Back to Antarctica

We're getting ready for another Antarctic adventure! On Nov 18 we'll leave Punta Arenas, Chile, to go back to the Antarctic waters for a research cruise on the "Nathaniel B. Palmer". The voyage will be quite epic: first we will go to the Antarctic Peninsula, where a team of scientists from the Florida Institute of Technology will study if crabs are invading Antarctic waters. They will disembark at Rothera Station, a British research station where the Dutch have research facilities as well. We will then go to our study area in the Ross Sea, where we will sample the water for the phytoplankton species Phaeocystis antarctica. On our previous cruises we have discovered that Phaeocystis may be able to take advantage of climate change in Antarctica. Now, we will study if their genes reveal how they are able to do this. Our journey will end in Hobart, Australia, on Jan 23, when Thijs will hopefully be standing on the dock to welcome us back to the Terra Firma.

Our cruise plans were in limbo for a while because of the impacts of the government shutdown on the US Antarctic Program. As if freezing weather, detection limits, and failing equipment weren't enough to make our lives difficult, the  company that takes care of all logistics shut down all Antarctic operations when they didn't get paid. Fortunately, we got word last week that our program was not affected and our cruise will go ahead as planned.

To give you an idea what the daily views from the vessel are, here is an amazing video made by a Stanford student on a previous cruise, make sure to put the sound on!

http://youtu.be/BNZu1uxNvlo

I'll keep you posted!