Days 1 and 2

Navigating Drake Passage

Day 3

The past few days have been very busy - with the arrival at Palmer Station, a 2-day port call and our departure from Palmer Station. We arrived at Palmer Station on January 3rd after a very calm voyage across the Drake Passage. Palmer is pictured with the Gould docked at the pier and the beautiful Transantarctic Mountains in the background. A maximum of 45 people call Palmer Station home at any one time, and the Gould serves the vital function of re-supplying the station with everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, 'freshies', to construction materials, and ferrying the science and support personnel to and from Punta Arenas.

The two day port call was very busy with cargo operations offloading supplies onto station and everyone gearing up for the LTER cruise. Laboratories on the ship were set up and all the necessary materials were gathered from station. The picture at the bottom left depicts some of the members of the Zooplankton team, Albert Kao and Shannon Rich, setting up the nets they tow behind the ship to sample. In addition, members of the birding team, such as Eric Erdman pictured lower right, were able to help their on-station counterparts with important bird ecology research.

Day 4

Amid the hard work and chaos of the Palmer Station port call, we are generally able to grab a few moments to partake in various recreational activities. Two examples include boating operations and hiking up the glacier behind Palmer.

The Antarctic weather is unpredictable and necessitates extra caution for outdoor activities. Our pre-port call briefing includes a small Zodiac boating course allowing folks to visit a few of the numerous small islands in the Palmer Archipelago. Though boating operations are restricted to decent weather conditions (winds under 20 knots), bad weather can move in quickly down here, so extra caution is mandatory. Every boat must contain two certified drivers, each with a radio and all local islands have a waterproof survival cache containing tents, food and water.

Once savvy on the boating regulations, our folks were able to visit a few of the highlighted features near Palmer. Members of the microbial ecology team Matthew Erickson, Kristen Myers, Erin Morgan and Aaron Randolf pose in front of a beautiful glacier ice arch (upper left). From year to year, Station personnel observe the glaciers melt, calve and disappear demonstrating some of the more obvious effects of global climate change in this region. The Palmer Station annual average winter temperature has increased 6 degrees Celcius over the last 50 years, which has significantly increased the rate at which these glaciers are melting. At another site, Scott Baker kneels next to a shrinking Adelie penguin colony on Torgersen Island (bottom right). Each season, we see regional decreases in the Adelie penguin population while more northern penguin species, such as Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins, move in. Again, these changes are strongly correlated with global climate change.

Leaving Station to walk up the glacier also requires some measure of pre-caution but the view is well worth the effort. Each hiker must sign out on the public chalkboard with the time of departure and the estimated time of return. Each season, the glacier search and rescue team at Palmer flags a safe route devoid of crevasses (deep cracks in the glacier ice) for hiking to the trail limit, demarcated as shown (middle photo) with a fortuitous clear view of Mnt. William in the background. Taking advantage of the glorious bluebird day we had while in port, some of our phytoplankton researchers, Karie Sines, Katie Haman, Diane (PD) Chakos and Maria Vernet (upper right) pose in the sunset rays. Our plankton ladies gaze out over Palmer, the LMG and the Palmer Archipelago soaking in the lingering twilight (bottom left).

Day 5

After one station within 45 kilometers of Palmer Station, our first full day of science (January 6th) began with the crossing of the Lemaire Straits very early in the morning (top right). The strait is breath taking with high peaks thousands of feet in the air on either side of a narrow channel.

Later that morning, we deployed one of the instruments, the CTD or conductivity-temperature-depth instrument, (bottom right). The instrument is enclosed within a metal cage for protection. The CTD is lowered into the water with the help of a winch, measuring water conductivity and temperature as it is lowered. The conductivity gives us the salt content of the water. We fill its water bottles (also inside the cage) with sea water from various depths for study on the ship. It was a sunny and relatively warm day. The sun illuminated the fields of ice in the water and revealed snowy peaks (bottom left). The top right photo taken in the middle of the night contrasts nicely with the bottom left photo taken mid day - the light never fully fell from the sky. We are slowly making our way south where we will cross -66o32'S, the Antarctic Circle, into the land of the midnight sun. South of this latitude, for at least one day each year, the sun does not set during the summer solstice (December 22) or does not rise during the winter solstice (June 21).

During the latter period of the winter, Antarctica nearly doubles in size due to the formation of sea ice. As the sea water freezes, salt is channeled out of the ice. In the spring when the ice melts, this fresh water is released onto the water surface, affecting the physical and biological characteristics of the Southern Ocean. The sea ice that day became so thick at one point that the ship had to back up, gather speed, and ram into the ice repeatedly to make a path for itself. The fourth picture is taken from the bow of the L M Gould while the ship is backing up, and shows the channel that the ship had carved for itself before being brought to a halt and having to reverse. The green/brown colors in this photo are the flourishing algal plant communities incorporated into the ice.

This was a gorgeous day!

Day 6

Today we would like to show you the Palmer LTER study region in the context of the entire Antarctic continent, and one of the data sets that is collected by satellites.

Shown on the leftmost map is the whole continent of Antarctica, with the southern tip of South America and the southern tip of Australia showing on the top and bottom of the globe, respectively. The enlarged portion of the map in the green box shows the Antarctic Peninsula, along which we are sailing. The ten faint rows of small circles display the stations on the Palmer LTER grid, but we sample along only the middle 5 or 6 transect lines during the summer cruise.

The bright clear day we had on January 7th yielded a rare good view of the LTER study region from space. The colors on the inset map represent the relative concentration of chlorophyll present in the water. Chlorophyll concentration is an index of the biomass of the microscopic plants (phytoplankton) that are the base of the food web in the sea. The scale is below the map, with the warm colors indicating higher chlorophyll concentrations. The yellow-green color over most of the grid indicates chlorophyll concentrations of 1-3 milligrams per cubic meter.

At the bottom are pictures of phytoplankton as seen under a microscope. The individual organisms are only a few microns across, but are important food items for many of the zooplankton grazers in the upper layers of the ocean. The zooplankton are in turn food for seabirds, whales, seals, and most other apex predators.

Day 7

The Palmer LTER is organized into research components studying ranges of organisms from microbes to top predators. Today's pictures focus on the seabird component (B-013) of the Palmer LTER Summer Cruise. One of their responsibilities is to conduct ship-based seabird and mammal censuses. These are conducted from the bridge of the ship while we are on the sampling stations as well as during the transit between stations. Information we collect includes: latitude/longitude of the start and end points of the transect, transect time, ship speed, habitat type (open ocean, iceberg zone, pack ice, etc.), percent ice cover, ice type, ocean depth, sea surface temperature/salinity, wind direction and speed, and of course the species and number of individuals of the seabirds we observe.

In the attached photographs, you can see one of our birder team members Nick Matheny hard at work (he's the one with the binoculars). The other photos are of a white-chinned petrel (lower left), grey-headed albatross (center), and a black-bellied storm petrel (upper right). While conducting our seabird censuses, we also record any marine mammals that we observe, represented here by a crabeater seal looking up at us curiously as we pass by the ice flow it just recently vacated.

Day 8

Thursday (January 10th) was a very busy and exciting day on board with the recovery and redeployment of the sediment trap, a key component of the Palmer LTER Microbial and Biogeochemistry Group (B045). A crew gathered atop the bridge of the Gould shortly after midnight to see who could first spot the 8 yellow floats come to the surface after the sediment trap was released acoustically - a coveted honor with a $50 prize attached! This year's winner is Aaron Randolf! The yellow floats can been seen being brought on deck (center) by Meghan King and Pete Dalferro, while a team of scientists including Chip Cotton, Heidi Geisz, Jeff Bechtel, Alex Lowe and Matthew Erickson anxiously wait to help on deck (top left).

Nearly all the biological production in the ocean takes place in the upper, sunlit 100 meters, but the ocean is up to 4000 meters deep. The rest of this vast depth is nourished by the rain of particles falling from the productive surface layer. The particle rain, composed of the dead cells and carcasses of marine life and their waste products, constitutes the principal connection between the surface and deep sea. The sedimenting particles transport carbon to depth, where it is isolated from the atmosphere for about 1000 years until ocean currents bring it back to the surface again. The transport of carbon to the deep sea is called the biological pump and is responsible for setting the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere - or was, until human activities disrupted the carbon cycle 200 years ago.

Oceanographers measure the particle rain with sediment traps - essentially particle rain gauges moored to the ocean bottom. Palmer LTER maintains such a trap in the middle of the continental shelf to monitor the particle rain at a depth of 150 meters, just catching the sedimentation as it leaves the surface. Our trap has a turntable with 21 sample cups to collect particles over the full year between our cruises, which are being carefully removed and preserved by Kristen Myers and Erin Morgan (right to left, middle left panel). In polar oceans the particles mostly come down in a brief pulse instead of being spread evenly throughout the year. The row of cups in the photo clearly shows the seasonal pulse, which is triggered by the retreat of sea ice in the Austral spring (October/November). Although our cruise just covers a 30-day period each January, the trap operates over the full year, giving us one of the few continuous records of ocean metabolism. It has been deployed and recovered successfully every year since 1993, one of the longest time series of particle flux anywhere.

The recovered mooring must be scrubbed clean and this joy is given to the youngest new members of the B045 team. Erin Morgan and Aaron Randolf happily scrubbed down the trap which accumulates plenty of grime after being in the ocean for a year (top right). After the equipment is checked over and ready, a clean trap is deployed from deck. Meghan King ensures a safe deployment, with Marine Projects Coordinator, Andy Nunn, looking on (middle right).

Day 9

Today we would like to introduce you to the people who work on the bridge of the ARSV Laurence M. Gould. The Captain and the three mates are important to the productivity of the Palmer LTER. Many of you will know that these are the people who are in charge of navigation and charting our course to any location of choice. But you may not know how critical their ship handling skills are to the success of the Palmer LTER cruise. The Palmer LTER deploys several different types of instruments, some requiring the mate to keep the instrument out of the shade of the ship, some requiring the ship to stay in an exact location, and others require the ship being underway during operation. Some of these operations become challenging when the seas become rough. One task that the bridge helps us with is the event log, a chronological record of all scientific deployments of instruments and seabird observation transects. Every time a scientist is ready to put an instrument into the water, whether a net or the CTD, he or she calls the bridge and asks for the event number. The mates also do a walk-through of the ship periodically to make sure that iall is welli, and sometimes they stop to ask questions about the science that they are supporting. Always fun to share the science.

At the top left is Captain Scott Flanagan, standing near the radar screen, at top right is Chief Mate Joe Abshire, standing at the chart table and inspecting some instructions. At bottom left is Third Mate Rick Taylor entering an activity into the event log. At bottom right is Second Mate Larry Brissette, in an orange Mustang jacket that we all wear for safety when on deck.

Day 10

If you are interested in following the location of the ship as we work through our stations, there is a website with weather information and the position status of different research vessels, including the ARSV L M Gould. Go to http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/

Enter the name of the ship, "Laurence M. Gould", and navigate through to the ship position location.

Our cruise track over the first part of the 16th annual summer cruise of the Palmer LTER is shown in the chart, including the end of our southbound crossing of Drake Passage and the two northern-most transect lines of our summer cruise. The 5 standard transect lines are shown as a series of + signs, one for each station on each line. We crossed Drake Passage, entering Bransfield Strait just south of Deception Island, and then went south through Gerlache Strait to Palmer Station on Anvers Island. Once underway for science, we headed toward the east side of Peterman Island (small print) for one station, then behind Renaud Island where we did another station. Just south and west of Renaud Island we put in a SASSI mooring (more on that later), and then commenced stations on the transect line west of Renaud, moving out to sea. From the seaward end of this line we moved to retrieve and re-deploy the sediment trap on 10 January. For the last 3 days we have been doing stations along the transect line just south of Anvers Island, moving inshore to do a fine scale study of the basin just south of Palmer Station, seen as the grey blocked out section just south of station.

Day 11

Of the four components on the ship, the Zooplankton group (B028) spends the most time on deck, utilizing three instruments deployed from the ship's main deck on a daily basis. Zooplankton are small animals living in the ocean whose large-scale distributions are primarily controlled by currents. The instruments used to study their distributions consist of the biofish, and two nets of different sizes (2 meter by 2 meter and 1 meter by 1 meter fixed-framed nets). The biofish is a blue fish-like device (hence the name) that has a transducer bolted to the body that sends data up the wire to a computer in the lab to record a bioacoustic transect. This instrument is essentially an echosounder device for zooplankton that helps us estimate the amount of zooplankton in the water column. The device also allows us to see at what depth the species that form layers or schools are in the water column, the size and density of the schools, and sometimes the species. The biofish is lowered into the water with a crane on the starboard quarter of the ship with two scientists to help ease it into the water (Albert Kao and Whitney Wilkinson in upper right panel). The biofish takes data throughout the entire tow to allow us to match what we see with the acoustics with what we catch in the nets.

Everyone must have three things with them in order to work on the main deck. These items include 1) a hard hat, 2) a safety belt that attaches to a safety line that prevents you from falling overboard when the sea gates at the stern of the ship are open, and 3) a float coat (the orange jackets with NSF on the back) that helps you float if you fall overboard. These precautions are necessary because the sea gates at the stern must be opened in order to put the 2-m net in the water. In order to lift the 2-m net and get it into the water, a winch operator, with the help of a marine technician and two scientists, ease the net from its holder and guide it over the back of the ship. The 1-m net is put in the water in just the same way, but is small enough so we do not need to open the sea gates. In the panel on the lower left, Meghan King, Albert and Whitney lower the 1-m net into the water. Once the net is brought up out of the water, the scientists quickly bring up the cod-end and place it in a tub of water - the cod-end is a cylindrical tube that is located at the back of the net and traps most of what passes through the net. Whitney is pulling the cod onto the ship in the lower middle panel and then pouring the contents of the cod-end into a large white tub (upper left panel).

Usually thousands of organisms are caught in one tow, as shown in the panel in the middle. Some of the common zooplankters we catch are three species of "krill" including Antarctic krill the largest one here, salps (clear gelatinous filter feeders), many different species of worms, amphipods, copepods, marine snails called pteropods, as well as fish and their larvae. At the lower right, Langdon Quetin and Robin Ross confer on the contents of a series of tows.

Day 12

During each of the cruises for this long-term set of observations, we have spent most of one day conducting a detailed investigation of the marine environment that the penguins nesting near Palmer Station use as a foraging region. The term "high density grid" refers to the fact that we are looking at a small-scale resolution survey grid for the details of distribution. The timing of mid-January is based on the time of peak penguin chick growth, as documented over the years. Nick Metheny surveys an Adelie penguin colony near Palmer Station before the cruise begins (upper left panel).

The goal is to simultaneously map out

1. the distribution of the Adelie penguins as they hunt for food at sea (Eric Erdmann spots seabirds from his observation post on the bridge, upper right panel),
2. the distribution of their primary food source in summer (Antarctic krill), and
3. different measures of water characteristics such as phytoplankton concentrations, surface sea water temperature and surface salinity.

We document the distribution of Antarctic krill in this area with bioacoustic transects, as described yesterday. A view of the computer screen for the bioacoustic setup shows a layer of Antarctic krill in the upper 40 meters of the water column (center panel). In addition, an inflatable boat rigged with a winch and net is launched and used to collect Antarctic krill from the foraging region to document the sizes available for the penguins to feed on, and to determine how well the krill are feeding. Alex Lowe, Langdon Quetin and Doug Fink in Rubber Duke I draw alongside the ARSV L M Gould after searching for krill all morning (lower left panel).

Keeping our records straight during this time of simultaneous data collection requires good coordination and team work, and Heidi Geisz and Chip Cotton (lower right panel) help out with the coordination among groups.

With this data set we can answer questions such as: Are the penguins and Antarctic krill distributed in the same patterns? Are these patterns correlated with phytoplankton concentrations? Have these patterns changed over the time series?

Day 13

Last Sunday morning, Chief Engineer Mike Brett led a tour of the engine room - the heart, the muscle, and arguably the most important part of the ship.

First, we were shown the control room, where Mike (center top) can keep informed about the status of the major components of the engine room. There are meters that show how much fuel and water each of their tanks is currently holding, which is important because it is necessary to balance the weight of the ship evenly. In addition, he can communicate with the rest of the engine room and with the bridge from this room.

Next, we donned earmuffs (as Fernando Avila has at lower right) and entered the deafening roar of the engine room. It is so loud here that when a telephone call is made to this room, bright flashing lights and a loud siren are necessary to alert the engine room workers to the call. Roberto Cortez (upper left) and Noli Tamayo (upper right) act as seconds to the engineer on watch. The engine room is responsible for many functions: providing power to the entire ship, creating fresh water from seawater by flash evaporation, and housing the rudders of the ship. In order to sort out the myriad pipes running throughout the room, each pipe is colored according to its use: blue pipes contain fresh water, green pipes salt water, yellow pipes fuel, and brown pipes sewage. In addition to clarifying the function of each pipe, the bright colors create an almost fantastical working environment (one science grantee said it reminded her of Willy Wonka's factory).

Because Antarctica is such an isolated region and help is likely far away during an emergency, the caretakers of the engine room must be able to repair nearly any part of the engine room. There are shelves full of spare parts, and they also have the tools to fashion temporary parts. Last week, the engine room crew proved their skill by repairing a broken hinge in the Baltic room, which was important for launching the CTD. Trevor Rafferty described the process over midrats (midnight meal) late that day (lower left).

The tour allowed us a glimpse at a part of the ship that is largely hidden from the scientists and can easily be taken for granted, but only because of the continued alertness and competence of the engine room workers can the scientists safely and reliably perform research in this harsh

Day 14

Hello from the Frozen South!

Though we are currently around 200km off shore, a few days ago we had a beautiful day to bob inshore and drop two Zodiacs in the water. The bird ecology crew was off first with a team of folks headed for the Armstrong Reef islands where Adelie penguins maintain breeding colonies. The top left photo shows the Raytheon Polar Services crew craning the Zodiac off the LMG. Meanwhile, our zooplankton ecologists zoomed through the reef waters in search of krill using sonar coupled with a trawl net. Langdon Quetin, a principle investigator for the krill group, is shown steering the krill rig in the bottom left photo.

The primary focus of the seabird work on these islands is the Adelie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) foraging ecology as relates to breeding success. Seven of the islands in this group have been surveyed for the last 5 years, including a census of breeding adults and chicks. The top right photo shows the bird group setting up for census and diet work on one of the islands. Though the Zodiac is securely tied to the shoreline, the best practice is to make sure all the survival gear comes ashore with the group. Each pair of adult Adelie penguins lays two eggs in early November and will try to raise two chicks (adult Adelies with a fluffy gray chick in the center photo, right). Variability in breeding success is due to direct physical factors, such as annual snow fall and/or winter sea ice extent and duration, which also tie into biological factors such as food availability (fish and krill). The second portion of this study involves examining the penguin diets in this area. We generally find the nutrition of these Adelies dominated by Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba).

Our zooplankton folk spent the day looking for schools of krill between the islands of the Armstrong Reef. This study also examines foraging ecology, but the foraging or grazing of krill. Just like cows graze grass, krill graze phytoplankton and ecologists examine the ingestion rates of these animals using grazing experiments. The center far right photo shows Whitney Wilkinson surrounded with buckets as she is prepared to process the krill haul. Early in the day, the only animals to be found were too small for experiments. However, the payload run arrived the last attempt of the day, thus our krillers were successful in their ventures

Done for the day, the birders pose for a picture near a cliff-side Adelie colony (bottom middle) and then both small boats head back to be loaded onto the LMG by the low light of a midnight sunset (bottom right).

Day 15

Today we take a look at the galley and chefs on board the L.M. Gould.

The galley crew is led by Connecticut-born Head Chef Bobby Loglisci (top left), who has been cooking aboard the L.M. Gould since July of 2007, and plans to stay with the ship "as long as there are penguins on the ice and smiles on the boat!" Assisting him are Philippines-born Romeo Agonias, holding the squash at bottom left, and Leandro Polante (bottom left next to Romeo), who have been with the Gould for 8 years and 1.5 years, respectively. Early in the cruise, Bobby enlisted the help of some passengers to hang out in the mess hall and pick some basil (center picture), a cornerstone of any good seasoning.

Food is served around the clock. Breakfast is from 0730-0830, lunch from 1130-1230, dinner from 1730-1830, and mid-rats are served from 2330-0030. In addition, there is always a small but tasty snack to be had around 1530. This wide range of meal times is to ensure that even those crew members and scientists who work the night shift can get enough to eat every day. Bobby heads up breakfast, lunch, and dinner, assisted by Romeo and Leandro. In addition, Leandro is in charge of mid-rats, while Romeo is in charge of the baking.

While the quantity of food is important, it is the quality which is evident on this cruise. Head Chef Bobby has created a huge variety of excellent meals for us, presenting meals with themes including Italian, French, Mexican, Southern, BBQ, pizza night, burger buffets, and even a Thanksgiving dinner in January. Heidi Geisz and Matt Erickson stand in the serving line waiting to pile their plate high (upper right), and Whitney Wilkinson anticipates her burger (lower right). Each meal is served with the added touch of theme-appropriate music playing in the background. The vegetarian and vegan options that are also on hand are much loved by the resident herbivores, though they often have to compete fiercely for their share, as the delicious vegetarian dishes go just as fast as any other.

Being at sea for almost 6 weeks without being able to replenish food supplies makes cooking a particular challenge. Things like fresh fruit are often in short supply as the weeks pass, though Bobby does his best to make sure it all gets eaten while itis fresh, even if he has to resort to dipping any and all fruit in chocolate!

We have been fortunate to enjoy calm seas on the cruise so far, as one can not afford to get seasick and miss any of the great meals.

Day 16

Greetings all,

Today we take a look at the Synoptic Antarctic Shelf-Slope Interactions (SASSI) moorings that are being deployed on the continental shelf of the western Antarctic Peninsula during the LMG 08-01 cruise aboard the L.M. Gould. The continental shelf is 80-100 miles wide and is generally around 500 m deep here. At its offshore edge it drops rapidly over a span of 8-12 miles to deep ocean depths of greater than 3,000 m, almost 2 miles. This span of rapidly increasing water depth at the offshore shelf edge is called the shelf break. One of the moorings will be at the shelf break. Two moorings will be located at mid shelf and 2 others at the inner shelf.

The moorings will remain in the water for one year and will be retrieved along with their data during the next LTER cruise. Each mooring is a line with attached instruments, held in place on the bottom with weights (cement blocks), and vertical in the water with floats or buoys. The moorings span a vertical distance of greater than 350 m in the water and have a current meter and 17 temperature sensors that will monitor changes in water temperature. The current meter and temperature sensors will allow us to determine when warm, offshore water floods onto the continental shelf, bringing in heat and raising the ocean temperature on the shelf. The moorings will then monitor the decrease in temperature when heat is lost to the atmosphere (warming the air) and to the underside of glaciers (melting them). All of this information will help us learn how the ocean heat is partitioned into air warming and ice melting. One of the goals of this project is to help us understand why the western Antarctic Peninsula is undergoing the most rapid warming of air temperature in the winter on earth, and why 87% of the peninsula glaciers are in retreat (e.g. melting, and consequently raising global sea level).

The picture on the top right shows all of the instruments that are used to monitor the changes described above strung out on the deck before deployment. These instruments can measure the speed and direction of water movement (currents), temperature and pressure (depth). Fred Stuart (Electrical Technician, Raytheon Support) is seen in the bottom right preparing the acoustic release and current meter for deployment. Meghan King (Marine Technician, Raytheon Support) and Cooper Guest (Marine Science Technician, Raytheon Support) are seen in the bottom left ready to release the weights that anchor the mooring to the sea floor. The Palmer LTER would also like to thank the crew from the L.M. Gould for the support during the deployment and recovery of these moorings.

Day 17

Greetings All,

During the LTER cruise onboard the LM Gould we sample the water column, up to 4 times a day! This sampling process begins with a CTD, or Conductivity, Temperature, Depth cast. This instrument, pictured on the top right and being deployed by Marine Technician Meghan King through the Baltic room door, measures several physical and chemical oceanographic variables. The picture on the bottom right shows Electronics Technician Victor Shen watching the live data appear on the computer screen as the CTD is deployed. In this graph you can see the multiple variables measured during the cast. On the carousel itself are instruments that measure chlorophyll fluorescence (phytoplankton concentration), temperature, conductivity (salt content), transmission (turbidity), oxygen, and light levels at depth. These measurements give us defining characteristics of the water column. The CTD itself is deployed to depths ranging from 200 meters to 3600 meters, or 1.5 miles!

In addition to collecting physical and chemical data, the CTD carousel has 24 Niskin bottles that are triggered from onboard the ship, and close at specific depths. These bottles collect 12 liters of water each which are sampled by the scientists onboard the LM Gould. The picture on the top left shows scientists collecting water from the Niskin bottles after the CTD is back onboard. Clockwise from Wendy Kozlowski, upper right in the tie-dye shirt, are Scott Baker, Erin Morgan, Aaron Randolf, Chip Cotton, and Diane (PD) Chakos.

From this water the microbial research group obtains data on the bacterial production at various depths, dissolved gasses, inorganic and organic carbon, bacterial abundance and their interaction with these dissolved organic particles: in short, biogeochemical cycling. The phytoplankton research group also uses the collected water to sample primary production throughout the water column. In the bottom left picture Wendy Kozlowski filters the water for chlorophyll measurements. Other experiments by the phytoplankton group investigate primary production levels, pigment composition, and nutrient levels in the water column. Simply stated, these water samples help provide a complete picture of phytoplankton dynamics at depth in relation to physical and chemical oceanographic characteristics.

Thinking on the big picture level one can see the importance of this research. The primary producers, phytoplankton, provide the food for the zooplankton and ultimately megafauna such as whales and sea birds. These animals, in addition to the phytoplankton, provide the dissolved carbon necessary for bacterial production. All together, we are studying the dynamic food web of the Southern Ocean, one bottle of water at a time!

Day 18

Greetings!

Monday we reached the first station of the southernmost portion of the LTER grid and started the "200" line. We began sampling offshore at station 200.260 ("260" indicates that the station is 260 km from shore). A major part of this procedure involved deploying and retrieving a deep CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) cast. The cast descended 3,694 m (about 12,005 ft!) to the seafloor, gathering information on the water column and capturing water samples from specific depths on its return to the surface.

The Gould's crew did an excellent job positioning the ship and safely deploying the CTD's carousel, a task made even more difficult by the foggy weather and large, rolling swell.

Following the tradition of previous cruises, everyone had a chance to decorate a styrofoam cup and send it down to the depths! Each person received an 8 or 12 oz. styrofoam coffee cup, and drew colorful designs on the outside and inside using Sharpie markers. Many of these creative cups included information about the date, depth, and location of the cast, as well as pictures of "killer" zooplankton, miniature Gould's, Adelie penguins, and other Antarctic wildlife (lower right). The cups were collected before the cast and Heidi Geisz and Albert Kao (upper left) stuffed them with paper towels (to prevent collapse) and zip-tied them into mesh bags that Meghan King (lower left) tied onto the bottom interior of the CTD carousel.

As the cups descend, they are subjected to greater and greater water pressure. Pascal's law (Pressure = fluid density * gravitational pull * height of water column) describes how pressure increases with depth. Basically, as an object sinks deeper in the water column it "feels" the weight of more and more water on top of it. Scuba divers use the following rule of thumb to determine pressure at different depths: 10 meters of water exert roughly the same amount of pressure as 1 atmosphere. In other words, a diver who is 10 m underwater experiences 2 atmospheres of pressure. This means that our styrofoam cups were under about 370 atmospheres of pressure at the seafloor!

As the cups sink, the water pressure squeezes the air out of the spaces in the styrofoam. This causes the cups to shrink to miniature size! In the upper right is the "angry zooplankton attacking the Gould" cup before and after descent into the depths. Shrinking also makes the colors very vibrant and beautiful. Erin Morgan (bottom, center) displays her cup before the cast. The same cup is shown next to a pen (lower right) for scale.

Day 19

Greetings All,

While it may not be initially intuitive to think so, penguins make up a major proportion of top predator species found in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). This means that measurements of their population sizes and breeding success can give an indication of the "health" or stability of the ecosystem. Global climate change has been linked in many parts of the world to dramatic changes in ecosystem health and stability. As we indicated in previous PODs, the Palmer LTER study region has seen some of the greatest increases in average winter temperatures during the last 50 years of anywhere on the planet, and the effects of this warming on the WAP ecosystem are only now becoming evident. One of the major hypotheses of the Palmer LTER program is that coincident with the warming of the Peninsula, the amount and extent of winter sea ice has been decreasing, resulting in changes in the breeding success and overall population sizes of the resident penguin species. The penguin species most affected by these changes is the Adelie Penguin (upper left), appropriately referred to as the "bellwether of climate change."

Data collected from Palmer Station and previous LTER cruises, among other sources, show a general decline of Adelie Penguin populations in the northern parts of the Peninsula, with a simultaneous increase in the size and numbers of colonies in the southern regions. With the decrease in numbers of Adelies, we have seen an increase in two closely related species, the Chinstrap and Gentoo Penguins (see photos upper center and right), that breed mostly in the northern regions of the Peninsula. These penguins do not rely heavily on winter sea ice for winter habitat as the Adelie Penguin does, and therefore can move into those areas the Adelies have abandoned. Every year on the LTER summer cruise we find more and more evidence of these trends in penguin population size and distribution.

Even more surprising are recent sightings of species that have rarely, if ever, been seen as far south as some parts of our study region. For example, the King Penguin pictured in the lower right was seen on Torgersen Island in 2006 near Palmer Station, hundreds of kilometers south of its traditional breeding and feeding areas. In addition, the Macaroni Penguin pictured (center bottom), was seen last season on Avian Island (the southern end of our study region), over 400 km (~250 miles) further south than any of its kind have ever been seen before!

Day 20

Hello Once Again From Antarctica!

Each year on the cruise, we are privileged to have many encounters with marine mammals, or mammals that live and feed primarily in the ocean. Mammals originally evolved on land and a subset later adapted to life in the sea. Unlike other marine life, marine mammals breathe air, rather than extracting oxygen from the water, they have hair (even whales have bristles!) and thick layers of fat under the skin called blubber to insulate their warm blooded bodies. Marine mammals also give live birth and rely on milk to feed their young milk that is up to 50% fat in content!

At Palmer Station, we saw many Southern Elephant seals (upper left), which haul out on land this time of year to rest and molt their fur. Males, the larger of the genders, can get up to 21 feet long and weigh as much as 6000 lbs! They eat primarily fish and squid and have amazing eyesight adapted to deep diving, up to 1000 feet deep. Leaving the Palmer area, we transited through many areas covered in icebergs and the remnants of last winter's sea ice. We often spot seals and penguins lounging on these bits of ice and were lucky to see two species of true seals this year (true meaning they have internal ears and are not jointed at the hips such as sea lions). Leopard seals (upper right) are a silver gray color with a serpentine head and huge masseter muscles. They are opportunistic foragers feeding on fish, krill, other seals and penguins. Though the name is deceiving, crabeater seals (far left middle) do not eat crabs they eat mainly krill. Like Adelie penguins, they are a sea ice dependent species found only in the Antarctic. The teeth are beautifully cusped, acting as a strainer that retains the krill. Though much larger - reaching at times 50 feet in length - the humpback whales also eat mainly krill and other plankton or small fish, straining out their prey with baleen. One method they employ to catch their prey involves spiraling up and down in dense schools of plankton which creates bubble nets that concentrate their prey. Individual animals are recognized by scientists by the unique patterns of black and white on their tail or fluke, like our fingerprints. In the two groups of whales shown, you can see the flukes show very different patterns.

Day 21

Greetings All,

Some of you may wonder about the information systems on board the L.M. Gould and what access we have to data about navigation, weather, basic parameters about the seawater and the depth our instruments in the water column. Today we are showing two of the basic information screens that can be found on the monitors in every lab and in several of the public areas on the ship.

The first screen (bottom, center) shows basic navigation data along with current weather and light conditions, and information about surface seawater collected by the thermosalinograph (TSG). In the topmost section of this screen are the latitude and longitude, the waypoint (Wpt) or where we are headed next, and distance and time to that waypoint. The latitude and longitude are in negative degrees and minutes because we are in the Southern Hemisphere (latitude) and west of zero degrees longitude. Below the waypoint (here shown for the day we retrieved and redeployed the sediment trap) are the day, time and date in Greenwich mean time (GMT) and the depth of the water at this location. Below the basic location and time data are three columns with information about the ship's speed and heading, local weather, and the TSG system, left to right respectively. We often use speed over ground (SOG) in our data records. The wind speed, shown in the upper part of the middle column, is in knots (nautical miles per hour) which is a bit faster than miles per hour (1 nautical mile is 1.15 statute miles, the mile we use on land). At high winds over 35 or 40 knots, such as we had yesterday, we are not able to put instruments into the water.

The TSG system shows salinity (SAL or salt content), sea surface temperature (SST), fluorescence (Fluor) and partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) in the surface water. Fluorescence is a measure of chlorophyll or the biomass of phytoplankton in the water. The pCO2 partially reflects how much carbon dioxide the phytoplankton has used in primary production, and a low pCO2 reflects an area of high primary production in the recent past. These data can help us identify locations of particular interest to study for the various scientists.

The second screen (top, right) shows the data that helps us avoid hitting the bottom of the ocean with our instruments. Fred Stuart (bottom left) and Victor Shen (bottom right during Crazy Hair Day) are the Electronic Technicians responsible for monitoring the depth of the CTD as we do a cast, and letting the winch operator know when to stop. The CTD descends vertically in the water column, and the yellow line and number tell us how much wire has been let out or the depth in the water column, compared to the bottom (blue number). We also try to avoid hitting the bottom when doing net tows. A sample of the depth profile of a net during a tow is shown in the graph with the green line. In this example the net descended from the surface to about 120 m (depth on far right of graph), and then the scientists monitoring the screen asked the winch operator to bring the net back up. This was an easy tow to avoid the bottom since the depth was 3519 meters!! However, there are times when the bottom is not quite so deep and scientists have to ask the winch operator to bring the net back up sooner. If they miscalculate or a sharp increase in depth occurs unexpectedly the net can "touch" the bottom, and we come up with bottom dwelling animals like those in the upper left corner! About once a cruise we do "touch" the bottom, and the bottom dwelling creatures are a treat to see for many on board. You may recognize the sea cucumber, sea urchin and star fish from your own tide pool visits.

Day 22

Greetings All,

As you may have seen in POD 11 (regarding the zooplankton sampling methods) the zooplankton team scours the ocean with 2 nets, the smaller of which samples to a depth of 300 meters, nearly 1,000 feet below the surface (think of the Eiffel Tower standing between the net and the surface). While the zooplankton group focuses on Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba, the largest and most abundant of the many species of crustaceans collectively called "krill", a word that means whale food in Norwegian), there are many other zooplankters we come across that also play an important role in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. One of the many strengths of the LTER program is the ability to look at long term changes in abundance (number and/or biomass) of these different species and the regional community composition (the relative amounts of each species).

The LTER's sampling grid covers inshore and offshore waters along the Antarctic Peninsula, where we see a broad range of organisms including jellyfish, squid, fish, salps, worms, and amphipods, among others. One of our dissecting microscopes, used in the analysis of these organisms, is equipped with a digital camera that allows us to take pictures of what we see. Some of our favorites are shown here with the magnification for scale.

In the upper left is a pteropod called Limacina. Pteropods (a name meaning winged foot) are similar to snails and slugs, only they have wings and swim around in the ocean... Limacina swim with a bat-like flapping motion of their wings (the "chinchilla ears" in the photo). Also of note is their mucus net used in feeding; a single Limacina, roughly the size of the "G" on your keyboard, can cast a mucus net many times its size in diameter. This net traps phytoplankton until the Limacina consumes the net: algae, mucus and all. This architectural feat was discovered by blue-water divers watching pteropods feed in the ocean far from land.

At the top-center of the picture is a species of Protomyctophum, or Lantern Fish. The pearl-like spheres along its body are called photophores. Photophores are light-producing organs that typically line the bottom of a fish (though not only in fish, Euphausia superba has them too) in order to break up its silhouette, making it difficult for predators to identify them as prey.

In the middle of the picture is a very, very small starfish. To give you an idea of how small, the width of the forceps next to it is roughly 0.25 millimeters! This interesting pelagic (which is strange for the mostly bottom dwelling starfish) creature has shown up in two catches, hundreds of kilometers apart. None of us know exactly who or what it is.

The three pictures on the bottom are of a squid, a polychaete worm curled up next to a copepod (a small planktonic crustacean) and a group of Hyperoche amphipods. Amphipods are another group of crustaceans. This particular species is one of the more common amphipods found in the study. Note the large eyes! The squid and the polychaete, on the other hand, are rare finds. These photos offer a glimpse of the high diversity of small animals living in the Southern Ocean.

Day 23

Hello again from the wind and the waves,

Weather plays an important role during our cruise here west of the Antarctic Peninsula. The LM Gould receives daily weather reports from the Charleston Remote Weather Facility and satellite pictures from the US Navy. These weather reports help the captain of the LM Gould and the Chief Scientist anticipate harsh weather.

During the first two weeks of the cruise the weather favored smooth operations. The picture in the top left was taken looking out of a port hole. The seas were relatively calm with a small swell. The sunrise in the back makes for a beautiful backdrop for our smooth sailing. However, as the old verse goes - "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning"

The cruise was progressing through the month of January with just minor short periods of stormy weather that never stopped science or deck operations. On January 23-24, the science crew was sampling the 200 line approximately 100 kilometers off shore. The winds were a steady 20 to 25 knots, so although we were rolling a bit and had to be careful about leaving anything loose on a counter, we had no problem with continuing operations. However, a large low pressure system was forecasted to move into our area. The bottom left photo shows a screen that gives current weather information including wind speed, direction and barometric pressure. Wind speeds are plotted in the center graph (blue). You can see that over a 24-hour period the winds in our area sharply increased, with gusts up to 62 knots (1 nautical mile = 1.15 statute miles). With the strength of these winds, the waves increased to an approximate 10 to 12 feet. And in these conditions we cannot continue to deploy instruments, both for the safety of the people on deck and the equipment going into the water. Generally we stop operations above steady wind speeds of 35 knots, but the swell and waves are factors too, and may force us to stop operations at lower wind speeds. With the seas described, we steamed toward our more protected stations, and waited out the storm. Regular operations resumed about 12 hours later with winds between 25 and 30 knots (see graph). The two pictures on the right were taken through a port hole and from the aft control room during the high winds. At one point scientists in the rear van (the one with the inflatable boat on top in the upper right panel) saw a wave that went over the top of the van! The differences between these images through the port hole give an idea of how dramatically the weather can change in a short period of time in Antarctica.

Day 24

Hello all,

While there is often great scenery and occasional diversions such as cribbage tournaments or the "murder game" to occupy our non-science time on the Gould, the days can sometimes get monotonous. Waking up seven days a week to the same people, shifts, tasks, and surroundings creates the need for something to break the pattern. Traditionally, during a large block of days of science, we will have a "crazy hair day" to add a bit of zaniness and self-entertainment to the mix!

In today's picture, we can see some of the great hairstyles that were featured during this year's Crazy Hair Day. No matter the hair available - long, short, curly, or a beard - something can be created! Robin (top left) demonstrates a hairstyle by Heidi (lower left) as inspired by PD (in red-gold hair in center photo). Continuing counter-clockwise, Langdon, Matthew and Chip show off their new hair- or beard-dos. In the center photo, from back left to front right, are Doug, Wendy, PD, Katie, Karie, Heidi, Jeff, and Maria, all extremely proud of their fashionable hair.

Day 25

Greetings all!

Today we will introduce you to the work of B016, the researchers here on the LTER cruise that study phytoplankton (microscopic plants). This is the 14th year for the group! They study the plant life and measure how much carbon is made to feed bacteria, krill and hence whales and penguins - thus the basis of the food web.

The goal of the phytoplankton team is to understand phytoplankton ecology and physiology along the Palmer LTER grid in relation to environmental parameters such as water column stratification, sea ice, and light. A suite of measurements is obtained at different locations, starting with underwater light measurements with a Profiling Reflectance Radiometer (PRR). The picture on the top right depicts Scott Baker, helping pay out the PRR cable to a maximum depth of approximately 100 meters (about 300 feet). Further sampling in the water is done based on what is learned about the light under the surface.

The B016 group samples up to 100 liters of sea water per day, or roughly 30 liters per station. Karie Sines, in the top left picture, filters the water in order to concentrate the otherwise dilute phytoplankton for analysis. Water is filtered for numerous measurements, one of which is pigment analysis by the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The bottom left picture shows Wendy Kozlowski working on the HPLC machine. Simply put, the HPLC determines concentrations of specific pigments present in the phytoplankton utilized by different taxonomic groups, and can thus lead to our understanding of the light absorption and group recognition of the phytoplankton population throughout the water column.

Anther important measurement taken by the B016 team is the physiological status (think stressed or not) of the phytoplankton. Maria Vernet, in the bottom right picture, works on the Fluorescence Induction and Relaxation System (FIRe) to measure stress levels in the phytoplankton. This research is done in conjunction with 0326.

The Rad-team, Diane Chakos and Katie Haman (pictured second from top-right with the incubation rack), conducts primary production experiments to determine the uptake of Carbon by the phytoplankton. The use of radioactive carbon allows the rad-team to measure the exact amount of carbon the phytoplankton incorporate into carbohydrates, via photosynthesis, in a 24-hour period.

Last to be mentioned, but far from least, Jeff, pictured second from top-left, not only filters tens of liters of seawater a day, but also keeps the 016 morning team well stocked with coffee, a necessity at 0400 am!

No explanation is needed for the bottom, middle picture: Team 016!

Day 26

Greetings All,

Each year on the PAL-LTER summer cruise, members of the seabird group (B-013) spend 5 days working on Avian Island. Avian Island is located just off the southern tip of Adelaide Island, south of the Antarctic Circle between the 200 and 300 lines of the PAL-LTER study grid. The island is the breeding ground for over 50,000 pairs of Adelie Penguins (Pic 1). Southern Giant Petrels, South Polar Skuas, and Blue-eyed Shags breed on the island as well (Pic 8). While working on Avian Island, our researchers are provided with accommodations rivaling the best hotels of New York, Paris, and London. Here in Pic 2, you can see our Marine Technician (MT) Pete Dalfero and Chip Cotton making some "cosmetic" repairs to the roof of our luxurious cabana.

An important part of our work on Avian involves attaching Platform Terminal Transmitters (PTTs) to breeding Adelies to track their foraging paths by satellite (Pic 4). This allows us to gain a better understanding of the foraging ecology of breeding Adelies during the chick-rearing season and how environmental variables (like seasonal ice conditions and food availability) as well as provisioning demands and sex of the individual influence foraging locations. We also collect diet samples from birds returning from foraging to investigate how the composition of their diets differ from those breeding in other parts of the Peninsula and how they have been changing over time.

While a majority of our work focuses on Adelie Penguins breeding on Avian, we also conduct censuses of the other seabirds breeding on the island. And, while the penguins, petrels, and shags are only slightly agitated by our presence, the South Polar Skuas make their irritation well known when we are near one of their nests by "dive-bombing" anyone who ventures too close. Pic 9 shows the unsuspecting Eric Erdmann examining a skua nest one short second before getting "thwacked" in the head by the irritated skua's outstretched feet. Marine mammals also spend time on Avian and are included in our island census counts. Southern Elephant Seals and Antarctic Fur Seals make up the majority of marine mammals found on Avian Island (Pics 6 & 7), however, Crabeater and Weddell Seals are also often seen during our surveys.

Avian Island represents the southernmost extent of much of our work with Adelie penguins and other seabirds, and combined with our other study sites along the Peninsula, represents a unique opportunity for monitoring the effects of global climate change on seabird and mammal communities of this region. For the members of the B-013 seabird group, the Avian Island field camp is probably the highlight of the PAL-LTER summer cruise.

Day 27

Greetings all,

We have shown you some traditional events for the annual LTER cruise, from Crazy Hair Day to the Avian Island field camp. One event that combines both science and social exchange is our annual day with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) at Rothera Base. We have made this exchange an annual event since the mid 1990s, about the time BAS started a seasonal time series in Ryder Bay. The two seasonal time series, the Palmer LTER series based at Palmer Station and the BAS series based at Ryder Bay nearly 400 km south, provide increasingly important comparisons as warming continues west of the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship pulls up to the dock at Rothera early in the morning, and we exchange personnel. Some of the BAS scientists join us at sea for a cross-calibration of our equipment, and discussions about scientific results from both LTER and other projects, and many of those from the LM Gould go ashore for a day of "R and R". This year the day included a tour of the base and airplane hanger, a hike around Rothera Point, a visit to the station post office, and lunch. Sometimes in the pre-dinner hour we play a friendly soccer (football to BAS) match on the runway, and sometimes as was true this year the ship arrives back too late to play. Then the social part starts the party starts at 8 pm with live music and lots of dancing! On the base there is always a live band made up of whoever is interested in playing an instrument. Then the next morning back to work we go!

At middle left is a picture taken as the LM Gould approaches the pier. The runway for the airplanes twin otter aircraft and a Dash-7 is to the left of the pier and line of buildings. The line of buildings starts with the Quonset hut for the small boats, then the Bonner Laboratory just behind it and to the left of the road up the hill to the main accommodations (left), the air controller tower and main administration building (far right in picture). The twin otters are used to set up field parties of scientists in far distant places.

Clockwise from top left we show a selection of pictures from the day: Erin Morgan stands next to the evidence of our visit, the Rothera Research Station sign. Chef Bobby gives a toast for Aaron's birthday on the Rothera stage (with Lead Filled Snow Shoe, the Rothera house band), and the party poster for the Rothera/Gould night party as an inset. The twin otter, lower right, was in the hanger that Saturday. On a walk around Rothera, many visitors saw a Weddell seal lounging on the beach next to brash ice. At the end of the day, people ended up going back to their respective abodes via either zodiac or the BAS launch. In the lower left are Scott Baker, Victor Shen and Doug Fink dressed in the BAS version of survival suits, required clothing for a lift in the BAS launch.

Day 28

Greetings everyone,

During our day at Rothera Research Station and at sea with the British Antarctic Survey scientists, we saw many Minke whales feeding on Antarctic krill at the surface. One of the BAS visitors estimated that we had seen 40 Minke whales! The krill were clearly visible swimming just below the surface of the sea. We did not have time to sample the krill that day, and during the next few days had to finish our standard sampling stations and wanted to sample some areas of high phytoplankton further south.

Now if only the Antarctic krill and whales were still near Rothera when we had the time to investigate after retrieving the "birders" from their field camp on Avian Island! Thus January 30 found the LM Gould in the channel between Adelaide Island and the mainland, heading north to Tickle Passage and looking for the Minke whales and their prey as we went. This was one of our few sunny days during this cruise, and once we found whales and krill we did a full station, complete with deployment of the Rubber Duke I, our small trawling zodiac. The cry went out as the PRR (light measuring instrument described earlier) went in the water "the Dash-7 is giving us a fly by!" At the top of today's POD you can see Rubber Duke I in the water with the Dash-7 in the sky to the right, with a side view of the Dash-7 inset to the right. The Antarctic krill were so easily seen from the surface that Doug Fink thought it might be easier to catch them with an aquarium net swiped through the water instead of our normal trawling (lower left and middle bottom). The swipe through the water was unsuccessful, but the night team "trawlers" were successful with the net, bringing up enough krill for both an experiment and to decorate Helen Dollbaum's mid-morning snack (lower right)!

Day 29

Good day everyone,

The Microbial Biogeochemistry group (B-045) (under the direction of Dr. Hugh Ducklow) is one of the science groups here on board the LM Gould. Our goal is to study the bacteria that live in the water column and serve the important function of cycling elements such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous through the ecosystem. This process, referred to as the microbial loop, converts organic matter produced by the phytoplankton and zooplankton into inorganic matter that is used by the phytoplankton for primary production and/or photosynthesis. The two images of the bacterial community (bottom center) were taken with camera attached to a microscope aboard the vessel, allowing the group to visualize the bacterial community.

At every station of the LTER grid the B-045 group takes water samples to analyze for dissolved gasses, dissolved organics and bulk bacterial parameters. The bottom right photo shows Erin Morgan "pickling" a dissolved oxygen sample. The amount of oxygen in the water can give us an idea of the amount of primary and secondary production occurring in the water column. The top left picture shows an exuberant Heidi Geisz and Erin Morgan sampling for dissolved organic carbon. Dissolved organic carbon is an important parameter to measure because it is the amount of material available for bacterial consumption. We directly measure bacterial production using radio-labeled amino acids, which shows the rate of carbon utilization by the bacteria. Chip Cotton and Heidi Geisz are pictured in the top right photo inoculating a set of samples with the radio-labeled amino acid.

In addition we preserve samples to measure the amount of bacteria in each water sample. This analysis is done with the use of flow cytometry back at our home institution, the Ecosystems Center, MBL. We also do experimentation onboard involving molecular genetics to look at the diversity of the bacterioplankton community. Aaron Randolph, in the lower left picture, is filtering water to concentrate bacterial cells to perform downsteam DNA analysis.

It has been a very successful and enjoyable cruise. While very busy the group has been able to enjoy several beautiful sunsets. The top photo shows all of us, from left to right, Chip Cotton, Heidi Geisz, Erin Morgan, Aaron Randolph, and team leaders Matthew Erickson and Kristen Myers.

Day 31

Greetings All,

While the average American has easy access to high-speed wireless Internet, cell phones, and text messaging, the average passenger on the Laurence M. Gould faces unique communications challenges. How can we keep in touch with family and friends who worry about us as we endure the deadly winds, voracious leopard seals, and vicious storms? How can we solve the daily New York Times crossword puzzle without the help of Wikipedia? How can we even get the daily crossword puzzle?

Though we may not have instantaneous access to the Internet, we do have some technologies to help us stay connected. Our electronics technicians, Fred Stuart and Victor Shen, download e-mail from our LMG accounts three times a day via a Fleet 77 Inmarsat system. It provides the equivalent of a 64Kbps modem, providing speeds of 1994 technology. We are limited in the amount of data we can send via this system as it is rather costly to operate. Our daily email allotment is around 25Kb, and in fact, the Picture of the Day project requires special permission to send you our lovely, but relatively large, picture attachments. In addition to e-mail, the digest versions of the New York Times and USA Today are downloaded each morning, allowing us both the latest news and our crossword puzzle fix. And for our trivia needs, there is an abridged copy of Wikipedia stored on the ship's server. Voice communications are handled via Iridium satellite phones, which are considerably cheaper than the Inmarsat system, but seem to drop calls quite frequently, rather reminiscent of early cell phones.

So, there u go. No cell phones for us and no txt msgs 4 u, but we rly don't need them newayz, rite? Well, gtg, ttyl!

Final

Greetings all,

One of the beautiful aspects of a research cruise is the growth of a sense of 'family' from the starting mixture of people you have known for years and those you have just met. Here is our 'group photo', taken after our last station and before we started to disperse to our various destinations. Some folks were on watch or could not leave to join us on the bow of the ship, and others (inset) were busy taking the picture - but all on board helped make this 16th annual LTER cruise smooth running and productive. We hope you see a familiar face or two!

Farewell,
Palmer LTER team for 08 January