More ramble...

It is now Thurs 13th March, and after another hectic few days, things have started to calm down a bit. We are now on our way out of Pine Island Bay, and moving towards the first of many core sites in the Amundsen Sea and out towards the Polar front. Each project gets 10 science days, these do not include passage time, but if one project uses disproportionately more passage time to their sites, then not enough time is left for the science days for everyone else, so they get docked more days. There are 3 projects:

BIOPEARL * for all the biologists. They trawl, dredge, box core (to get anything that burrows into sediment), and CTD (micro-organisms). This is led by Peter (Enderlein), one of the two PSOs * Principal Scientists. I don't know what there entire project is about, but on the cruise, they are mainly looking at how life on the shelf differs in diversity and quantity to life on the slope and on the continental rise. I am told there is a huge conundrum, due to 10,000 yrs ago, the ice sheet is believed to extend and be grounded at the shelf edge, but the life they find on the shelf is so different to that on the slope and rise, that it is unlikely that it evolved from slope/rise organisms in that amount of time, or migrated. So this led to a discussion (non-scientists would have called it an argument!) between biologists and geologists a couple of days ago. This is because biologists believe there must have been small pockets of either open water or shallowish sea ice where organisms could have survived during the last Glacial Maximum (10,000yrs ago) and geologists say no, all the evidence points to the ice sheet being grounded at or very near the shelf edge all around this area. Of course, as is the nature of these 'discussions', both are right, and both are wrong. There is simply just not enough known about either the organisms or the extent of the ice sheet!

QWAD (Quaternary West Anatarctic Deglaciation) which I am in, led by Rob (my supervisor and the other of the PSOs). They are mainly concerned with coring as deep and therefore far back in time, as possible. They do not need high resolution cores, just a long sedimentary record. They also look at seismic and swath data. So when I do any CTDs, the time comes out of QWADs science days.

CACHE-PEP(Climate And CHEmistry - Pole-Equator-Pole), led by Claire Allen. Her, Lewis Collins (3rd yr PhD student) and Hilary Blagborough (technician * and my cabin-mate!) look at the last 10,000 yrs (Holocene) so they concentrate on cores, but ones that have high resolution of that period, so thick sediment! They mainly look at diatoms and forams (micro-organisms, I think of the protoctista kingdom). Hilary showed me some in her microscope, which looked like tiny pliers! Unfortunately as Claire isn't a PSO and only has 2 other people in her entire project, she can find it difficult to get her fair share of science days, so has to fight hard. This is especially unfair, as she didn't need/want to go into Pine Island Bay, so she had to fight not to get any of her science days taken from her because of it!

So far the biologists have used 8 of their days, and each science project is losing half a day due to being behind schedule, so they are rationing their last few hours! They will probably save a day for work they want to do on the way into Rothera and in Marguerite Bay. They are having a meeting tonight to decide whether to use up a few hours trawling in between our next core site and the one after.


The minke whales have been back, playing with the ship again, and Huw has got some stunning pictures. I was unfortunately busy with the swath at the best time, and during the only free few minutes I had, they disappeared, or played on the other side of the boat to where I was! We are crashing through ice at the moment, as I look out the window, it looks like the ship is on land! There have been a ton of penguins and seals out there. I saw lots of seals, but unfortunately was asleep for the penguins. Yesterday and the day before were rather busy, so slept later than usual.
My normal day (not that I think I have ever had a 'normal' day!) consists of getting up at midday for lunch, fiddling around or doing PhD work until 4pm, when I start my first swath watch. This lasts for 4 hrs, though on mon/wed/fri I am relieved temporarily by Tara to have dinner in the duty mess at half 5 so she can do circuits at 6, and on the other days at 6.15 so I can get changed and have dinner in the saloon at 6.30. I then return to finish my watch at 8. Between 8 and 10, I go to the bar and chat to whoever is there, there is almost always someone. Then I have my last swath watch between 10 and midnight, after which I return to the bar! If there is any coring or CTDing going on, I am involved in that. My shift officially finishes at 4am, so in case there is any work needing to be done in that time, I have to stay up til then. This is definitely most easily done in the bar, where there is caffeine and people to talk to! I wouldn't like you to think that I haven't done any PhD or processing work, so let me reassure you that while I am swathing, I am usually working too! The reason I was so tired last night and missed the penguins this morning and afternoon, was due to Tues being a normal day until 10pm, when we arrived at the bio site. The plan was to do one CTD at the beginning for David and one at the end for me. As I am the only one who downloads high-precision thermometer data from the CTD, I have to be around for each one, however the downloading takes a few minutes, so I don't mind. So we did the first CTD, I downloaded the data, then did my 10-12 swath watch. The next CTD and the preceding box core were due to be at around 3am * 4am, so I thought staying up would be the best option, even if the box core didn't fall in my shift, so I went to the bar. Luckily there were people there most of the night (/morning!) so stayed in there til 3am, drinking several cans of coke for the caffeine. I think I may have to start forcing down coffee late at night soon, because I think I am becoming used to the small amounts of caffeine in the coke, and I don't want to be drinking several cans a day! Anyway, I went down to the UIC at 3am. They were still trawling so I knew it would be another hour or so before they swapped the wire over to the box core and CTD, meaning that although I wasn't required for the box core, I still had to stay up for the CTD afterwards! At that point I wished I had gone to bed, but it was too late now! I watched a couple of episode of Stargate Atlantis, and then finally at ~6 it was the CTD. We did that, which took ~1hr as we were at a 1000m site, and then as it was only 15mins til breakfast, I stayed up for that, having sauté potatoes, fried tomatoes, bacon, poached egg and toast

Dinner:
I don't know whether I have already mentioned this, but dinner is formal. There is an official dress code for men, they have to wear shirts, no jeans and trainers, and look smart. It was relaxed this season so they don't have to wear ties anymore. There is no official one for women, but we are told to wear what we consider is the equivalent to the men's dress code, so I wear what I would wear to work * smartish top, black trousers and black shoes. The officers wear their uniform, which is white, so some officers (and some of the scientists) go to the duty mess most nights so they don't have to get changed several times in a day. It is also more relaxed down there, you just go to the hatch, request your food from the menu and sit down. When you have finished, you just take your plate back to the hatch (which leads directly to the galley) and they deal with it. It is more like a canteen than the saloon which is more like a restaurant, sitting down with your own, named napkin and getting served at your table. They also serve Mid Rats (Midnight Rations) in the duty mess for those people on shift. This is prepared by the 2nd cook (Jaimie) and is again a totally different meal to the others. The only similarity between meals is that the soup of the day is the same at lunch and dinner! The head chef, Ash is very funny and sweet. He often coerces me into having a dessert! Last week he even kissed my hand to say thank you for eating it! He does similar things to all the women on board, which may seem strange but from him it is just funny, and very sweet!

Ramble.....

I am afraid I have been very busy since the last update. We went out of communications range last week, and it took several days before the new very basic email system got up and running. In order for us to receive and send email, the ship has to be stationary (so we lose time) and orientated correctly so that the receiver can 'see' the INMARSAT satellite, so if the swell is in the wrong direction, we can't stop. They have been trying it every evening so far, and most of the time it works. It takes a long time to deal with emails though, as one may come through this evening, I then compose my reply, but it doesn't leave the ship until the following evening, and then if the person I have sent it to, composes a reply within a day, I get it the evening after that! As I am so busy, and communications are tricky, I will stop posting (via Laurence) for every day, so instead you will get some rambling about the past few days. Since the last post, I have done many CTDs, all of which have gone pretty smoothly. We had a few problems convincing Sevy (Vsevelod, the Russian CTD technician) to deploy the CTD when the air temperature dropped below 7degrees, which it has been for the entire week, as the sensors can freeze very quickly in the process of getting the CTD over the side and into the water. Also the past couple of days, the high precision thermometer has been missing out a few readings (it takes readings every time a bottle is shut on the CTD), so Sevy is currently trying to work out whether it is a software problem, or whether the bottles are either not firing correctly or the signal isn't getting through to the thermometer. Luckily, the last few CTDs have all been for David Pearce, so as he fires all his bottles at one depth, I don't need all the readings. I probably won't be taking water from any more CTDs until we reach Rothera (~3-4 weeks). I have seen many icebergs (got within nudging distance of a few!), a few penguins (I always seem to be doing something else when everyone else sees them!), some seals, a killer whale (amazing!) and about 10 minke whales. The minke whales played with the ship, diving right underneath the bow many times. I got a few good pictures and some people got some great pictures and videos! We have also crashed through lots of sea ice, in one case, we thought the captain (also known as the 'old man' or master) would avoid it as it was a small patch, but he decided to go straight through it! So as everyone realised what he was going to do, everyone made a dive for their equipment before it all crashed to the floor! When the ship goes through sea ice, it shudders and groans, and can tip violently from side to side, no gentle rolling! Also it pitches (tipping forwards and backwards) as the ship rides up on the sea ice and then breaks it! I think most people find it fun though! The most exciting bit for everyone on board is that we have managed to get right into Pine Island Bay! This is vital for all the scientists, as only a couple of ships have been here, and in the southern-most area near the ice front, only one ship has been here and it was the NBPalmer (American ship). The biologists are the most excited, as no biology has been done on the shelf here, so they have done trawl after trawl. Most sites they have spent a day at * swathing to find the right depth (1500m, 1000m, and 500m sites), CTDs to collect water before the sediment is stirred up, 3 Agassiz trawls and 3 EBS (Epi Benthic Sledge) trawls. I think both work similarly but catch different sized beasties! They lower a sledge to the sea floor then drag it along for 1km, close it and raise it up. Recently they have caught 6(ish) octopi so Jan (biologist) is happy! They also catch many fish, gastropods and many many more. Johnnie (IT guy) has resurrected a notice used many times before, calling the cruise, the 'cruise of death'! This is because they kill everything they catch! Apparently this cruise has been relatively humane, especially in comparison to a previous cruise, where someone was looking for a particular species of fish, but caught 300 of another species. She decided to process them all anyway, in case she never caught any of her intended species. We haven't caught anywhere near that quantity! All the geologists have been on shifts for a week now, so I have started to help out with the coring. We have done several box cores (get about ~30cm of sediment) and several piston cores (up to 3m of sediment), and processed them. The whole process starts with the cores coming on deck. We go outside (hard hats, overalls, steel-toed boots, and gloves) and collect it. With a piston core, this is relatively simple, just pulling the plastic casing, containing the sediment, out of the corer and capping each end. With a box corer, it comes up in a box (funnily enough) and the top is water, which must be drained off, before we insert the plastic tubes in and come out with a core. This is where it gets very scientific*. We use thin tubes to suck the water out! This involves precise timing, as it is easy to end up with a mouthful of incredibly salty water, and even sediment! I am convinced the deck crew are laughing at us the whole time. I haven't done too badly so far, only a bit of water, and no sediment, but poor Benny (PhD geologist) unfortunately sucked up a huge glob of sediment a couple of days ago, at which point we all laughed like drains! He was spitting for hours afterwards, convinced he could still taste it! The plastic casing containing the core is then cut just above the top of the core and capped. It is then washed and dried (which rubs off the original labels). The casing is then measured and relabelled with the length, core number and a dozen other things! This is the most important part so every time the core is cleaned, it is relabelled, so this leads to labelling one core about 5 times before it is finished with. It is then put through a magnetic susceptibility recorder * every 2cm a reading is taken. The core gets split along the centre so that one half is kept and put in an archive, and work is done on the other half. Next we describe the core using colour charts, and look at shear strength and texture. There are frequently 'burrows', small holes in the core left by animals. Finally, the smear slides and samples are taken at regular intervals along the core and where there are changes in it, and the core is bagged, wrapped, taped up and stored in the freezer (-20degrees!). There is a scientific freezer, not used on this cruise, which is kept at *70degrees!