Land ho!

We are about to be back on land! We have finished packing up the lab, and are ready to go through customs. After that we will go back to WHOI with all of our gear and finish some final measurements before we head back to Wellesley.

The science party for the Irminger 6 cruise

We’re excited to get back to land, but sad to be leaving the ship and everyone we’ve met along the way. This has been an amazing trip and we are so happy and appreciative of our time spend on this cruise. The Irminger 6 cruise has been an experience unlike any other we have been on. Once we arrive back on shore, we will be going our separate ways to start off the upcoming semester. Hilary is starting at Boston College, Claire is going back to Wellesley, and Thanda is about to start her semester abroad in Tanzania. We’d like to thank Hilary, fellow science party members, and the crew of the RV Neil Armstrong for a fantastic time at sea. Thank YOU for following us on our journey and reading our blog.

Another picture of us in Greenland

Signing off for the final time,

Claire and Thanda

Behind the scenes

Now that we are almost back to the States, I thought I would take some time to look back on some moments from this cruise that did not make it into other blog posts. We don’t do science 24/7 and down time opens up the chance for some fun moments.

Sheri with the day's crossword

In between mooring deployments, water samplings, and rosette management, there were things that became routine to the members of the science party. Everyday has started off with a new crossword puzzle from The New York Times, and despite the various degrees of difficulty our chief scientist Sheri White has never failed to finish a puzzle (Claire and I have only finished two this whole trip). With a record time of 8:00 she is truly a crossword wiz.

Another staple in the Armstrong schedule, and a crowd favorite, is cheese-thirty (or cheese o’clock depending on who you ask) which starts at around 2:30 and extends until dinner time. They put out fancy meats and cheeses and some fruit along with different types of bread and crackers. Some people plan their dessert eating schedules around cheese-thirty and others see it as a “pre-dinner dinner.” No matter what it is a high point of people’s days and great for ship morale.

cheese-thirty!

One of the best spots on the ship is the bridge, and if you are out there at the right time, the captain just might let you drive the ship. There was a day where we had to do glider maintenance after we had deployed them, so we set out to find them and as we were searching our captain Derek Bergeron let Claire, Shawnee and me each have a turn driving the ship. While it was terrifying at first, we were assured that nothing bad would happen and it all worked out smoothly.

Shawnee, Claire, and me each taking a turn steering

On our transit back, once all the science was done there was a lot of down time, and during in that down time we filled it with a bunch of different activities. We’ve had a scavenger hunt, a photo contest, a very intense game of Pictionary, a planking contest, and a game night, amongst other activities. One day I realized the ship stopped moving and when I went outside people were fishing off the side of the ship we were out there for a while trying to catch fish and we did catch some. It took me a couple tries but eventually I also caught one!

Me with the pollock I caught

Hilary posing with a cod 

From movie marathons to dance parties, dull moments on the Armstrong are few and far between, and there are only a couple more of them to go.

Signing off,

Thanda

Cups!

Last week we followed through with the oceanographic tradition of sending Styrofoam cups down to the bottom of the ocean with the CTD rosette. After decorating our cups, we sent our art work down to 2,600m below sea level to shrink them. The pressure at depth pushes all of the air out of the Styrofoam, dramatically changing both their texture and size. It was our first time sending down cups, and so Thanda and I had taken some back home to decorate with family, as well as decorating some on the ship. Thanda drew memes and moorings, Shawnee drew the Irminger sea, and I decorated my cup with moorings, fish, and gliders. Right before we sent them down with the CTD rosette we carefully wrote the latitude, longitude, and the depth the CTD was going down to. We even used Styrofoam cups from Truly Yogurt, an ice cream store in Wellesley. Hilary said that different types of Styrofoam shrunk different amounts, so we were interested to see how the cups compared.

Hilary attached our laundry bag full of cups to the CTD rosette, making sure to securely attach the bag to the CTD, and even use zip ties to create columns of cups so that they would shrink evenly, and not fall into each other. We had learned that cups had shrunk together last year, and that it was hard to pry them apart, so we did our best to prevent it. We sent down the CTD and waited for our cups to return.

All of our carefully decorated cups before they went onto the CTD

After working and waiting, the CTD rosette returned with our cups! I was surprised by how much they had shrunk.

The CTD rosette being lowered into the water with our cups in a mesh laundry bag zip tied to the CTD frame

While none of the cups had shrunk together like they did last year, some of our cups had bubbles in them! In the cups with bubble the top part of the cup had shrunk, but then at the bottom some cups the lower rim simply remained unchanged, while with others you could clearly see bubbles. It was fun to think about how that air went to 2600m below sea level and back up, all the while keeping the shape of the cup the same. However other than the couple of cups that had bubbles, the other cups turned out really well!

Post ocean cups! The white cup in the background is the original cup size, and shows how much the cups have shrunk

It was really fun decorate cups and take part in this oceanographic tradition, and especially thinking about bringing home a very original, priceless souvenirs for friends and family.

Shawnee (left), Thanda (middle), and me (right) with our cups on the CTD

Are we allowed to to take samples in Greenland?*

Me and Claire at the bow of the Armstrong 

Hello all! This is Thanda and on day 12 of our cruise I am reporting to you from Greenland! After many days of speculation about the weather, our quest for a spare part for the rosette is finally complete at the Prince Christian Sound.

Ellen handing us the rosette piece

Ever since we realized that the CTD rosette was not functioning properly early on in the cruise, it has been up in the air about whether or not we were going to get it fully operational again. There were talks between our Chief Scientist Sheri White, our Master Derek Bregeron, the SSSG techs Chris Seaton and Amy Simoneau, and people back at WHOI about the part we needed and how to get it out here. With the weather forecast changing everyday and people at WHOI being four hours behind us, it was never clear on if we were going to be going to Greenland or not, but here we are. We got into Greenland’s waters two nights ago and spent yesterday riding up the sound trying to find a good rendezvous point to meet up with Ellen, the person who works at WHOI who volunteered to travel to Greenland to bring us the rosette piece. Today, bright and early in the morning, Ellen arrived alongside the Armstrong in a small boat that she had chartered to bring her to us from Nanortalik, we got the part that we needed, we gave Ellen a thank you gift bag, and we were on our way out. Now we are off back to the mooring sites for a day full of CTD casts to get enough data to calibrate our mooring and glider sensors before we make the transit home!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Greenland!

Me chilln with a berg

Despite the heavy winds and rain, Greenland is hands down the most gorgeous place I have ever been to. While this post is to give an update about the CTD rosette, I mostly just wanted to post beautiful pictures of Greenland.

Signing off,

Thanda

*No, we did not take any samples in Greenland because to take samples within 12 nautical miles of another county, you need to have prior clearance, and since we did not have that clearance, we did not take any samples

More Greenland!

Problems with the CTD

Hello everyone!

Like I mentioned in my last post, CTDs are one of the most important instruments in studying oceanography. Different sensors on the CTD measure conductivity, temperature, and depth, as it is sent down through the water column in a CTD cast, giving us profiles of the water they move through. This helps give oceanographers get a sense of how water changes down the water column. On the Armstrong, we have a rosette attached to the CTD. This rosette has 24 niskin bottles, which are essentially big tubes with lids on the top and bottom that close on command as the CTD rosette moves back up to the ship from the bottom of the ocean. This allows us to sample water from the bottles, and can test for dissolved oxygen, nitrate, chlorophyll, dissolved inorganic carbon, dissolved gases, and particulate organic carbon, so that we can understand what is happening in the biological carbon pump at different depths. The CTD rosette also has a variety of different sensors which measure things like oxygen, chlorophyll, and salinity. One of our favorite sensors is the dissolved oxygen sensor, because it is one of the main variables we are looking at in our research.

Chris and Amy (wonderful SSSGs) working on fixing our CTD. The instruments are located in the core of the CTD rosette, and the niskin bottles are the the grey cylinders. Photo Credit to Shawnee Traylor. 

However, in a classic example of how things don’t necessarily go to plan at sea, we have been having problems with our CTD rosette. When we sent down the CTD cast for a test run on the second day we were at sea, we received data from the CTD instrument itself and the rest of the sensors attached with it (so we could see depth, temperature, salinity, and chlorophyll), however we couldn’t close the bottles that we needed to practice taking samples with. After a few days the SSSGs (incredible people who help with technical support on the ship) opened the chamber that held all of the hardware for the bottle closing mechanism to find 3 inches of water! The components were would not be able to work because of the salt water, which meant that we will not be able to close the bottles, or take samples from them. This shifted the focus of what we could do for our research. OOI provides incredible infrastructure to oceanographers by providing an array of sensors at different depths in the Irminger Sea. However, our data for studying the biological carbon pump needs extremely precise measurements, so without sampling from the rosette, we would not be able to calibrate the sensors to the extent that we would need to.

Pieces of CTD rosette hardware that have salt crystals on them after getting wet

Closer up picture of salt crystals on CTD rosette hardware 

So far, we have three solutions. The first is to add an oxygen optode (or a sensor that measures dissolved oxygen) like the one we have on our gliders and on the surface mooring to the CTD sensor package so that we can better understand the calibration between multiple instruments. The SSSGs did this the day after we found out we wouldn’t be able to take water samples. However, because one of the main goals of our project was to provide more specific calibration points for our biological carbon pump measurements, we wondered if we could do more.

CTD rosette set up with acoustic releases (yellow cylinders)

Acoustic release mechanism that will close the niskin bottles. This piece is found at the bottom of the acoustic releases

This led us to our second option, which is to try to figure out a way to get a couple of bottles to close with an anchor release. On the night that we found out that the CTD wouldn’t work and people started suggesting all kinds of different solutions, and James, a science crew member, suggested this ingenious solution. On all of the moorings, there is a system that releases the cables and instruments on it from the anchor that held it down for a year. The idea is that we would use the same mechanism that releases the cable from the anchor to close the bottles at specific depths. Last night we put this idea to the test. Using acoustics, Stephanie and James fired the acoustic release, and closed a bottle. We were able to close three bottles, and take samples!

Everyone happily sampling from the niskin bottles last night 

However, the CTD still needs the part that was broken on its test run. Our chief scientist has decided that now that we have finished deploying and retrieving all of the moorings that we need to, we will go up to Greenland to pick up the part that was broken. The current plan is to meet a ship off the coast with someone from WHOI who will be in a smaller boat with the part we need, after having taken an epic journey traveling from Woods Hole to bring it to us. After we pick up the part and fix the CTD, we will then try to sample as many of the sites in the OOI array as we can. Weather could be a lot rougher than it has been so far, so hopefully we will be able to get back out to the array before we start our transit home so that we will be able to collect as many samples as we can.

That’s all for now, wishing us a quick transit to Greenland!

It's a bird! It's a plane! No it's a glider!!

It has been a lively couple of days on the R/V Armstrong. Yesterday was the surface mooring deployment which was super exciting, and the excitement continued today with the glider deployment! There were a total of three gliders that got put in the water today along with the hybrid profiling mooring (HYPM), but that’s something to be explained in another blog post. Today, the focus is on gliders.

Two days ago, I got to speak with Collin Dobson who is in charge of all the gliders (I nicknamed him the “glider G.O.A.T”) about how gliders function and collect data. Contrary to what you may think, gliders don’t actually fly.  They manipulate buoyancy to navigate the water column. To do this, each glider has an oil reservoir and a pitch battery that move throughout the glider to change its volume which changes its density to either sink or float. To sink, the oil reservoir retracts, and the pitch battery moves forward an inch to become negatively buoyant and sink, and to float back up, the oil expands out of the reservoir and the pitch battery moves back. The wings are attached to the glider to prevent the glider from sinking straight down to the sea floor and there is also a rudder on the tail to help the glider sink at an angle. While it has a crush depth of 1200m, the glider only dives down to 980m and it does so at an angle of 26 degrees. When the gliders come back up, they don’t always surface, each time they go down to depth and come up to reach 50m is called a “yo” and they have two yos per dive segment before they resurface.  There is an air bladder in the tail that helps the glider reach the surface and only that tail comes out of the water, and once that tail is out of the water the glider can “call home.” During these calls home, the gliders send OOI back information on their condition and every tenth point of data it collects.

Collin posing with  gliders

               

There are two types of gliders that we have on the cruise with us: the profiling glider and the open ocean glider. The profiling glider functions near the surface mooring and the hybrid profiling mooring (HYPM) collecting data from the surface to 200m and has most of the sensors for data collection with a CTD instrument which measures salinity temperature and depth, PAR (Photosynthetically active radiation) sensor, an oxygen optode, and a SUNA nitrate sensor. Open ocean gliders basically act as data mules for subsurface moorings that cannot transmit data on their own. They operate on triangular routes collecting data throughout the range of 50-980m. These gliders also have the sensors that most oceanographic instruments have including an oxygen optode, a ctd, and bb3 which samples chlorophyll and backscatter amongst other things.

For our project, we've modified the open ocean gliders to have oxygen optodes in a special place at the top of the glider so that it can measure oxygen in the air when the glider surfaces, which allows us to better calibrate the oxygen sensors throughout the year

Before going in the water all gliders get named pictured is 515 named "Aurora" and our project glider 525 which is named "Homefry" by the BCP team

             

 With all the gliders in the water in the water, including the one funded by out project, the day comes to a close, only with more deployments tomorrow!

Signing off for today,

Thanda

Team BCP with our project glider Homefry

 

Surface Mooring Deployment

We are underway, and made it out of Icelandic waters a couple of days ago. Neither of us have been too seasick, and we are starting to get our sea legs.

Today is an exciting day aboard the Armstrong because we deployed the surface mooring this morning! The surface mooring is essentially a giant buoy with a variety of instruments on it that can make measurements in the water and air. It is powered by a combination of solar and wind power, which allows OOI to collect measurements year-round to better understand this remote area.

In this photo the crew lowers the top buoy of the surface mooring into the ocean

There is a wide array of instruments on the mooring. The top of the surface mooring has different instruments that measure different properties of the atmosphere, which we can later use to compare with these properties in the water. Seven sensors make meteorological measurements, such as wind speed, which help give a better sense of the weather in the area, but could also help inform scientific observations, for example relating a specific phenomenon to a storm. There are also satellites, a GPS unit, and a SBD (a device that receives email message commands) all of which help OOI communicate with the surface mooring and know where it is. It also has a camera on it, which can help engineers understand how their equipment is fairing and the current conditions in the Irminger sea.

Stephanie Petillo, OOI SGSN software lead, explaining different instruments on the top part of the mooring. Most of the instruments are attached to the two 'halos' on the tower of the mooring.

Moving down to the lower part of the buoy there are a lot of different instruments to measure different properties of the water. Most of the instruments that are on this part of the surface mooring measure the exact same things we have been looking at in our lab. The surface mooring has a fluorometer, which measures chlorophyll and backscatter, a SUNA, which measures the amount of the nutrient nitrate in the water, and an oxygen optode, which measures the amount of dissolved oxygen. Additionally, there is a spectrophotometer, which shines a beam of light across a small area of water, and uses the absorption and scattering of different wavelengths to see what is in the water. There is also a pCO2 sensor, which also has a tube going to the air, so we can measure the difference in CO2 between the air and the sea.

Stephanie explaining different instruments on the bottom part of the mooring. She also showed us ingenious engineering designs to help secure the mooring, but still allow it to move with the ocean.

From the buoy there is a long cable that goes all the way to the sea floor! Along this cable there are a couple of key instruments attached. Between 130 m and the surface, the cable has a fluorometers, oxygen optodes and a pCO2 sensors attached onto it in cages. Additionally, CTDs are attached intermittently between the surface mooring and 1,500 m. CTDs are one of the most important oceanographic instruments, they measure conductivity, temperature, and depth of the water they are in. Later on in the cruise, we will send a CTD down to the bottom of the ocean so that we can compare the profile from the surface mooring to that data. At the very bottom of the cable are 72 glass balls which will be released from the anchor at the very bottom to retrieve all of the instruments along the line next year.

Here we are helping hold CTDs to attach to cable.

The surface mooring is an incredibly important instrument in this array because it is the only mooring that has instrumentation that measures the air, and the only mooring that has power. This allows it to measure many more aspects of the region that other moorings cannot, giving us a more precise understanding of what could be changing different variables in the region.

A picture of us with the surface mooring!

Until next time!
-Claire

Greetings from Reykjavik!

This is Thanda, I am also a rising junior at Wellesley College and an Environmental Studies major. I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of the Biological Carbon Pump Team this year. I’m looking forward to expanding on my studies of oceanography though this research experience and learn about working on a research vessel.

Me with a very Icelandic cow statue

We will soon be setting off on our research cruise and after months of anticipation and preparation I am finally embarking on my first research experience! The boxes that Claire, Hilary and I had packed at Wellesley back in June are now unpacked and now we have a fully functioning lab space. This involved tying down every single item to a bolted surface in a tangle of bungee cords, zip ties, twine, and ratchet straps to ensure that instruments do not go flying across the room while at sea. I have come to find out that tying down things is truly an art form. In our lab space we’ve set up have the water filtration systems for chlorophyll and particulate organic carbon, a SUNA Nitrate Sensor, a Aanderaa Oxygen Optode for dissolved oxygen, a prototype dissolved gas sensor from Dr. Anna Michel’s lab at WHOI that measures pCO2, total dissolved gas pressure, and pO2, and a Winkler titration system.  Over the course of this cruise we will be collecting samples that will be sent back ashore to be measured in order to calibrate the sensors on all the equipment that OOI puts out throughout the year. The only water sample we will be measuring on the ship rather than preserving it to measure in the lab ashore will be our dissolved oxygen measurements because you cannot preserve oxygen to be measured at a later date.

A view of our lab with Claire (front), Shawnee (center), and Hilary (back) hard at work

 In between unpacking and getting the lab set up Claire, Shawnee and I have taken some time to explore the R/V Neil Armstrong as it is our first time on the ship. It feels big now, but I know the longer that we are on board, the smaller it will become. There a lot of nice look out points on the ship where we could see the city from our spot in the harbor, and we also found spots where it will be nice to watch the work that OOI is doing over the course of the cruise.

A view from the bow of the ship where you can see the Harpa music hall and the Hallgrimskirkja Church in the backgound, iconic destinations in Reykjavik

Our time in Iceland maybe coming to a close, but our research is only just beginning! Check back for more updates from the Irminger Sea!

Heading out to Sea

Hello, and welcome to our blog! I am Claire, a student working on Hilary’s team. I am a rising junior and am an Environmental Studies and political science double major. I wanted to give a little bit of background on the scientific research we will be doing on our cruise.

We are going to be researching the biological pump. At a basic level, the biological pump moves carbon to the deep ocean through biology (like plankton or phytoplankton). Phytoplankton use sunlight and nutrients in the water to change dissolved Carbon Dioxide (or CO₂) into organic carbon. I find this really interesting because I am curious about the effects of the biological pump on climate change. This research could help us understand how our oceans were going to react to increasing levels of CO₂ in our atmosphere. The oceans already take up 24% of anthropogenic emissions, and the biological pump gives us a clearer picture of how our oceans are going to react to the climate crisis.

Here is a diagram of the Biological Carbon Pump. Note that POC stands for particulate organic carbon and that the euphotic zone is the area of the ocean where there is light. Photo © Microbial control of the dark end of the biological pump by Thomas Reinthaler & Gerhard Herndl

We can better understand how the oceans might absorb anthropogenic emissions by looking at how carbon moves through the water column. Like I mentioned earlier, in the light areas of the ocean, phytoplankton use dissolved CO2, water, and solar energy phytoplankton create organic carbon and oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. Zooplankton then eat the phytoplankton and respire (the opposite of photosynthesis where the zooplankton eat organic carbon and create CO₂). A fraction of this carbon then sinks from the surface and collects in deeper levels of the ocean (or is sequestered). Below layers of the ocean with light, zooplankton and bacteria eat the sinking carbon, and in turn respire. The biological pump transports carbon to the deep ocean as it moves from the atmosphere, into the water, where it is used for photosynthesis and becomes organic carbon that moves down the water column.

Here are all three of the gliders we will be deploying on our cruise. They are autonomous robotic vehicles that will measure things like temperature, salinity, and  the ones modified for our research (525 and 560) will even measure oxygen in the air as well as the water, giving us even better calibration than the standard version!

This means that the biological pump has the ability to sequester carbon in the deep ocean. We are looking at this the biological pump in the Irminger Sea because it is the site of one of the largest phytoplankton blooms in the ocean. In understanding how this carbon moves down through the water column we can better understand how the ocean works, but also its potential affects on things like climate, and climate change.

We are going to leave the port in the morning, and head out on our cruise! I am so excited and hopefully you all will enjoy hearing about our trip.

A picture of me in the beautiful city of Reykjavik

Down to the seas again

(by Hilary)

It's now been over a year since we returned from our cruise last summer, and it's now time for a repeat trip out to the Ocean Observatories Initiative's Irminger Sea array to continue our research investigating the biological carbon pump and its role in ocean carbon cycling in the subpolar North Atlantic. The OOI team makes this trip every year to recover the instrumentation deployed the previous summer and deploy a new set of instrumentation to collect data over the coming year, and our research group will be joining the cruise now for a second time.

Over the past year, the instrumentation we deployed last June has weathered intense storms and even a visit from some springtime bergy bits, collecting data all the while about the oceanographic conditions in the region.

View of a bergy bit floating past the OOI array surface mooring on April 2. This photo was captured by the camera mounted on the mooring instrument frame, visible in the foreground.

We've spent much of the past year analyzing data being sent back in real time by the gliders, autonomous underwater vehicles, we deployed last June. All of the moorings deployed last year are still out at sea waiting for our cruise to pick them up, but our project glider was recovered early last month, after a successful mission improving the calibration of the oxygen sensors at the array and over a full year spent at sea.

The OOI glider outfitted to collect oxygen measurements in air as well as seawater suspended in midair off the side of the ship while being recovered in June.

Our research team has also experienced lots of exciting changes in the past year. Our stalwart bloggers from last year, Lucy Wanzer and Emma Jackman, have both graduated from Wellesley and are off on their next adventures - Emma applying her lab skills and safety training in a job managing hazardous waste in the Boston area, and Lucy setting off for a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship where she will learn about small boats in island communities around the world.

Emma (left), Hilary (center), and Lucy (right) in front of the research posters that Emma and Lucy presented last summer. 

I will be the one returning face from our project's seagoing team last year, though with changes for me as well as I have just moved from Wellesley to a new job as an assistant professor at Boston College. New joining the team this year are Thanda Newkirk and Claire Hayhow, both rising juniors majoring in Environmental Studies at Wellesley, and Shawnee Traylor, a first year PhD student in Roo Nicholson's lab in the WHOI-MIT joint program. Thanda, Claire, and Shawnee will be collecting data on our cruise to help us better understand marine biogeochemistry in the North Atlantic and calibrate the many sensors that the Ocean Observatories Initiative deploys in the Irminger Sea. They will also be leading this year's blogging effort, so follow along to hear all about our research and their experience conducting science at sea!

Winding down!

(by Emma)

Now that all of our CTD casts have been completed, our team has started working on other tasks, and we’ve made time in our schedule for daily Science Meetings. Hilary has invited other researchers on the ship to discuss some of their scientific research with us during these meetings. This gives us a chance to learn more about them and their experiences in depth.

On Wednesday, we learned about Chief Scientist Alison Macdonald’s research on transport of water through the Pacific Ocean using chemical signatures. Alison is a physical oceanographer, which means that she focuses on understanding the physical movement of water within the ocean. On one of her research projects, she gathered data on various cruises crossing the Pacific using CTD casts to determine at what depths a certain chemical signature was found, and how far across the Pacific the currents carried the signature. Knowing that several specific types of water, called mode waters, are formed on the western Pacific, Alison could model the paths and depths of mixing that the water experienced as it moved eastward, towards North America. 

Emma (myself), Lucy, Heather Furey, and Alison Macdonald on the CTD deck of the R/V Neil Armstrong. This photo was taken during our last sampling for the cruise, and the goal of this CTD cast was to further calibrate the sensors on the gliders which OOI deployed the week before. In the far right background, the surface mooring buoy which OOI deployed the first week is visible. It looks very small on the open ocean! Photo by Hilary Palevsky.

Besides telling us about the projects she has worked on, Alison also told us about her experience working on research cruises all over the world. She recently came back from a cruise on the Southern Ocean, where she was also serving as Chief Scientist. On many of the cruises Alison has worked on, students are given the opportunity to operate the CTD for round-the-clock casts. This cruise is a bit of an exception, as almost all of the casts have been in the afternoon or early evening hours. Alison also suggested that Lucy and I learn to operate the CTD, which was very exciting!

Operating the CTD from the main lab involves keeping track of the sensors and communicating with the winch as the CTD descends and returns. Dave Wellwood, a WHOI scientist on board to calibrate the OOI moorings, taught Lucy and I the basics of CTD operation. Lucy and I learned to how to determine the sea floor depth and how to politely ask the winch operators to move the CTD to target depths. Watching the computer monitors for continuous data from the sensors, we manually recorded the water temperature and salinity at each target depth. At the end of the cast, we save the data to the server and head out to the deck to sample, or watch others sampling. I felt quite powerful pressing buttons and firing bottles for the CTD, although Lucy was the one in charge of winch communications.

This is Lucy and Dave Wellwood calling the CTD back up to target depths for an OOI cast. Lucy communicated with the winch via walkie-talkie. 

This is Dave and I during another CTD cast, watching the graphs showing the sensors’ data as the CTD ascends. Photo by Hilary Palevsky.

Lucy and I also took a trip up to the bridge of the Armstrong, where we had a great view of the ocean. Quinton Edwards (Chief Mate) and Keenan Foley (Able-bodied Seaman), showed us the navigation system and control board. The Armstrong has a dynamic positioning system which can keep the ship in a certain position automatically, which is important for tasks such as mooring deployments. On the bridge, Keenan also told us about his other trips on the Armstrong, and his experiences navigating near Greenland, where icebergs are a greater threat. As one of the seamen on board, he stands watch on the bridge for two shifts a day and completes other necessary work on the ship.

This is Lucy standing at the controls of the Armstrong. There are several screens showing the bathymetry of the surroundings, maps of the Irminger Sea, and other important information relevant to navigating the ship. The bridge had a wonderful view of the ocean from all directions, but because it is at the top of the ship, it experiences the most rocking. 

We are already steaming back to Reykjavik, and will reach port on Sunday!

Cheers,

Emma

Cups!

It’s a tradition aboard oceanographic research vessels to send styrofoam down to the depths of the ocean (and then bring them back up, of course!). On Tuesday, after many days of decorating, we sent a bag of Styrofoam cups down to 2,500 meters. For some of us, this was a first in decorating cups and sending them down to the bottom of the ocean. For others who have been aboard tens of cruises, it was not very exciting to make another cup. The majority of the cruise members partook in the artistic activity of decorating a cup, and the designs ranged from chubby birds to gliders to pride flags. Some common designs were the surface mooring, the CTD, the OOI logo, and the Neil Armstrong. A few ramen cups were also sent down. Along with the design, it is customary to write the latitude, longitude, and depth on the cup.

 

Me holding 2 of my 6 cups. On the left cup is a Northern Fulmar, the seabird that is very common out here! On the right, I drew the surface mooring, and the glider. 

After decorating the cups, we put them in a mesh laundry bag, and attached them to the CTD. We heard some horror stories about the cup bag breaking, so we secured it well with zip ties and electrical tape. The CTD went down to 2,500 meters and its return was much anticipated. 

Emma and I holding the bag of cups before attaching it to the CTD. 

The CTD returning with our shrunken cups attached!

Upon return, Emma and I were shocked at how very tiny the cups became! The cups shrink when they go down to 2,500 meters because the huge amount of pressure at that depth (250 times the atmospheric pressure that we and the cups experience at the surface) forces the air out of the styrofoam. The interesting part is that we started with two different kinds of cups: ones that were originally very small, and large Styrofoam cups. Once they returned, we noticed that the large cups had shrunk more than the small ones! Henry informed us that the amount of shrinking depends a lot on the brand of Styrofoam.

 

Emma, Henry and I cutting tape and zip ties to remove the cup bag from the CTD. 

A few of the cups had shrunk into each other, so to separate them apart, we soaked them in hot water, and patiently pried them apart. Many of the cups deform and shrink in funny ways, so we also used the hot water to reshape a few.

On the left are the shrunken cups and on the right is a cup that depicts the original size of the cups. 

A collection of some of the cups after they have shrunken. 

It was a lot of fun!

Lucy