Way South...

The last I wrote, we were headed south. Well, we kept going south
until we crossed the Antarctic Circle (66 degrees 33.7 minutes S) and
didn't stop there. It is the first time I had crossed the famed
global line to the south and was pretty excited about it. Our
destination was Stonington Island (68º11'S, 67º00'W)…check it
out on a map or Google it. There are two field bases on the Island, one
American (East Base) and one British (Base E). East Base was
established in 1939 by Richard Byrd and later occupied by the Ronne
Expedition (1947-48), which included the first two women to overwinter
in the Antarctic. Base E was constructed by the UK in 1946 100m from
the US East Base. These bases were primarily used as a staging post to
access the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Today, the Bases serve as
historic monuments to the early explorers of the region. Cruise ships
still stop, offloading a few passengers to have a look around. Our
group was also lucky enough to have a look. One of the scientists on
the ship made this whole journey to spend about 6 hours at East Base,
collecting environmental samples of refuse piles, shingles, insulation,
tools, film, etc. This sampling is being conducted prior to the US
giving the Base over to the UK (at least that is my understanding). In
fact, we had picked up a couple Brits from one of the British Antarctic
Survey stations, Rothera (I included a picture of this base I took from
the ship), on our way down so they could do some repairs on Base E.

It was an amazing visit! I really felt like I was stepping into a bit
of history. There were all sorts of little "artifacts" left
around…from shoes, dishes, generator, etc. The island itself is quite
small, I walked the circumference while I was there…meeting several
seals and penguins along the way. I was even "dive-bombed" by a
frustrated Skua (rather territorial around these parts). It was also
amazing to just sit of the rocks and take in the breathtaking
scenery…the pictures won't do it justice! After a ½ day on the
island we started north again. One thing I noted on the way back, the
further south I had traveled, the "meaner" the ocean appeared. Yes,
this is certainly due to our weather, but it just seemed more gray, more
mysterious…can't quite explain it, so you will just have to trust
me.

In another couple days we will arrive back at Palmer Station. We have
equipment and people to load on the LMG. We will likely spend a few
days there before heading north, with a short stop at Cape Shirreff
along the way. We are still 2 weeks before arriving back in Chile, but
it almost feels like things are coming to a close.

Heading South…way South

Our science has continued down south. As I write, I am steaming south,
away from Palmer Station and the rest of my crew. Seems strange to be
on the ship without them, but I wasn't able to transfer to Station
with the rest of my group. So, I am heading south with the LMG to
Stonington Island and a couple other islands for sample
collection…just not samples for us, but rather some other groups on
the ship.

More on this later, for now let's get you caught up…

We completed our five days of science on the LMG on February 25th. The
previous blog post summarized our first ~2.5 days on the ship. Lucky
for us, the final 2.5 days were a bit more smooth…no, not the swells,
but the equipment failures and frustrations. The ETs (electrical
technicians) on the ship worked hard to get the rosette working
again…and that they did. We were back in business. We sampled all
the sites we had planned and a couple extra. We had hoped to get back
into Flandres Bay at the end of the cruise for some additional high
spatial resolution sampling, but the weather didn't allow it…fog,
snow, and ice prevented us from going.

After a very successful cruise on the Gould, we headed back to Palmer
Station. The Gould would stay at Palmer for 4 days, giving our group
another chance to work together nearshore and the other science group
(Dr. Yu, LeHigh University) an opportunity to complete what they came
down to do…sampling peat from some of the nearby islands to better
understand the change in climate along the WAP.

Our group used this time to get a better handle on the end members of
our tracers…the source of water we hope to quantify. If we are to
quantify the amount of meltwater entering the coastal waters around
Anvers Island using natural tracers (radium isotopes, radon, etc.) we
need to know what the concentration of these tracers are in the
meltwater. So, we spent the last several days collecting glacial ice
from the toe of the glacier and water from streams draining out of the
bottom of the glacier (see pictures). It was cold work…the weather
seems to have taken a turn toward the 'winter'…check out the
picture of the group coming back to base on the zodiac. Seriously, we
had 20 knot winds, below freezing temperatures, snow, and sleet. It's
been quite a couple days…

So, the group will spend the next couple days doing another couple
surveys nearshore and clean and pack all the gear…we have A LOT of
gear that needs to be shipped back home. As I said, while they finish
up at Palmer, I am heading south on the Gould (see map; star represents
our first destination). Until then…

Science at Sea

We are about 48 hours into our 5 days of science on the Laurence M
Gould. Wait a minute, let me give some background…

Our science has two components: 1) a nearshore focus that is trying to
quantify the amount of melt water and groundwater discharging to the
coastal ocean; AND 2) an offshore component that is focused on
evaluating the cross-shelf mixing of the freshwater discharged near the
coast (linking the nearshore with the offshore). So, our group has
spent ~7 weeks working in the nearshore at Palmer Station. Our time on
the LMG is focused on the offshore component. Although I will spend
almost 5 weeks on the Gould, I am only working on my science for ~5
days. We have about 8 days of transit between Punta Arenas and the
Antarctic and the LMG also has at least two additional operations that
it is completing besides the research of our group (i. another science
group focused on collecting organic rich soils from several islands
along the peninsula; ii. Collecting environmental samples from East
Base, an historic land mark around 68 degrees south). So, we all are
essentially sharing our time on the Gould.

OK, so that sort of puts our cruise in a broader context, logistically.
Again, we are 2 days into our 5 day cruise. The first picture is a
Google earth image of our cruise track (red line)…it shows the ships
current location (the orange ship), Palmer Station (yellow star), and
stations where samples were collected (white circles). So, we have been
working in two fjords (Beascochea and Baralari) and are now headed north
to Flanders Bay (a 5 hour steam and a fjord we sampled last year). We
will then start sampling stations moving away from shore on the
continental shelf (see picture of one of our lab benches on the LMG).
That's the basic plan…

Well, the best laid plan… We have not been without some problems
and delays along the way. Our cruise is primarily dependent on a
single instrument (or a composite of instruments) called the rosette
(see picture of complete rosette). The rosette has two primary
components, a CTD package and a bank of 30 liter (~7 gallons) niskin
bottles. The CTD measures conductivity (a proxy for salinity or the
amount of salts dissolved in the water), temperature, with depth. This
package also includes sensors to measure dissolved oxygen, fluorescence
(a proxy for the number of primary producers, known broadly as
phytoplankton in the ocean), and transmissivity (or essentially how
clear the water appears). Niskin bottles are containers used to collect
water samples from whatever depth the operator decides. So, we can
lower the rosette through the water column, all the while seeing
realtime how this list of parameters changes with depth. Then, with the
push of a button, we can close a niskin bottle, collecting a sample at
that specific depth of interest.

Well, we have been having some serious problems with the rosette so far
this cruise. The main problem is the communication with the niskin
bottles…so we can't tell them when to close. That's a problem
when you want to collect water from depth. Of course the show must go
on and when you are at sea, you MUST be flexible and deal with the hand
you are dealt…it's not like we can simply run out to Radio Shack and
buy a new one. At this point, we have stripped the rosette down (it is
now a naked rosette…see picture). We still want to get the
information from the CTD, so we have removed all the niskin bottles. If
you don't and send them to depth while they are closed, the bottles
(made of thick plastic) will simply implode! So, the naked rosette goes
down and gives us some understanding of the water column structure, then
we sample surface waters with our own pump (1 meter depth) and from the
ships intake (6 meter depth; see picture of Jared filling tank with
water from ship's intake). It is allowing us to measure our tracers
shallow in the water column and still have some idea of what the whole
water column looks like. At this point, it is the best we can do!

So, that's the water sampling (simply put anyway)…beyond that, we
are also collecting sediments from the ocean floor at each site (see
picture of coring from aft A-frame). This will help us determine
whether the tracers we are using to track groundwater and meltwater also
have a benthic (ocean bottom) source. These sediment samples are simply
being collected and stored…the analysis will be done when we return to
our home institutions.

Hope that gives you some idea what we are doing and how we do it…feel
free to post any questions you might have.

Cheers,
Reide aka Chief Scientist

Arriving at Palmer Station - Students Perspective

This blog was written by Ian Conery and David Young, both are masters
students at ECU Geological Sciences:

After a day and half of violent seas, we certainly welcomed the wind
and waves easing which made it much simpler to get around the ship.
During the rougher waters of the Drake Passage, everyday tasks become
more challenging, such as putting in contact lenses and sleeping in a
top bunk without side railings! Fortunately no one got sick and morale
around the ship was great throughout.

The views became absolutely beautiful when we approached Smith Island,
our first glimpse of the Antarctic continent. Despite some fog, we were
still blown away by the enormity of the glaciers and mountains. It is
difficult to grasp the scale of the landscape until actually
experiencing it in person. After sailing through the spectacular
Gerlache and Neumever Straits with Minke whales, energetic penguins,
seals and plenty of birds, we arrived at Palmer station around 2pm. The
remainder of our team that has been working hard at Palmer station since
early January was eagerly waiting to welcome us.

Very shortly after we stepped foot on land, our team was excited to
get us out on the water in the zodiac and we headed to the dynamic
sampling location called Point 8 for some measurements. Fur and
elephant seals and penguins were scattered throughout the site. It was
a surreal feeling working in close proximity to these wild animals while
making sure our presence did not have any impact. When we arrived back
at Palmer station we were able to relax in their lounge and enjoy some
darts and ping pong.

This morning there was some free time as we were waiting for the
ship's crew to unload cargo for Palmer station. We took advantage of
that time as we took a hike up the glacier directly behind the station.
We only made it up about a quarter of the way, but took in all the views
and the reality of scaling a glacier. After, the entire team worked on
building the hydrology lab aboard the ship for our upcoming week where
we will be taking samples at several fjords and offshore transects. We
are very excited to start collecting data and enjoy our ultimate purpose
here, SCIENCE! Thanks to the captain and crew of the R/V Gould for a
safe crossing and also to Drs. Corbett and Null for giving us this
incredible opportunity!

David and Ian

Transiting to Antarctica

We left Punta Arenas on Thursday, February 13 around mid-day. We were
saying goodbye to this continent for 5 weeks and looking forward to
seeing our next…Antarctica. We traveled for about 12 hours through
the Straits of Magellan. Ian and Dave spotted some interesting dolphin
with coloring very similar to an Orca. Can anyone name it? Leave a
comment…see who is first.

We have stayed busy getting as much prepared for our science days as we
can and running through a couple safety drills. Although we would love
to set up our labs for sampling, most of our gear and the remainder of
our crew are actually already at Palmer Station (see previous posts), so
there isn't much we can do. Once we arrive at Palmer, we will quickly
transfer all of our sampling gear onto the ship. However, we did
prepare a clean room…the "bubble"…for sampling ocean waters for
iron (Fe). Iron is found at very low concentrations in the ocean, so
sampling must be done with extreme care to prevent contamination from
the ship, sampling gear, or even particles in the air. So, the bubble
is used as a clean space. It is essentially a space, including lab
bench, which is completely encased in plastic. The air that is blown
into the bubble first passes through a very fine filter to remove all
particles. So, the bubble is under positive pressure, preventing any
ambient air from entering the space and keeping the area clean.

The weather was very calm, even after coming out of the Straits.
However, that quickly changed as we rounded Cape Horn. The wind built
to about 50 knots (~60 mph) and the waves rose to 20-25 feet. We have
been rocking and rolling for about 18 hours now. In fact, the LMG had
to steer into the waves (toward the West) for several hours during the
middle of the night, altering our course, rather then take the waves
broadside. We have been told that the waves should subside in the next
24 hours. Time will tell…

Although the LMG is 230 feet long and built for seas found in the
Southern Ocean, it still is not easy to do much when the waves are at
such a state. It is often difficult to simply stay in your bunk, let
alone walk through the narrow halls and stairwells. As you often hear,
one hand for the boat and one for yourself. This is certainly true
during rough conditions…you always want to be holding on to something,
preparing for the next RRROOOOLLLLLLL. That said, everyone seems to be
managing quite well and not one of us has succumbed to motion
sickness…YET!