{"id":251,"date":"2019-05-05T12:15:30","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T16:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/?p=251"},"modified":"2019-06-04T14:47:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T18:47:02","slug":"ground-hog-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/ground-hog-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Ground Hog Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started this post on May 2, but \u2026 well, science happened!\u00a0 As Wade has said, \u201cwe\u2019re going to make science happen, whether it wants to or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now been two weeks since we started our sampling, and up until last this past Tuesday we were collecting samples every day.\u00a0 Despite the fact that we are still sampling pretty much only surface water with a bucket, that rapidly buried us under backlog of samples that needed to be analyzed.\u00a0 We\u2019ve gone to sampling every other day, and have spent a lot of time catching up.\u00a0 And now we find ourselves in what I like to call the \u201cground hog day\u201d phase of our cruise.\u00a0 Every day isn\u2019t exactly like the last, but it\u2019s pretty close.<\/p>\n

On the day we collect water, we set up 4 different sets of experiments and process water for 7 different measurements.\u00a0 It takes us until about mid-afternoon to get it all done, then we take a short break to exercise, deal with emails from work, have dinner and then go back to work for a few hours more.\u00a0 On our \u201cday off\u201d \u2013 well, we just don\u2019t collect new water on that day \u2013 we continue processing samples and working on data analysis.\u00a0 That way we can see how our experiments are working and make adjustments if necessary.\u00a0 It\u2019s good to have a routine, you know what you need to do and when. \u00a0That will change in about a week when we have to start preparing for our last day of science (May 18) \u2013 before we cross the Drake Passage we need to have all or samples packed and documented for shipping, and all our lab supplies and equipment packed for storage in Punta Arenas for our next cruise in November.<\/p>\n

But, what I really wanted to tell you about are the two beautiful sites where we were sampling.\u00a0 On April 29th<\/sup> we were at our furthest south site in Mikkelsen Bay and on the 30th<\/sup> we were north, across from Rothera, the British Antarctic Station.\u00a0 Both days were sunny, but the sunrise on the 30th<\/sup> was particularly beautiful despite the fact that it was occurring after 9 am.\u00a0 It was so sunny that I was able to capture the shadow of the ship on an iceberg.\u00a0 The water temperature at these sites was also lower, and we started seeing the formation of pancake ice which are gathered into large clusters by the wind and currents.\u00a0 Watching them gently move with the swell of the waves is very relaxing, and as we moved from Mikkelsen Bay north, they grew larger.<\/p>\n

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In addition to sun, there was a lot of marine mammal activity near Rothera.\u00a0 Whales and seals were out in abundance, and while the whales didn\u2019t come close, the seals were curious.\u00a0 One group of seals actually turned around and chased after the ship, then swam alongside for several minutes.\u00a0 Unfortunately, my camera had died by then, but I did get some pictures of them when they were catching up to us.<\/p>\n

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And finally, as promised, I’ve indicated the mixotrophs in the microscope image from the prior post below.\u00a0 The one at the top left is ambiguous, so to confirm it I would look at it under green and red fluorescence, and perhaps at higher power.<\/p>\n

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I started this post on May 2, but \u2026 well, science happened!\u00a0 As Wade has said, \u201cwe\u2019re going to make science happen, whether it wants to or not.\u201d It\u2019s now been two weeks since we started our sampling, and up until last this past Tuesday we were collecting samples every day.\u00a0 Despite the fact that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}