UH MANOA STUDYING CLIMATE CHANGE IN ANTARCTICA

Plowing through the sea-ice

2012-05-08T12:48:00.001-07:00

Entry 4/8 - 4/15 - After finishing our seafloor and water-column studies in the Larsen A Embayment on 8 April, we headed northward through the Prince Gustav Channel, planning to nearly circumnavigate James Ross Island to sample potential cold-seeps sites in in Admiralty Sound. Cold seeps are sites were methane or other energy-rich chemical seeps from the seafloor, producing rich communities of animals related to those found at hydrothermal vents and at whale falls. Although active cold seeps have been photographed on the seafloor in Antarctica, no living communities of animals have ever been sampled.

Once again, the unusually heavy sea ice in the Weddell Sea has thwarted our sampling efforts. We have spent the 8^th through the 12^th of April backing and ramming through sea-ice composed of large, multi-year flow, some 1.5 – 2 m thick! The heavy sea-ice blocked our path around James Ross Island to the cold seep site; after four days backing and ramming, we turned north to avoid getting trapped in the sea ice, which continued to thicken under the very cold conditions (- 16 C). We thus turned northward and crunched our way northward into the Antarctic Sound. The racket caused by the shipped ramming and crunching sea ice resounded in the galley, limiting any conversation during meals.

The NB Palmer breaking through a hodge-podge of new and multiyear sea ice. For scale, the ice ball next to the ship protrudes about 3 m (10 feet) above the water.

Map of our cruise area and 36 stations. It took us four days to break 50 miles through sea ice from Station 34 in the Prince Gustav Channel to the Station 35 in the Antarctic Sound.

We finally broke free of sea ice and entered the Antarctic Sound in the wee hours of April 13^th, planning to recover the whale-bone lander which has been at the 1000 m deep seafloor for 2 years. The lander is designed to capture the special animals that live on whale skeletons at the deep-sea floor, which include bone eating worms, bristle worms that graze on bacterial mats, and a large diversity of other invertebrates. The bone lander could only be recovered in daylight, so we first conducted a Blake trawl, and a yoyo-camera survey to in the Antarctic Sound, an embayment never before sampled by benthic ecologists. The Blake trawl contained a remarkable fauna of holothurians, sea spiders, and giant polychaete worms. The trawl reeked of sulfide and was full of black sediment. The yoyo-camera survey revealed extraordinary concentrations of macroalgae throughout the Sound floor, indicating substantial horizontal nutrient subsidies from benthic habitats in euphotic zone. The Antarctic Sound floor is a surprisingly food rich setting compared to most communities at 1000 m.

Yoyo camera picture of the Antarctic Sound seafloor at 1000 m depths, showing abundant seaweed (macroalgal) detritus, as well as anemones and numerous brittle stars. The amount of macroalgal detritus is extraordinary for 1000 m depths.

After daybreak at 800 am on the 13^th, we communicated acoustically with the whale-bone lander, commanding it to drop its 120 kg lead weight, allowing it to float to the sea surface. When we sent the release command, the sea surface above the lander was free of sea ice for a ¼ mile radius. However, in the half hour required for the lander to float to the sea surface, sea-ice drifted over the site, to the lander came up under an ice floe. After three hours of smashing floes with our intrepid icebreaking ship, we finally spied the lander under a translucent ice flow, much to the relief of David Honig, whose dissertation depends on recovering this lander experiment. Within an hour, we had the bone lander on deck.

The whale-bone lander on deck after 28 months on the seafloor. Whale ribs bones can be seen attached the at right. The nylon mesh bin in the aluminum frame also contains whale bones and thousands of colonizing worms. The whale array smells like dead whale.

We then spent 24 hour picking and identifying the diversity of life living on the whale bones, preserving animals for genetic, food-web and biodiversity analyses. The bone lander contained thousands of dorvilleid polychaetes, amphipods and other animals attracted to whale bones, and promises to provide exciting data for David Honig dissertation concerning food-web structure in Antarctic ecosystems.

By the time the benthic ecology group had finished processing the bone-lander samples late in the evening of April 14^th, we had completed our geological sampling, collecting a jumbo piston core 18-m long just north of the Antarctic Sound. The sea ice was extremely heavy, forcing us to head north towards across the Drake Passage by 200 am on April 15^th. The Antarctic Ice Gods would not let us leave easily – we spend another 16 hours backing and ramming through heavy sea ice before we finally broke into open water just southeast of King George Island. Now we are “speeding” at 12 knots across the Drake Passage, in the first open ocean swell we have felt for more than one month. If the fair weather holds, we should be in Punta Arenas by late on April 19^th, to unload the ship and head homeward.

Warm winds and frigid mud-busting!

2012-04-09T23:10:00.007-07:00

3/25 – 4/7 - Much has happened since our last blog entry, where you left us at our first benthic station (St K), 30 miles off the coast of Robertson Island. After finishing St K, we tried once again to sneak into the Larsen B Embayment, but were thwarted by a line of icebergs acting as sentries over packed multi-year sea ice. We rammed and crunched into the sea ice, creating a deafening noise in the forward parts of the ship, but could not break into Larsen B. We realized we had to accept the overwhelming power of the Antarctic cold and ice, and instead headed northwestward into the area of the former Larsen A ice shelf, to pursue an alternate research plan. Work in the Larsen A will also be extremely exciting, allowing us to explore the effects of ice-shelf loss on marine ecosystems. While disappointed that we could not enter Larsen B, we all recognized that the cold and ice that thwarted our plans create the fascinating, unique ecosystems we are studying here in Antarctica. If we wanted warm, easy sailing, we should have stayed in the tropics!
We worked our way into the Larsen A Embayment along the Seal Nunataks (mountain peaks protruding above an ice sheet) and then skirted along the 17 m (50 ft) high remnant of the Larsen A Ice Self.

The edge of the Larsen A ice shelf, which extends for 30 miles along Nordenskjold Coast in the Weddell Sea.

This ice shelf forms a vertical wall extending to the horizon, and was as an alluring blue in the evening light. We saw a few seals at the base of the shelf, but otherwise the area was devoid of obvious life – a frozen desert abutting a castle of ice. The Larsen A Shelf retreated more than 30 miles between 1977 and 1995, and has retreated more than 100 miles since 1843, opening new ocean waters to whales, seals and penguins during the Antarctic summer. These recently (in geological time) opened waters will be the focus of much of our research activity, where we will explore how seafloor ecosystems have developed once sunlight reached the overlying sea surface, allowing a productive water-column ecosystem to develop.

After skirting the Larsen A Shelf, we moved into Drygalski Inlet, a bay carved by a huge glacier belching icebergs from the Antarctic ice cap. While in Drygalski Inlet, we were treated to a remarkable Antarctic weather phenomenon – Fohn winds. These are winds that drop moisture and warm up as they blow from west to east over the Antarctic Peninsula, and screeching down onto the ship with speeds of >50 knots and temperatures up to 53 F! It felt positively balmy by Antarctic standards, and we worked on deck in light clothing (sweaters and fleece pants). The warm winds lasted for only a few days before we were rapidly plunged back into truly frigid temperatures. The thermometer dropped from 53 F to 4 F within 8 hours. For the past week, temperatures have remained below 0 F, with wind chill as low as -46 F!

The extreme cold has made work on deck both challenging and fun. Mustaches turn to ice within minutes, and we are all shivering within an hour, even in our warmest clothing. Our sampling gear freezes solid on deck, and those apparatus with moving parts (e.g., the megacorer and our yoyo camera system) must be heated and dried in tents or containers before deployment into the sea. Despite the cold, processing the Blake trawl samples is always fun, even if we have popsicle toes.

Paulo, Jackie, Brendan, Laura and Kim processing a trawl at -40 F wind chill. Are those smiles or grimaces? Probably a little of both!

The most coveted job is shoveling the trawl mud onto the sorting screens because the hard labor of shoveling keeps one warm. Mike is the most exuberant wielder of the shovel!

Mike shoveling mud from the Blake trawl – his eyes are smiling (or maybe just frozen open). We must pass all the mud through the sieve table to collect valuable animals for our food-web and biodiversity studies.

The trawl always brings up extraordinary animals, including sea spiders, sea pigs, and an occasional huge octopus. The sea pigs are particularly amazing, and look like little horned aliens.

Jackie and a new friend – it may be love!

We see the sea pigs (weird deep-sea sea cucumbers with many legs and four horns) aggregated in our seafloor photographs, and have debated what a group sea pigs should be called (the most popular term is a “swaggle of sea pigs”). These “pigs” are remarkable creatures that ingest sediment particles and appear to be some of the first colonists at the seafloor after an ice shelf breaks out.

A swaggle of sea pigs (pink horny balloons) and brittle stars at 686 m depth in Drygalski Inlet. The sea pigs are about 10 cm (4 inches) long and are consuming food-rich particles, or “phytodetritus” from the sediment surface.

Craig and Pavica with huge octopus collected in the trawl. This specimen weighed about 15 kilos and was in excellent condition. After photographing the octopus, we released it back into the Weddell Sea.

Now, after 10 continuous days of 12 hour shifts, we are making our way northwards out of the Larsen A Embayment into the Prince Gustav Channel. We have completed four intensive benthic stations, and we now have a day or two of light work, allowing us to take some recreation in the form of the LARISSA Foosball tournament. The prize for the winners will be ………………………………………………………………..….. first dibs on shoveling trawl mud on the frigid back deck!!!

Phew!!

2012-03-27T20:18:00.005-07:00

3/20/12 – 3/23/12 - In the days since our team’s return from Robertson Island, we’ve been blitzing through a plethora of sampling! With fresh samples of macroalgae from Robertson Island, we quickly went to work isolating, identifying, and preserving our algal specimens for stable-isotope food web studies, taxonomic identification, molecular genetics, and other analyses. As soon as most of the preliminary work with the macroalgae hit the shelves, we arrived at our first benthic sampling station, Station K, by the 21st of March.

Dave Honig of Duke University with a collection of macroalgae from Robertson Island. Image courtesy of Amber Lancaster.

For the time being, heavy sea-ice has prevented the Nathaniel B. Palmer from reaching our primary target area within the Larsen B ice shelf. Thus we have initiated plan B, in which our benthic ecology team will address seafloor community response to ice shelf collapse in the Larsen A embayment, which sustained a major ice-shelf collapse in 1989. We have begun benthic (or seafloor) sampling at our outermost location, Station K. . Here we deployed an instrument called a Blake trawl, which collects lage benthic animals and (and lots of mud) from the seafloor for a defined distance, and then is later hauled on deck for sample processing. We also repeatedly deployed an instrument called a megacorer, which quantitatively samples seafloor sediments and mud-dwelling organisms using twelve tubes (i.e. “cores”) each 10 cm in diameter. Thus, each tube contains many epifauna and infauna (animals that live on the sediment surface, and within it, respectively) with many that are often new to science. Last but not least, our team is also using a system called a “yoyo camera”, which systematically takes pictures of the seafloor and the animals on it by being raised and lowered on a cable, taking a picture every time a weight contacts the seafloor.

Pavica preparing the materials needed for “mud busting” at Station K

A megacorer being deployed off the stern at Station K.

The first Blake trawl was deployed in the wee hours of the 21st of March, and marked the beginning of a slew of sample processing (or “mud busting”, as well call it) on the ships back deck and wet lab. In sub-freezing temperatures and equipped with forceps, the members of the Hawaii team quickly went to work heaving hundreds of pounds of sediment sludge onto a giant sieve table (which is made up of nested sieves with meshes ranging from 2 cm to 2 mm) to separate the megafauna (animals greater than or equal to 2 – 3 cm living on the seafloor) from the rest of the mud. After hours and hours of work, in conditions in which the spray from our wash hoses froze solid on our Mustang suits, encasing us in ice, we finished processing to trawl megafauna. Despite the lack of sunlight and a tropical climate, that night the Aloha spirit could be found persisting near 65º S, 57.8º W.

Mike with a giant sea cucumber, Bathyplotes bongraini, from the Blake trawl.

The following day our team collected another successful Blake trawl, capturing even more animals than last time. Fortunately, we had a few extra hands and worked in the daylight. The trawl sampling was sandwiched between processing of magecores, five of which were collected at Station K. This “mud busting” of megacore samples occurred round the clock for 3 days . Anytime after a megacore deployment is retrieved and placed back on deck, the 12 individual tubes are separated from the megacorer and carried carefully into the processing lab, an aquarium room open the deck. The sediment (mud) in each tube is carefully sliced into precise vertical intervals of 1 to 5 cm and very carefully transferred to sample bottles or plastic bags. Thus, we spend hours very précising cutting “mud pies” from our samples, taking great care not to lose any of this precious deep-sea sediment (no mud fights allows!). These samples will allows us to understand geochemical processes (such feeding by mud eaters) within the sediments, and to quantitatively describe the benthic fauna (i.e. infauna in this case) at various sediment depths. With muddy hands, hair, and clothes, and after multiple days of repetitive processing, our team finished our sampling at Station K happy and satisfied, albeit exhausted.

The Hawaii team picking megafaunal organisms from the table sieve.

Pavica mud-busting!

While everyone was working on >12 hour shifts, with time off used to grab meals and sleep, that’s not to say that we weren’t having fun. In addition to finding some cool marine invertebrates and fish during our sampling, we also ended up running into some of the celebrated Antarctic megafauna. A group of three Emperor penguins off the NBP’s stern, and about 12 penguins off the port side, took great interest in the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Our three aft penguins approaching the ship to within 5 m (15 ft) of the main deck on a bridging ice-floe. Amazing!

Three curious Emperor penguins were spotted not far off the stern of the ship, and slowly approached.

The penguins approached the stern of the Nathaniel B. Palmer to the delight of the scientists and crew.

2012-03-26T16:30:00.002-07:00

17-19 March 2012 - Throughout March 17th, we ground through heavy sea ice, making our way south into the Weddell Sea, heading for our work area in the Larsen B embayment. On the day before, we had moved rapidly through the ice-free Prince Gustav Channel to enter the Weddell Sea, one of the coldest bodies of water along the Antarctic continent. This is one of two regions cold enough to form Antarctic bottom water, the densest water in most of the ocean. On entering the Weddell, we quickly encountered sea ice, and our intrepid icebreaker, the Nathaniel B. Palmer (or “NBP”), ground its way through heavy sea ice most of March 17th. The ice was a mixture of new ice formed this late summer season (about 4-6 inches thick), one-year old ice form last fall (2-4 feet thick) and large floes of multi-year ice that can be more than 2 meters thick. Icebergs up to 50 m (165 ft) that had broken off the ice shelves and glaciers in the region loomed over the ship in some areas. The NBP can grind through new and year-old ice, but it is a noisy process, filling the forward parts of the ship, such as the galley were we eat, with a cacophony of roars, bangs, scraping, and thumps as sea ice grates along the metal hull. When the ship is breaking through ice, it is impossible to carry on a conversation in the galley with a ship mate seated next to you. As the ship hits a floe of multi-year ice, there is a loud band, the ship grinds to a halt, and then backs up and rams forward (the “back and ram” icebreaking), or simply circles around thick ice. We stay well clear of icebergs because they can protrude far out under the water, or drop large chunks of ice. Progress through sea ice has been slow, with the ship making 2-4 knots, and often being forced off our desired heading. Work in the frozen Weddell Sea certainly requires patience and flexibility because you often cannot get to a particular location targeted for study.

After a night of raucous ice-breaking, were arrived at the southwest tip of Robertson Island on the morning of 18 March. One of our goals in the LARISSA project is to figure out what food materials are reaching the seafloor in our Larsen B study area. One possibility is that large algae growing in shallow water around the edges of the Weddell sea sink to the seafloor floor to provide food for scavengers such as Antarctic shrimp and sea urchins. Thus, at Robertson Island, Craig and our collaborators from Duke (Dave Honig and Jamieson Clarke) went ashore by Zodiac inflatable boat to sample algae in the island’s shallows. We donned weatherproof Helly exposure suites, and filled a waterproof bag and buckets with sampling gear, drinking water and emergency food (you never know when you might become stranding in Antarctica!). The emergency kit in the Zodiac (a large plastic crate) included tents, more emergency rations, a satellite phones, and other materials. Our shore party also included geologists bent on sampling rocks and servicing an electronic observation station (collecting GPS and weather data) installed on the island two years ago. Our Zodiac boat was operated by two of our Marine Technicians, Buzz and Julian, who steered us through a mile of ice floes past seals and an occasional emperor penguin. We landed on a narrow beach caked with sea-ice and strewn with small icebergs. Most of the coastline of the island was barricaded by sea-ice and bergie bits (small icebergs) making access the shallow water along the beach very difficult

An ice armored beach on Roberston Island- C Smith

We spent four hours on shore, wading in the shallows collecting algae within arms reach, and using a dip net from the Zodiac to sample algae from 3-4 meters depth.

Sampling seaweed in the Robertson Island subtidal - E Hutt

We collected samples of four species of algae for stable-isotope analyses, which will allow us to trace this “food” into seafloor food webs. In the process, our exposure suites leaked, soaking our arms up to our shoulders with frigid (-1.8 C or 29 F), water and we experienced the extreme wind chill of Antarctic islands --- the wind chill was about -25 C (-13F) our entire time on shore, numbing our toes through two pair of heavy woolen socks. Surviving a year in these conditions as did Shackelton’s men on Elephant Island is difficult to imagine! After we collected our seaweed samples, we hiked to the top of Roberston Island (about 200 m, or 650 ft, high) to get the blood flowing back into our toes and fingers. We were treated to a spectacular view looking south into the Larsen B embayment. While extraordinarily beautiful, the view also yielded some disappointing news – our path south into the Larsen B region is blocked by very heavy sea ice and lines of icebergs. Our hopes of getting all the way south to our primary study area appear a bit dimmer!

Craig modeling a Helly suit atop Robertson Island looking south into the ice-clogged Larson B Embayment with the NBP in the background - D Honig)

2012-03-21T17:29:00.008-07:00

Thursday, Mar 15th Finally in Antarctica! Our first station is in the Antarctic Sound, a strait at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The working day for the science started early this morning; the first rosette with Niskin bottles and the CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth profiler) was in the water before sunrise to collect water samples to investigate the properties of the water column, such as nutrients, and to look at the pelagic microbes.

Laura and Jackie taking water samples from the Niskin bottles

Unfortunately, we were unable to recover the whale-bone lander yet due to some issues with the gear and poor weather. The thick fog that is engulfing the ship offers very little visibility to spot the lander once it rises from the seafloor to the ocean surface, so the principal investigators chose to postpone this operation until later in the cruise. The extreme climate of Antarctica produces fascinating ecosystems, but also often makes our oceanography sampling very challenging.

As we headed further south, the fog dissipated in the afternoon and we spotted the first iceberg of the cruise, and then many more! We are now sailing through the real polar ocean, with ice floes and icebergs everywhere! We watched Adelie penguins running over the ice floes and sliding on their bellies to run away from us; Minke whales inspecting the waters around the icebergs and skillfully navigating in between them; crabeater seals and the fur seals resting on the ice! What an experience on our first day in the Antarctic!

Adelie penguins on an ice floe

Crabeater seal

Jackie enjoying the view of the icebergs

Our second planned station is the Vega Drift, a rapidly accumulating drift of sediment on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula, near Vega Island. The Vega “drift” is formed by current focusing, and is rich with organic matter (yummy to sediment microbes) and and layered sediments (good for reconstructing geological history). We will use a Kasten core to take a sample of sediment up to 6 m long and to give us insights into past processes and environmental conditions in the Antartic Peninsula area over the last 3000 - 5000 y.

Scientists getting ready to take samples of the sediments from the 6-meters long Kasten core (Photo A. Lancaster)

Map of the cruise track starting in Punta Arenas, Chile (at the upper part of the image) and ending on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula (at the lower part of the image) where we are now.

2012-03-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Mar 14th Today, principal investigators from the three science groups (Geology, Cryosphere & Physical Oceanography, and Marine Ecosystems) presented the main objectives and the interdisciplinary science of the LARISSA project. Since we all can get very focused on our own work, we can easily forget the bigger picture, where all the pieces of the puzzle come together to tell the story of the Larsen Ice Shelf glaciers, sediments, and ocean ecosystems; this meeting did a good job to remind us the exciting science behind our Antarctic adventure.

Chief scientist, Maria Vernet of Scripps Institution of Oceanography presenting the objectives of the Marine Ecosystem Group (Photo A. Lancaster)

2012-03-21T17:24:00.002-07:00

Tuesday Mar 13th We are in the Drake Passage now, and the weather and the seas are nothing like we expected! It’s sunny outside, temperature 6°C/43°F (wind chill -2.7°C/27°F), with very calm seas and light wind. In fact, some are calling it “Lake Drake!” There is a large high-pressure system covering our entire area, bringing clear skies, 10-knot winds, and only 3-4 foot seas! This kind of weather in the Drake is pretty rare and doesn’t normally last for very long so we are grateful to Neptune to treat us this way! The winds are so weak that there are almost no albatrosses about; They like to glide on the lift provided by strong winds passing over the large Southern Ocean waves in strong winds.

To our surprise, we spotted a lone sailboat coming from the direction of Antarctica. That is the only boat we have encountered so far and could very well be the only one we see during our entire cruise; it would be interesting to know where she is coming from and what stories her crew has to tell.

A lone sailing boat in the Drake Passage

Our Captain Sebastian gives our ETA in the vicinity of the Antarctic continent as tomorrow night and with the first science operation on Thursday morning at 5 am! Everybody on the ship is getting pretty excited!

2012-03-20T13:28:00.001-07:00

Monday, March 12th. The ship has been rocky a bit since we left Punta Arenas so many of us have been resting today and spending time up on the bridge, which is definitely the place with the best view on the ship. Today’s views included layers of thick clouds and the mountains of the “Land of Fire” (Tierra del Fuego) in the distance. The officers on the bridge are very kind to let us hang out up there and use the binoculars and wildlife guide books. They are also very knowledgeable about the wildlife of this region. So today we saw a few different species of petrels, such as the giant southern petrel and learned that the big, majestic birds that have been following us around and gliding above the waves are black-browed albatrosses.

Mike looking at the wildlife from the ship’s bridge

Sailing between Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island

2012-03-20T13:25:00.001-07:00

Sunday, March 11th. We woke up this morning to rainy and windy weather with even some snow even though it’s still technically summer here! But a summer at 53°S, the latitude of Punta Arenas can be quite a different experience than a summer at tropical 21°N of Honolulu, where we come from. A low-pressure storm system brought overcast, strong winds and choppy waters into Punta Arenas and the Strait of Magellan, promising some pitching and rolling even before we reach Cape Horn at the tip of South America.

After finishing several days of fueling, we finally left Punta Arenas in the afternoon to sail eastward through the Strait of Magellan towards the South Atlantic Ocean. Most of tomorrow we will be sailing south along the east coast of Tierra del Fuego, protected by its land mass from the Southern Ocean westerlies. Once we enter the Drake Passage, the place where the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans meet and the westerlies can build seas for thousands of miles, we may expect much rougher seas.

Today has been a busy day for us. We had a megacore tutorial in the morning, led by the experienced marine technicians, Julie and Jeremy. A megacore is a sampling device that consists of twelve PVC tubes (‘cores’) that are used to collect very high quality samples of marine sediments. It is important that we learn how to remove the tubes from the megacore properly without disturbing the sediment-water interface so we could study the sediment fauna and the microbes living in the mud. As soon as we reach our research stations in the Weddell Sea, we promise to show you the photos of the megacore in action!

Megacore training (Photo by M. Cape)

Our first station will be in the Antarctic Sound, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where we pan to recover the whale-bone lander that Craig (UH Manoa) and graduate student David Honig from Duke University deployed two years ago. To make sure we are all prepared and know our tasks for sampling the fauna that colonized the whale bones, we had a meeting in the afternoon in which David and Craig familiarized us with the sampling procedure and gave us information on the science behind it. We expect to find new species of bone-eating worms and other animals that require whale bones as a habitat and food source on the seafloor.

The lander consists of a metal frame to which the whale bones are attached; it dropped to the seafloor where it remains for 1-2 yr, attracting colonization by worms, crustaceans and microbes. The whale-bone-associated fauna is very specialized to extract the organic matter out of the bones and resembles the fauna of other chemosynthetic habitats, such as cold seeps and hydrothermal vents. This system is thus suitable to explore a number of broader scientific questions. But we will come back to this in more detail once we recover the bones and the associated fauna! It appears that even after two years at the sea floor, the whale bones could “treat” us with a quit unpleasant smell, but that is not going to distract us from doing science!

Delay

2012-03-14T01:24:00.002-07:00

Meeting outside Verdemar Gym with our Punta Arenas friend, Juan Pedro Cuevas Cvetkovic, for a game of basketball.

3/8 – 3/10 -- Perhaps not everyone rubbed the brass toe of the Tierra del Fuegan. Our fuel issues have delayed our departure until the afternoon of March 11th. We have used the time for cruise planning meetings, and to have one last basketball game ashore. Pavica constructed her hula hoop, which she will use to maintain peak fitness while at sea! We had a last evening meal ashore; on our return to the ship in the evening, Commerson’s porpoises played around the ship in the moonlight, giving us a preview of the abundant marine mammals we should see at in the Southern Ocean.

Pavica busting out the hula hoop!

Getting ready for life aboard the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer (NBP)

2012-03-14T01:13:00.004-07:00

Craig and Jackie (the two at left) checking in for their ECW issue. Good spirits all around!

3/5/12 -- Our UH team woke early on the 5th to a hearty breakfast in our hostal and a discussion of ship loading logistics. We then headed down to the USAP warehouse near the ship to be issued our USAP Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) clothing. Very warm clothing, including thermal underwear, insulated pants, down parkas with fur-lined hoods, balaclavas, multi-layered waterproof gloves, heavy woolen socks and steel-toed boots are absolutely essential (especially for thin-blooded Hawaiian residents!) for our work in Antarctica. We will be working during the Antarctic “summer” and “fall”, but in the Weddell Sea, the term “summer” is merely relative. We expect to be in sea ice and temperatures below – 10 C (14 F) for the whole cruise, with wind chill dipping below – 30 C (-22 F). The clothing-issue station was busy with 15 or more scientists trying on their ECW gear. Getting the right-sized gear is very important since we will be working in this garb for >12 h per day “on the ice.”

The USAP logo on an ECW parka.

After our ECW clothing issue, we went to the NBP to check and load our oceanographic gear stored in Punta Arenas from previous cruises. We also inventoried the long list of supplies shipped down from the USA specifically for this cruise. All seemed to be in order, so we then organized and labeled our lab supplies, and began securing (i.e., tying down) our lab equipment for the potentially rough crossing of the Drake Passage. We also set our watches: the Benthic group will work in 12 hour watches of 3 people each. Antarctic research opportunities and ship time are so precious that the ship must conduct science 24 h a day. Science never sleeps!

3/6/12 – We moved out of the Hostal La Avenida and aboard the NBP by 1400 h on the 6th. The rest of the day was occupied with loading and securing of gear and supplies, and buying personal supplies in town for the long cruise. You don’t want to run out of shampoo or toothpaste half-way through the cruise; there are no supermarkets in Antarctica! We finished the day with a pickup basketball game with our Punta Arenas friends. We need to get in shape for the physical challenges of Antarctica!

3/7/12 – The highlight of the day was our ship-safety meeting, where we donned our PFD’s (Personal Flotation Devices), extreme cold immersion suits (popularly called “Gumbi” suits) , and had an abandon-shop drill piling into the lifeboats. The covered life boats appear to be seaworthy, but are very cramped and stuffy. They certainly would bob around like corks so let’s hope we never have to use them!
To day’s lowlight was that our departure will be delayed some days due to fuel issues.

Paulo and Craig heading towards the NBP.

Michael D. (our benthic team member) and Mike McCormick (from Hamilton College) modeling their Gumbi suits during the NBP safety meeting. They are ready to leap into frigid Antarctic waters.

TRAVEL TO PUNTA ARENAS

2012-03-14T00:57:00.005-07:00

3/2 – 3/5/12 -- After more than a year of planning, we are beginning our second major research cruise of the LARISSA project to the Weddell Sea. We conducted our first major LARISSA cruise in 2010, but unusually heavy sea ice blocked our southward path into the Weddell Sea, just as it did for Shackleton long ago on the Endurance. Satellite image of the Weddell Sea region suggest that our luck with sea ice may be better this year.

The LARISSA cruise scientists hail from around the world; we have researchers and students from USA, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, South Korea, and the UK. The 6-person contingent from the University of Hawaii (Craig, Laura, Pavica, Michael, Jackie and Paulo), also called the “Benthic Group”, includes three of these nationalities, reflecting the truly international flavor of Antarctic research. The term “benthic” means “of or relating to the seafloor” which is the habitat-type we study.

It has been a very long trip for the “rainbows” from UH to Punta Arenas, Chile, our embarkation port for the cruise. The trip involved 29 to 42 hours of air travel, depending on the route taken, and invariably involves two overnight flights. If you want to work in Antarctica, you must relish long air travel and be able to sleep in an economy seat!

The Magellan statue in the Plaza De Armas of Punta Arenas. Tradition holds that all seafarers misth rub the shiny right big toe of the Tiera del Fuegan for good luck at sea. We all rubbed the toe to insure good luck for our crossing the Drake Passage, the body of water between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula. The Drake is known as the roughest body of water in the world.

The UH team arrived in Punta Arenas airport on March 4, and were whisked to our hotel, Hostal La Avenida, by agents from AGUNSA, the agency working with the U.S. Antarctic Program to support cruise logistics. The La Avenida is a typical Chilean hostal, with gracious hosts, a hearty breakfast (including “heuvos revueltos”, or scrambled eggs), and a lounge filled with well-worn antique artifacts. The owner is of Croatian descent, and as always enjoyed speaking Croatian with Pavica, our Croatian graduate student, and Craig, our Principle Investigator.

The "Hostal De La Avenida"

After a short nap and a stroll down to the pier to view the RVIB (Research Vessel Ice-Breaker) Nathaniel B. Palmer, our home for the next 40+ days in the Antarctic ice, we all met at the restaurant Cabo de Hornos (Cape Horn) to grab eat and meet-up with fellow research cruise participants. After dinner, we returned to our Hostal, for a luxurious night’s sleep in a real bed!

Our research vessel, the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer (NBP) tied along the pier in Punta Arenas. This is a rare windless night in the Strait of Magellan.

Another long cruise ahead of us!

2012-03-01T12:25:00.002-08:00

Satellite image showing sea ice coverage around the Antarctic Peninsula.
In order to plow through the ice to get to our sampling sites we have to rely on the Ice-Breaker Research Vessel NB Palmer.
We will bring news from another great adventure soon!

Aloha!

Time to pack

2010-03-04T15:12:00.000-08:00

15 – 26 Feb Following our ROV dive in the Antarctic Sound, we headed  around the Trinity Peninsula into the Bransfield Strait (see above map of  the Antarctic Peninsula). Along the way, we dropped another whale bone  lander after many hours of rigging this malodorous free-vehicle package  (rotting whale bones smell very bad!!). Following the bone lander  deployment, there was extensive debate among the scientists on board  concerning where to focus our research efforts on the west side of the  Antarctic Peninsula to optimize the scientific outputs from the remainder  of the cruise. The members of the Marine Ecosystems project urged strongly  to conduct a comparative study of fjord ecosystems differentially affected  by climate warming from north to south along the Antarctic Peninsula,  beginning with Admiralty Bay on King George Island. However, we were  overruled by the chief scientist, who insisted on revisiting former study  sites in Hughes Bay in the Gerlache Strait. The Marine Ecosystems group  made the best of the situation, collecting opportunistic multiple cores,  yoyo camera transects and an otter trawl in Hughes Bay from Feb 15-18. The  seafloor fauna in Hughes Bay was very depauperate, apparently heavily  disturbed by large inputs of glacial till (i.e., sediments) from the  numerous glaciers emptying into the bay. In contrast to the  fjord systems we sampled earlier, this site had very little drift  macroalgae on the seafloor, presumably because the open bay has little  subtidal area to support kelps and other macroalgae.

Glaciers calving icebergs into Hughes Bays. Large volumes of  meltwater and sediments are carried into the bay with these icebergs,  causing massive burial disturbance at the seafloor.  
  
At the end of our stay in Hughes Bay, we went ashore in rubber zodiac boats  to collect kelp (for food-web analyses) and to do a bit of site seeing. We  encountered icebergs seeming designed by Gaudi, gentoo  penguins and a large leopard seal dozing on an ice flow .  

Gentoo penguins on the shoreline of Hughes Bay.   

A large leopard seal lazily eyeing us from its napping spot on an ice floe. I think we look like lunch!  

On the night of Feb 18, we transited south to Andvord Bay, the fjord just  south of Cape Renaud (see map). There, we completed the earlier work within initiated in this fascinating fjord, using megacore and Blake trawl samples  to document the remarkably rich fauna in the fjord basins. The trawl  brought up huge numbers of giant polychaete worms. These  worms are four inches long, one inch in diameter and stuffed to the  bursting point with eggs and sperm. The biomass and diversity of these  large worms in Andvord Bay are truly remarkable, indicating the seafloor at  500 m depths in the fjord is receiving much more food than the open  continental shelf at similar depths. Most of the seafloor animals we re covered were filled with reproductive products and appeared ready to  spawn, suggesting this has been a summer of high productivity. It appears  that the fjords like Andvord Bay, because of their food-rich conditions,  could be providing larvae to seed seafloor populations far beyond the fjord  bounds. Because fjord conditions are being altered by climate warming  (i.e., by increasing glacier melting and glacial sediment loading), the  Andvord seafloor ecosystems are likely to be very climate sensitive, and  may be transitioning to the depauperate conditions we observed in Hughes Bay. Clearly, the Antarctic Peninsula fjord communities merit much  further to study to elucidate their patterns of causes of high  biodiversity, and the sensitivity of these unusually rich communities to  climate warming.

Sausage sized (4-inch long) polychaete worm from the floor of  Andvord Bay. This ampharetid worm is white because it is bulging with  sperm ready to be released into the water column during mass spawning.   

  Our final day in Andvord Bay was punctuated by a helicopter ride for the  benthic ecologists (Laura, Craig and David). We flew from the ship to the  desolate top of the Antarctic Peninsula, getting a view of the massive ice  fields straddling the Peninsula. As we descended down a  glacier back to the ship, the views were astounding, leaving impressions of  stark beauty that we will retain for a life time.   

The ice sheet atop the Antarctic Peninsula. This sheet extends  unbroken for 1000 miles along the Peninsula to the main part of the  Antarctic Continent.  

View from the Helicopter as we fly down from the top of the  Antarctic Peninsula into Andvord Bay.  

On 24 Feb we completed our seafloor ecosystem studies along the west  Antarctic Peninsula by deploying another whale bone lander south of Anvers  Island, and then conducting an ROV dive in the Palmer Deep, a 1440 m deep  basin off the southeast tip of Anvers Island. To our surprise, we found a  large number of king crabs in the basin at depths below 1000 m, indicating  that these invasive marauders have already penetrated deep onto the  Antarctic shelf. As mentioned earlier, king crabs have been  excluded from Antarctic ecosystems for possibly millions of years due to  very low water temperatures on the Antarctic shelf. Climate warming in  this region apparently is allowing these species to move shallower,  threatening the vulnerable unique Antarctic seafloor communities. Where we  found abundant crabs on the Palmer deep floor, we only found sea anemonies,  suggesting that the brittle stars and crinoids had been consumed by the  voracious, skeleton crushing crabs. This discovery of crabs in the Palmer  deep is a sobering reminder of the vulnerability of Antarctic marine  ecosystems to climate change.   

Marauding king crabs marching across the floor of the Palmer  Deep. These crabs are bad news for the endemic Antarctic benthic fauna!

After spending 25 Feb packing and stowing gear in the hold and on the upper  decks of the NP Palmer, we are now heading north across the Drake Passage  towards Punta Arenas (to be reached in four days time). The forecasts are  for rough weather in the Drake -- nothing unusual in this part of the  ocean! Our last views of the ice bound continent and islands were of  Smith Island in the Bransfield Strait in the wee hours of the 26th. While  we are all eager to get home after two long months at sea, we will miss the  scenery and ecosystems of Antarctica!

Non-programmed camping in James Ross Island

2010-03-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

10 - 14 Feb With heavy hearts we have headed northward from Lockyer Station and out through the Antarctic Sound to the west side of the Antarctic  Peninsula. Unusually heavy sea ice, including floes (or floating ice slabs)  several years old and meters thick have forced us to abandon our plan to  work in the Larsen B area. Although our vessel, the NB Palmer, is an  icebreaker, it cannot safely smash its way through multiyear sea ice  because of high pressure ridges (compressed areas of sea ice 3-4 meters  high). It is clearly unsafe to linger longer on the eastern side of the  Antarctic Peninsula this high ice year, and even our offshore oceanographic  sites are now covered solidly with the pack ice.   

Satellite image showing heavy sea-ice cover throughout our  desired study area in the Larsen B vicinity (dashed circle). Flat whit areas are sea ice and ice shelves; ruffled areas throwing shadow are  clouds. In most years, the circled area is clear of sea ice by the end of  January. The heavy sea conditions this year illustrate the high  interannual variability in weather conditions in the Antarctic – even  though climate warming continues at a very fast rate in this region, during  some years, sea ice may still persist throughout the summer due to  stochastic weather processes.

Before leaving Lockyer Station, we had a bit of a scare, and a reminder  that the Antarctic is still a remote and potentially dangerous environment.  Two of our party, a geologist and writer for National Geographic, were  flown by helicopter to a site on the Antarctic Peninsula 25 miles away to  collect glacial erratics (rocks dropped by glaciers far from their site of  origin). As they were working, the weather began to close in so they  helicopter flew out the pick them up and return them to the ship. During  the return flight (only about 15 minutes), the weather closed in even  further, and whiteout conditions forced the helicopter, with three aboard,  to land on a beach on James Ross Island only 6 miles from the ship. A snow  storm ensued for the next three days, grounding the scientist,  writer and helicopter pilot in two small tents for three days. The  helicopters always travel with emergency rations for 6 days, sleeping bag s and tents, so the stranded party was is in no immediate danger. However,  it was sobering to realize that while they were only 6 miles from us, there  was nothing we or anyone else on earth could do for them until the snow  storm abated. After 3 days, we finally had a patch of blue sky in which to  recover our now smelly shore party. They had spent their time digging a  latrine, building snow walls to protect the tents from the 30 inches of  snow fall, and reading and dozing in their sleeping bags. The National  Geographic writer now has quite a story to tell about forced camping in the  Antarctic wilderness, an experience somewhat reminiscent of the stranding  of Shackleton’s shore party on Elephant Island, 180 miles north of here.  

The snow storm that stranded three of our expedition members on  James Ross Island for three days.

Following recovery of our wayward three, the NB Palmer crashed northward  through very thick sea ice, making only 2-4 knots for 26 hours.  As we entered the Antarctic Sound, the strait between the Weddell and  Scotia Seas at the north end of the Antarctic Peninsula, the sea ice  thinned and we were able to make much better time. By evening of the 13th  we were in position for an ROV dive on a recently discovered submerged  volcano in the Antarctic Sound, to search for hydrothermal vents to provide  study organisms for David Honig and Mike McCormick. The ROV dive found no  vents, but did reveal dense communities of sponges, crinoids (see lilies),  brittle stars and other suspension feeders characteristic of  the Antarctic seafloor. It is thought that such communities can thrive in  the Antarctic only because large crushing predators, such as king crabs and  bottom feeding sharks, are excluded by the very cold Antarctic waters  (below 0 centigrade). Such communities of exposed suspension feeders  occurred worldwide in the ancient ocean, but apparently were eliminated  with the evolution of large crabs and bottom-feeding sharks. The lack of  these large, skeleton-crushing (or duraphagous) predators in the Antarctic  has allowed the radiation of a diverse assemblage of suspension feeders  unique to Antarctic waters. As climate change brings warmer waters to the  Antarctic, skeleton-crushing predators, especially king crabs, threaten to  invade shallow waters around the Antarctic Peninsula, potentially leading  to the extinction of many unique Antarctic species. During the dive we  also observed giant “barrel” sea anemones that apparently roll along  the seafloor without a permanent attachment. This may be an  adaptation to utilize habitats newly exposed by the bulldozing of the  seafloor by grounding icebergs, a major source of disturbance for seafloor  habitats at depths less than 300 m in Antarctica.  

The NB Palmer breaking its way though multi-year sea ice south  of the Antarctic Sound.  

A dense assemblage of suspension feeding sea lilies (crinoids,  plumose yellow animals), brittle stars, sponges (white blobs and shapes),  and octocorals (pink trees) on the seafloor at 500 m depths on the  submerged volcano in the Antarctic Sound. This is classic, high-biomass,  exposed Antarctic benthic assemblage is likely to be very susceptible to  predation from invading king crabs.   

Barrell anemone approximately 30 cm (12 inches) long rolling  along the seafloor on the Antarctic Sound submerged volcano.

Lockyer Station

2010-03-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

3 – 9 Feb The last few days of have been a flurry of oceanographic sampling activity, during which we have collected two kasten cores, 6 megacores, one Blake trawl, numerous CTD’s, and conducted 6 yoyo camera transects. This sampling is to characterize our first oceanography station near Lockyer Island (dubbed “Lockyer Station”) to provide insights into seafloor and water-column ecological processes and community structure on the inner continental shelf site not recently influenced by an Antarctic ice sheet. The seafloor at Lockyer Station lies 505 m below the sea surface and is a plain covered with mud intermixed with gravel from iceberg rafted material. Our yoyo camera transects and trawl sample reveal a relatively rich community of megafauna (animals large enough to be identified in photographs), including large “sea pigs” (sea cucumbers in the genus Protelpidia, picture 38), very large brittles stars (Ophiostarte gigas, picture 39), and an occasional giant basket glass sponge with crinoids (sea lilies, picture 40). Many of the megafauna are unusually large, including the 20 cm long sea pigs and meter high basket sponges, suggesting that this is a stable sedimentary environment (low flow, little disturbance ice bergs, and slow sediment accumulation). The station looks very much like our continental shelf stations at similar depths on the other side of the Antarctic Peninsula, west of Anvers Island.  Our trawl sample also recovered a diversity of large benthic (seafloor species) including a large icefish (picture 41) . These fish are unique to Antarctica and have no hemoglobin in their blood; oxygen concentrations are high enough in the cold Antarctic waters that these sluggish fish do not need hemoglobin in their blood to carry oxygen. Their gills and blood are translucent white.

Large sea pig 20 cm (8 inches) long. This animal is a  “deposit feeder" and uses that tentactles at left to ingest mud particles. It then digests off the organic matter for food. This is the most common  feeding mode on Earth!  

The large, mucus cover brittle star Ophiostarte gigas. This is a predator that feeds on other brittle stars, polychaete worms, and crustaceans.  

A giant filter feeding basket sponge about 1 meter tall and  half a meter wide (this is a downward view from the Yoyo Camera). Clinging to the sides of the sponge are yellow crinoids, or sea lilies. Both the sponge and crinoids are suspension feeders that removed food particles as they drift by in the water column.

An ice fish caught in the trawl. These are called ice fish because their blood is transparent due to an absence of hemoglobin. Their gills are translucent. 

After three grueling 18-hr work days, our intrepid benthic team of Laura, David and Craig (me) are now nearly finished with sampling of the seafloor biota at Station Lockyer. Our samples have been excellent in quality and we are confident we will be able to characterize biodiversity and ecosystem function at this station (including foodweb structure and rates of sediment mixing by mud-eating animals like sea cucumbers). It will provide an excellent baseline to compare to the Larsen B stations recently exposed from beneath ice shelves. Unfortunately, the sea ice is thickening around us and further south in the Larsen B area, so it now seems unlikely that we will be able to get to Larsen B for the rest of the cruise. Time to develop plan B!

Hill Island

2010-03-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

30 Jan – 2 Feb We are now a halted in the sea ice a few miles west of  Snow Hill Island, unable to break our way any close than 60 miles to the  entrance of the Larsen B region, around the tip of Robertson Island  (map below). Quite appropriately, we can see Cape Longing in the  distance, reflecting our desire to get further south into our primary study area. Our satellite images of sea ice indicate that the leads are closing in the Larsen B area, reducing the changes of getting there. We are within  helicopter range of several or our terrestrial sites for GPS stations that  will evaluate the rebound, or rise, of land masses as a result of the  breakup of the Larsen B shelf; a vast weight of ice has been lifted from the the coast in this region, and the Antarctic peninsula is likely to be rising at a few millimeters a year as a consequence. Thus, the terrestrial  components of our program may not be set back too heavily from lack of ship  access to the Larsen B region.

Map of East Antarctic Peninsula including Larsen B Area, and  showing Lockyer Island Station location near Snow Hill Island.

The oceanographers on board the vessel have discussed how to modify our  sampling program to best advance our goals of studying the effects of ice-shelf loss on Antarctic marine ecosystems, while working in waters in  which sea-ice conditions will allow the ship to work. A number of smaller  ice shelves have collapsed on this eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula  in the last few decades, including one covering the southern Gustav Channel  (see map). We now plan to sample the Gustav Channel as a post-ice shelf  system (with ice shelf loss in about 1992), and then to sample the mid- and  outer-continental shelf stations east of James Ross Island, to provide a  comparison with the open sea-ice zone. We will also sample an inner shelf  site just west of Snow Hill Island, very close to our current location.  These latter three sites will provide a necessary context to evaluate  colonization patterns in the Gustav Channel, and in the Larsen B area, when  we finally are able to get south of Robertson Island (most likely not until  2012, during our next LARISSA cruise). Thus, even though we are currently  barred from the Larsen B area by sea ice, we will be able to conduct  ecosystem studies on this cruise that advance or understanding of the effects of rapid climate warming and loss of ice shelves on Antarctic  marine ecosystems. Now that we have a workable plan, we are eager to  press forward with our sampling!

Rothera British station

2010-01-31T16:10:00.000-08:00

We were first treated to a tour of the base and a walk around Rothera  Point. The base itself consists of a large science laboratory called the  Bonner Lab which also houses the dive locker, Admiralty House which is used  for accommodation, the new and old Bransfield buildings and Fuchs House,  where all field equipment and recreational skiing/snowboarding gear is kept . The new Bransfield building was opened in 2007 and houses all  the communal space at Rothera, including the mess (or dining room),  library, bar and the base shop, which sells clothing, postcards and other  souvenirs. The view from the mess has got to be one of the best dining hall  views in the Southern Ocean! Rothera also has its own 1-km runway, which is utilized by two types of BAS aircraft, the DASH-7 and the  Twin Otter. These aircraft fly people in and out of Rothera from the  Falklands (DASH-7), and are also used to deploy field parties onto the  ice-sheet and to remote field stations further south (Twin Otters). An  American Twin Otter is being used by our glaciologists to access their  remote field sites from Rothera’s airstrip.   

Rothera Station at sunset by Greg Balco. 

The new Bransfield building opened in 2007 looking out over  South Cove.  

Walking around the point gave everyone a great opportunity to stretch their  legs, relax and appreciate the scenery and wildlife local to Rothera. This  included Weddell seals and Adelie penguins. We also paid a  visit to the base shop to buy our own little memento of the trip and  postcards to send to family and friends.

Adelie penguins with chicks. Many have fluffy grey twins! 

My evening was spent reminiscing with old Rothera friends and socializing  with the new ones I have made onboard the NB Palmer. After several games of  pool, darts and a eight-a-side football (soccer) game by the soccer buffs,  it was time to return to the ship and for me to say goodbye to Rothera for  a second time. A great time was had by everyone and all onboard were  grateful to the Rotherians for their warm welcome and their hospitality.   
Visiting Rothera, for me at least, was almost like coming home. Every thing  and everyone felt very familiar, and apart from the new Bransfield  building, the base itself had not changed. It almost felt like I had never  left!

The Nathaniel B Palmer tied up at the pier at Rothera Station, with Laura in the foreground atop Monument Hill.

Sailing back to the Weddell Sea

2010-01-31T15:51:00.001-08:00

21-29 January. After nearly one month at sea, we are finally heading for our primary study sites on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula in the  Weddell Sea (near Cape Disappointment; see the map a few posts ago). Until now we have been  locked out of the Weddell Sea by an unseasonably high concentration of sea  ice, forced to conduct helicopter operations from the west side, trying to  fly over the mountainous peninsula. On all but three days, the clouds have been so low that helo operations were cancelled leaving us  to study fjords on the west side of the Peninsula. While fascinating,  these fjords are not the focus of our LARISSA Project, designed to assess  the ecosystem impacts of the climate-change induced melting of the Larsen B Ice Shelf. Thus, while we have been surrounded by beautiful scenery,  enhanced by the passage of a 65-foot French yacht (picture below), our spirits  have been low: we have been planning for years to conduct this exciting  climate-change research in the Weddell Sea and we are unlikely to get a  second chance!  

One of our helicopters flying from the ship over the mountains  of the Antarctic Peninsula at Barilari Bay. These rides can be a thrill a  minute in the downdrafts of the catabatic winds coming down off the  mountains!

65-foot French yacht we met cruising in Antartica. She is  dwarfed by the icebergs. On a day like this, the Antarctica Peninsula scenery is otherworldly. However, when the winds pick up, every bergie bit  (small chunks of glacial ice) is a potential reef!

At long last, two developments have brightened our prospects. The first  was the recognition that much of the glaciology work atop the Peninsula  could be conducted by Twin Otter (or ski plane) flights from the British  Base at Rothera, on west side of the Peninsula. This allowed us to drop  our 5 glaciology colleagues off at Rothera, freeing the ship to head back  for the Weddell without compromising the terrestrial components of LARISSA  (even if the ship gets stuck in the ice!). Our trip south to Rothera  passed by whimsically named islets (including Beer Island and Hennessey  Island, to torment our teetotalling ship!) and through narrow passages,  included the Tickle Channel (picture below), which fortunately failed to  tickle our ship’s bottom. At Rothera Base we received a warm welcome  from our British colleagues as well as the wildlife. At the  end of our 12-hour visit, we had an international soccer match (in which  the Brits exhibited their World-Cup prowess) followed by a party in  Rothera’s lounge which ended as midnight tolled and our ship departed  Rothera Harbor (with moons up)!  

Early morning passage through the Tickle Channel on the way south to Rothera Base. Seals and penguins dot the bergie bits in the channel. The icebergs tickle the sides of the ship.  

The residents of Rothera Base are so friendly that even the crabeater seals will offer a kiss! "Don't show my wife!!"  

The second positive development for LARISSA came from satellite images of  the Weddell Sea -- the ice is starting to break out! This has been  precipitated by long-awaited southwesterly winds combined with warming  summer temperatures in the Weddell Sea. We are now racing around the tip  of the Antarctic Peninsula once again, hoping to find, at most, broken ice flows and leads (i.e., channels) through which the ship can maneuver. If  all goes well, we still may have time to complete our oceanographic  program, exploring animal colonization and cold-seep biotas at the seafloor  under the recently broken out Larsen B Ice Shelf.

Because of our scientific difficulties, the cruise thus far has been  bittersweet. Normally, after a month at sea, one falls into a rhythm  characteristic of the ship’s routine, the scientific sampling program,  and the unique suite of shipboard companions. This cruise has remained  rythmless through forced changes in plans and shipboard companions on  nearly a daily basis. One clear message is that research expeditions to  Antarctica must be, if anything, flexible and opportunistic. Modern oceanographic technology is still no match for a frozen Southern Ocean.  However, as the sea ice wanes we now all hope to address our core  oceanography program, and to begin sampling intensively around the clock.  Despite the ice delays, the sea ice will become our friend once on we reach  our oceanographic stations because it calms the seas, allowing our sampling devices (such as box cores, megacores and yoyo cameras (picture below) to  work at high efficiency.

We have just entered the fast ice – a featureless plain stretching white  to the horizon. The scraping and growling begins anew! We hope Poseidon  allows us to pass through the sea ice to our stations!!  

The intrepid Yoyo Camera being lowered into the ocean in Barilari Bay. This camera is raised and lowered (or "yoyo-ed") near the seafloor, allowing the lead weight on the end of the line to trip the camera. In this way, we get about 100 high quality pictures of the  seafloor and its denizens over a distance of about 1 km (see picture a few posts earlier).

Danco Coast Fjords

2010-01-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

14-21 January We have spent the past week along the Danco Coast on the west Antarctic Peninsula (64 to 66 degrees south latitude), working in fjords carved by massive glaciers. Our primary LARISSA Project goal here is to hug the coast across the peninsula from our geological and glacial studies sites, hoping to send teams of geologists by helicopter over the mountains to their work areas. This requires clear flying weather simultaneously on both sides of the Peninsula (a 6000 ft mountain range), which occurs infrequently. The weather has been cloudy for the last week, precluding helicopter operations, but allowing us to study the oceanography of the Danco Coast fjords.

The NB Palmer dwarfed by a tidewater glacier calving into Flandres Bay, a fjord on the Danco Coast.

Map of the Antarctica Peninsula, showing the fjords of the Danco and Graham Coasts.

The Fjords of the west Antarctica Peninsula are oceanographically extremely interesting because they contain “tidewater glaciers”, i.e., glaciers calving icebergs directly into the ocean. In addition, the Antarctic Peninsula fjords have only opened relatively recently (in the last few thousand years), i.e., they represent early stages in the transition of fjords from ice-choked polar to ice-free temperate ecosystems. The oceanography and seafloor ecology of of fjords have been intensively studied in Norway, Canada and Alaska, but these are warm fjords compared to the Antarctic Peninsula and contain rapidly melting glaciers or no glaciers at all. The marine ecosystems of the Antarctic Peninsula fjords are likely to be fundamentally different (e.g., they have relatively little input of glacial meltwater and rock flour) and yet they have been little studied. Thus, while waiting to complete our helicopter operations, the oceanographers on board the NB Palmer are conducted studies of the ecology of the Peninsula Fjords.

Massive front of tidewater glaciers emptying into Barilari Bay.

Humpback whales feeding in Flandres Bay, some only meters from the bow of the ship!

Abundant brittle stars, sea spiders, spoon worms, and starfish on 2 square meters of seafloor at a depth of 600 m in Flandres Bay fjord.

After studying two fjords near Anvers Island, we are now heading south to Barilari Bay, a fjord south of Cape Garcia on the Graham Coast. If the weather clears, we hope to send glaciologists on to the top of the Peninsula to emplace GPS units to measure glacial movement. However, since the weather has remained cloudy, preventing helo operations since we arrive on the west side of the Peninsula more than one week ago, we are quite worried that we can complete the helicopter transfers. At least we can explore the ecosystem of another fjord, working with truly breathtaking backdrops.

Conducting a plankton tow from a zodaic inflatable boat with a Flanders Bay glacier and mountains as backdrop.

2010-01-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

13 January - This morning saw us progress further through the Gerlache Strait and into a glacial fjord named Flandres Bay. Efforts were made by all involved to ready the helicopters for flight and prepare equipment and supplies for the glaciology field teams. However unfortunately, the weather closed in before flying could start and consequently, both aircraft had to be grounded until the forecast improved. All onboard the ship had their fingers crossed for better weather soon.

Members of the biology team and oceanographic scientists instead busied themselves with the deployment and sampling of the CTD (a device which profiles the conductivity, temperature and depth at several intervals throughout the water column and which collects water samples that will be filtered and analyzed for phytoplankton, productivity and nutrients) at the head of Flandres Bay. We hope to deploy this device multiple times whilst in the bay, and will use data collected from each cast to build a comprehensive picture of what the water column looks like oceanographically and biologically.

Work on and the processing of the whale bone lander, recovered on 8th January off Vega Island was also concluded today. This was a relief for us and for the majority of the people onboard as whale bones are notoriously foul smelling (they produce a rotten egg smell common in anoxic marine environments and processes of decay), and this meant the bones could be packaged up and stored frozen before being deployed again later in our cruise schedule. Several species of worm, including the bone eating worm Osedax sp, were identified on several of the whale vertebrae. Further work will be undertaken on these specimens once we return to the lab in Hawaii, including morphological and molecular taxonomy to evaluate the evolutionary relationships of these worms.

12 January - As the sun rose on the morning of the 12th we continued our journey into open ocean, out of and away from the fast ice that had hampered our progress on the east side of the Peninsula, and bound for the west. From here, the two helicopters we have onboard will transport teams of glaciologists to sites on the Peninsula, where rock geology will be described, ice characteristics measured and the installation of field stations will occur, allowing for long term monitoring of glacial features.

As one of few people who have been lucky enough to visit Antarctica and spend time here working, I (Laura) can honestly say you never tire of the sights and sounds this incredible landscape has to offer. Our journey to the west side of the Peninsula was no exception. I am glad to say our passage was both smooth (for those prone to seasickness amongst us) and idyllic, and provided yet another backdrop of beautiful scenery, during which we were treated to sights of snow-capped mountains, blue open-ocean and floating masses of ice. We made steady progress over the morning passing through the Antarctic Sound, along the coast, and down through the Bransfield Strait into the Gerlache Strait. This area is also renowned for whale-spotting and sure enough several sightings of both Minke whale and Humpback whale were made today close to the ship. These majestic animals are common in these waters, transiting, feeding and using the area as a mating ground. All aboard the ship were happy and excited to welcome our new visitors and were equally anxious for them to stay around long enough to make the most of an amazing photo opportunity.

This side of the Peninsula is characterized by an array of glacial fjord systems and it is from these sheltered inlets that we intend to monitor the weather and co-ordinate helicopter missions when conditions are suitable for flying. Glacial fjords are unique environments influenced greatly by processes of sedimentation, water circulation and glacier retreat which
vary along the length of the fjord system. Consequently, the marine animals living on the sea floor of these areas are of biological interest to scientists. Therefore, in an effort to make the most of our new location and take advantage of a unique opportunity to sample the animals in these fjordic systems the biology team intend to photograph, survey and document
the animals living on the seabed. This will be done using an underwater ‘yoyo’ camera system- a camera which is lowered to the seafloor, and allowed to contact the seabed at which point a contact switch is triggered and a picture is taken. The camera is then brought off the sea bed a couple of meters, whilst the ship moves slowly a long a transect, and lowered again in a ‘yoyo’ like motion until a series of pictures are taken. We will also use a remote operated vehicle (ROV)- a robot on a cable which is piloted by an operator onboard the ship and can be flown over large areas of the seabed, photographing and collecting samples. Fellow collaborators from Ghent University, Belgium are the contingent aboard the ship responsible for the maintenance and operation of the ROV- otherwise affectionately known as ‘Suzee’. Everyone is excited to see Suzee do her first dive into the ocean. Many weird and wonderful creatures can be caught on camera by these devices and certainly on first time viewing you could be forgiven for believing they were pictures from the moon!

Ice Bound and Solid Phase Oceanography

2010-01-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

11 January – After the excitement of recovering the whale-bone lander, we headed south around the east side of James Clark Ross Island, aiming for the Larsen B area. As we processed our bone samples, we entered the pack ice, pushing aside larger flows and crushing smaller ones. “Pack ice” is sea ice that has broken into floes of various sizes ranging from pool tables to football fields. Interspersed within the pack ice are tabular bergs that have broken off an ice shelf formed by massive glaciers entering the ocean. An icebreaker does not simply slice or slip it way through the ice; it plows and cracks its way forward, in the process shaking listing, rumbling, and growling. The cacophony and vibrations affect every space on our 307 foot ship (bunks included); the sound is load enough to prevent all conversation on the main deck forward of amidships. This includes the mess, where communication during meals is restricted to yelling.

Tabular iceberg, and natural ice sculpture, as we enter the pack ice east of Ross Island in the Weddell Sea.

After eight hours of breaking through pack ice, we had made only 20 miles and it became clear that 4-5 days would be required to reach our first destination, Robertson Island, on the edge of Larsen B. We thus decided to head back north around Ross Island and try the western passage, where fast ice (unbroken ice frozen this last winter) was still
in place. We hoped that this would be thinner (less than 2 m thick) and more brittle, allowing the N.B. Palmer to crack through. By the next morning (10 Jan), we plowed into fast ice stretching to the horizon, at first making five knots through a frozen meter white. Then our ship abruptly listed to starboard and ground to a halt; we were stopped by the ice! Our intrepid vessel backed up and then rammed the ice at 7 knots, allowing us to progress for a few more miles before tilting to a halt. The sensation was very much like a sleigh ride over icy snow into a deep snow drift. The ship backed up and tried another route through the fast ice but we still ground to a halt after a couple of miles. Even thought the ice appeared to be only 1 m thick and our vessel Palmer is rated to break 2-m of ice, we were stuck – no more forward progress was possible. Visions of Shackelton on the Endurance danced in our heads. By this time, it was 8 pm on 10 Jan, so we decided to take a rest for the night, and deploy the helicopters for ice reconnoiter and our first rock sampling on the morrow.

The helmsman's view from the ship's bridge as the N.B. Palmer pushes into the fast ice west of Ross Island. It is almost like moving through an Iowa cornfield in cold, snowy winter!

The morning of 11 Jan revealed a glistening white seascape, 2 successful helicopter operations and our fist oceanographic sampling. While the helos flew south and west, the oceanographers“walked on water,” conducting solid-phase oceanography. The ship lowered its gangplank onto the ice, allowing a party of eight to stroll several hundred meters from the ship to collect ice cores and associated ice algae. Ice coring uses tools developed in the 1800’s powered by elbow grease. We collected three cores of10–cm in diameter to measure ice thickness, temperature, and to recover ice algae (diatoms that thrive in the sea ice matrix) for a variety of analyses. The ice crumbled as it fell out of the core tubes; it was “rotten,” i.e., riddled with melt pockets, through most of its 100 cm thickness. this explained why the N.B. Palmer could not break through; the ice crumbled and piled up in front of the vessel, rather than cracking and letting the ship pass through. Bad news for our “icebreaker” because it is not designed to be an “ice dozer”.

One of our two helicopters lands on the N.B. Palmer after the first successful helo operation from the ship during our cruise.

Laura walking on water in front of our ice-bound ship. "I feel like Shackleton!"

Craig uses state-of-the-art technology (a Kovacs Ice Corer) to take an ocean water sample (we call this "solid-phase oceanography"). The party in the background is collecting additional ice cores, measuring the sea-ice temperature, and planning a snowball fight.

After a few hours the helicopters returned with further bad news; rotten fast ice and pack ice continued for the 80 miles into our study area with no open water channels (or “leads”) for the ship to pass through. After much deliberation, the scientific party and ship’s captain decided to abandon the icebreaking for now, and head around to the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula to conduct our helicopter installations of ice and geological stations on glaciers and land. The Antarctic Peninsula is so narrow that our helicopters can fly the 20-40 miles from the west side over the top of the Bruce Plateau to Larsen B, given clear flying conditions to 6000 feet. The evening of 11 Jan found us retracing our course through the fast ice, pushing through our day-old “wake” at 7 knots. All aboard the ship were disappointed by this set back, but hope that we will be able to return soon, once the ice has melted or blown out along the east side of the Antarctic peninsula. It is a bit ironic that our project to study climate warming in the Larsen B area is being held back by an unusually later summer breakout of sea ice!

Retracing our "steps" out of the fast ice in the Gustav Channel. Our course is not difficult to follow!

Arriving in Antarctica

2010-01-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

10 January – *Antarctic Sound and Whale Bone Lander Recovery.* We awoke on the morning of 9 Jan to sunlight glinting off nearby icebergs and distant glaciers as we passed through the Antarctic Sound. In these protected waters, the ocean was smooth and we made excellent time through the extraordinary scenery of the Antarctic Peninsula. By 6 in the evening (1800 hrs) we were off Vega Island in the Weddell Sea, in position to recover a free-vehicle whale-bone experiment placed on the seafloor 10 months earlier. The “bone lander” consists of specialized animals that colonize whale bones. The lander is dropped to the seafloor with flotation, a lead ballast weight, and an acoustic release holding the weight; at the end of an experiment, the acoustic release drops the weight following an acoustic signal from the research vessel, rising to the ocean’s surface with whale bones for recovery. Such landers are generally reliable but certainly not failsafe – they fail to surface about 5-10% of the time, often for no obvious reason. Thus, recalling a lander always is filled with suspense, especially if your scientific research (i.e., job) depends on it. This bone lander gave us plenty of suspense, remaining on the seafloor for an hour after it was recalled. Finally it surfaced, apparently having been fouled on a glacial boulder until the bottom current shifted directions. To our delight, the recovered whale bones were covered with a special fauna --- hundreds of bone eating worms called Osedax (picture 10) that especially like whale bones, mats of sulfur bacteria, and thousands of segmented (poychaete) worms in the family Dorvilleidae, which contains a remarkable diversity species living on whale bones throughout the oceans. Our small seafloor ecology group (Laura Grange, David Honig and Craig Smith) spent 2.5 days (broken by 6 hours sleep) painstakingly picking the animals off the whale bones, preserving some for DNA analyses, some for food web studies using stable isotopes, and some for biodiversity studies using classical taxonomy (i.e., based or animal “shape” or morphology). Although exhausted by the end of our bone-processing ordeal, we were in excellent spirits. It is clear that we have new species of whale-bone animals, and that we will fill in an important gap in the biogeography and feeding ecology the global “whale-fall fauna,” helping the elucidate the effects of whales, and the impacts of whaling, on marine biodiversity around Antarctica. By the time we had finished our whale-bone tasks, we were stuck in the sea ice, but that is a story yet to come.

The mucus tubes of the whale-bone eating worms Osedax on a whale bone recovered after 10 months on the seafloor in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica.

Rough Seas!

2010-01-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

8 Jan 2010 – *“We’re crossing the Drake!”* This phrase has filled sailors and Antarctic explorers with trepidation for centuries. Why? Because the Drake Passage is considered the roughest water body in the world. It lies between Cape Horn and the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula -- a 480 mile channel concentrating the storms and currents circling the globe in the Southern Ocean. Like any body of water, it is not stormy all the time; storm systems pass through at 5 to 10 day intervals. My 9 previous crossings of the Drake have been mostly pleasant with the ship surfing large swells amid black browed albatross who skim the waves for without flapping a wing. This crossing also began smoothly with a
pleasant sunset and modest seas in the evening of 5 Jan; however, things changed quickly. By the wee hours of 6 Jan the wind howled from the northwest even though no storm had been forecasted. For twelve hours we had sustained winds of 55 knots, with gusts of 96+ (well above hurricane force). The seas reached forty feet, washing over the back deck and making our heavily loaded ship roll like a carnival ride. Most of the glaciologists and land geologists suffered from “mal mar” and spent the day in horizontal in their bunks or watching movies in the lounge. A few hardy oceanographers and the ship’s crew populated the labs and mess deck, but the weather was so rough that even the galley (the ship’s kitchen) curtailed operations, serving cold cuts for dinner. Captain Joe Borowski altered course and held a weather pattern for 18 hours, heading theshp diagonally into the seas to ease the motion, but taking us off course. Fortunately, by the late evening of 6 Jan, the wind and seas had abated and we resumed our heading (albeit a bit bumpily) for the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Our horizontal shipmates reappeared the next morning, looking very releaved that the final three days of the crossing were relatively smooth, allowing us to rounding the tip of King George Island in good time. The lesson of this crossing was clear: never take the Drake lightly -- howling gales and mountainous seas can come seemingly from nowhere, making life miserable for seafaring souls!

Iceberg in the Antarctic Sound shaped like a wolf's head.

The back deck of the N.B. Palmer, awash during the Drake Passage storm. This normally our work area for collected oceanographic samples.

Beginning to cross the Drake passage

2010-01-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

5 Jan 2010 – Our passage past Tierra del Fuego was smooth with following
seas, and we just now have entered the Drake Passage. Of course, the wind immediately switched to our beam (coming from the side of the ship) so we are rocking much more. Because working on the deck of a ship can be dangerous, especially in Antarctica, we have spent the day in numerous safety briefings. These included instruction in rapid donning of a survival suit to keep us alive in frigid Antarctic waters for 12 hours if the ship sinks. These look and feel like Gumbie suits and make you break into a heavy sweat within 30 seconds (unless of course you are immersed in icy water). We also learned how to work on deck, roping ourselves to the ship when it gets rough, and warning our companions if we see a big wave coming. This expedition will also include helicopter operations to fly glaciologists ashore to sample ice and measure to flow of glaciers into the ocean; this too required a long safety briefing (in addition to the 2-day safety course we had in June!). Now it is 10 pm (but still light because we are so far south) -- time to relax a bit, reading a book, watching a movie video, or maybe even writing a blog!