in Boothbay Harbor ME. Just the three of us and too much work to be done by ten PI's and all of their workers (three a peice). This means that the three of us are going to be doing the work of 30-40 scientists. In this case we will be doing all of the experiments that all 40 scientists would have been doing, had they been here, but we will not collect samples everyday. We are setting up to sample twice a week, still too much for the amount of studies to be done, and we will be spreading the analysis out over the week. We will see how it goes. I will be keeping up on this from now on. Chat later.

2005-11-01T22:10:00.000-03:00

Well, We are here and things are starting to finally get set up. Palmer station is one of the coolest places I have ever been. I don't have enough time to fill you in completely but I also didn't want anyone to think I had forgotten this Blog. I will be getting everyone up to speed in the next couple days. Mean time I have taken some mental break time to hike the glacier and even snowboard down it. Cheers!

2005-10-21T13:51:00.000-03:00

We have spent the last few days down here in Punta Arenas getting our gear together and trying on and learning how our polar clothing works. We are just about to get on the boat and run through some security protocols and start getting things moving. Our luggage will be transferred via huge tractor from the warehouse to the ship, whereas we are carrying our personal items. We will be traveling across the Drake Passage on the Lawrence M. Gould R/V IB. The Gould is a Research vessel (R/V) and an Icebreaker (IB). Well equipped to get us to our destination of the Antarctic Peninsula. Our trip is thought to take 5 days but anything can quickly change that. More later...

2005-10-18T00:13:00.000-03:00

This is it... Our last night in New York for the rest of the year. We are packing for our three month trip to Antarctica and excitement is boiling over. Imagine trying to pack everything that you could need for three months into three bags. Crazy! Ya, that’s what I thought. Well the packing is going really well, but I don’t feel ready yet. We will see in the morning and better yet I will see how I feel once I am on the plane. Back to the bags!

2005-10-12T11:46:00.000-03:00

This Blog will be used to update the public about the daily activities of our research teams down in Antarctica. We have two different teams conducting research on opposite sides of the continent. Dr. David J. Kieber will be leading his team from Lyttelton New Zealand on a cruise to the Ross Sea on the Nathanial B. Palmer, this trip will take two months. On Dave's team he has Jordan Brinkley and John Bisgrove, both are students from SUNY ESF. These three will be gathering data of organic sulfur release and degradation.
On the opposite side, SUNY ESF's other research group will be stationed at Palmer station, a United States research installation. Here a team of two SUNY ESF students, George Westby and Kerry McElroy will be gathering data on the organic sulfur present in the Bellingshausen Sea. Both groups research goes much deeper and will be discussed more thoroughly in this blog during the extent of this project.