Almost done

Making way towards McMurdo.

Anna is approaching the American polar base McMurdo in the the Ross Sea. For the last couple of days they have had views of Mt Terror and the active vulcano Mt Erebus, which are prominently present in the accounts of Scott and Shackleton. From McMurdo she will fly to New Zealand, where Anna and I will meet up.
Gert, Kate and Anna have packed up all their equipment and samples and are ready for the journey home. However, there is unexpectedly a lot of ice on the way to McMurdo. They are inching their way forward. The Swedish Icebreaker Odin is leading the way and the Palmer (with Anna) and two oiltankers are following to resupply to base. Currently, they are going slower than walking pace and it is not sure if they will be able to catch their scheduled flight to New Zealand.
Nevertheless, I expect her to pick me up from the airport in Christchurch! I am leaving in 4 hours...

Thijs

What do we do here...

Earlier I told you that we (team Stanford) are researching the effect of
iron and light on the growth of phytoplankton here in the Amundsen Sea. To
put it simply, there are two groups of phytoplankton down here: Phaeocystis
(a rather smelly form of phytoplankton) and diatoms (these have silicate
skeletons and have very cool shapes when you look at them under the
microscope). The Phaeocystis is really good at sucking CO2 out of the water
(and thus the atmosphere), whereas diatoms are the preferred food for the
krill that is eaten by whales and penguins. That’s why we are trying to
figure what makes Phaeocystis grow and out compete diatoms and vice versa.
We have studied both Phaeocystis and diatoms in the lab and from our
experiments it seems that Phaeocystis does not like very bright sunshine.
That damages their photosystems. They are, however, very efficient at low
light conditions and also at low iron concentrations. Thus, our hypothesis
was that under high light and iron conditions diatoms would out compete
Phaeocystis, and under low light and iron conditions Phaeocystis would win.

To test this in the field, we are taking water from and incubate in bottles
in incubators that are screened with different types of window screening
(from home depot). We added iron to half of them and check after a couple
of days which phytoplankton will start to grow. We have now done four
experiments and…. Phaeocystis is outcompeting the diatoms in every
single one of them. Hmmmm, time for a new hypothesis…


In the meantime we are gathering data about photosynthesis at different
light and iron levels. Other people are measuring how the phytoplankton
relate to the bacteria and other parameters. So we’re getting lot’s of
exciting data to base new hypothesis on!

B-day

Birthday icecake!

Sorry, we're still too busy to really write anything comprehensive for the blog, so I'll share some pics instead! Yesterday brought an additional birthday present in the form of a beautiful icescape with the most amazing light. We were trying to break some ice to get to an adjacent area, the
area where we spend a lot of time 2 years ago. The group that was on board then deployed several instruments that have been taking measurements in the water ever since, so now the aim is to get them back to collect the data.

On the satellite images of the ice concentrations it looked like in the past few weeks there was a lot of ice between where we are and where the instrument are, too much to get there. But then, 4 days ago, it looked like a crack was appearing to the north of some icebergs. So yesterday we went to look for the crack. Unfortunately, we found lots of ice and iceberg everywhere we went and the crack had all closed up again. These massive amounts of ice don't melt that rapidly, but they are blown around by the wind quite a bit. This can make a big difference in just a couple of days. So we spend the afternoon and evening cruising around in an area of about 30 miles to see if we could find a way through anywhere. In the evening we tried to break through the ice for a bit. Some Adelie penguins came to check on our progress and came very close to the boat. We had all four engines running and Icecaptain Vladimir was calling the shots on the bridge. He has worked on icebreakers his whole life (including Russioan nuclear icebreakers) has a nose to find the best way through the thinnest spots. Some icebreakers have helicopters to look for the best leads to go through, but the people on the bridge have assured me that icecaptain Vlad is just as good. Unfortunately, even he could not find us a way through, the last picture gives you an idea why... Previously some people had been a bit worried: what if we can get in, but not out if the ice. This would give a good opportunity to sample that area quite in depth, but trash any holiday plans in New Zealand ;-).

Happy New Year everybody!

Time to turn around!