June 28, 2009

6-28-09

Land ho! St. Paul, Island. We have reached the mid-cruise change over. For me that means one thing. Success! I have made it through half of the cruise without sustaining any injuries or causing any catastrophes. With all this good fortune, and being surrounded by experts, I can ease up on panic mode and start to get into a little bit of a groove. For example, during a recent bongo net tow I reached for the net too early before someone had been able to get a hold of the weight that is used to keep the line to the net taut while it is in the water. The weight bonked me in the head, but it didn’t do any damage because of the hard hat I am required to wear while working on deck. I just chalked it up to experience and have been more mindful since then while working with the nets.

Despite getting my groove back, or finding it to begin with, it is a little sad to see some of the other cruisers leave the ship. Liz Labunski (Bird Expert), John Allison (IT Expert), and Heather Whitney (Grad Student Sediment Expert, who helped me with sediment coring) all packed up their stuff and loaded onto one the small boats on board and headed into port at St. Paul Island. Captain, Kent Sheasley, got into the boat by himself to test out the motor and did a nice loop next the Knorr. You could certainly see his lust for the water as immediately gassed the boat to full speed, or what looked like close to full speed, and jumped of a couple small wakes before turning around and loading up the rest of the people and luggage. Unfortunately, he was too fast for me to get a picture. Chief Scientist, Ray Sambrotto, rode to port as well to pick up some supplies that didn’t quite make it to Dutch Harbor before we set sail.

The previous night, during some down time after dinner, I sat around with several other cruisers and swapped funny stories about various cruises and other non-marine science related experiences. Stories ranged from strange encounters with animals to watching dramatic drunk friends get thrown out of bars. One individual, who would probably prefer to remain anonymous, even showed off the ability to inter-link their toes without using their hands. Truly beautiful, people from all over the country coming together for a common purpose, investigating the Bering Sea. We’re not exactly soldiers at war together, but being in the field with a group of scientists is a distinctive experience. You certainly get something more living and working together in situ, than you would over the same period of time at home in a lab.




As the small boat glided away towards St. Paul I couldn’t help but wonder when, or if, I would ever see my new Bering Sea colleagues again. If not, I’ll always have my memories of this special time at sea. Then again, the knowledge gained from this cruise will further the scientific communities’ understanding of this dynamic ecosystem. In that sense, it is comforting to know that a part of this voyage will live on forever.

-Eli

June 27, 2009

6-27-09

We were hoping that the clear weather would last for a good portion of the remainder of the cruise, but we should have been hoping it would last through the night. As soon as it got relatively dark, the clouds promptly rolled right back in. It was like the sea pulled up the covers for a night’s rest. We were approaching the mid cruise change over at St. Paul Island. Several scientists would be getting off, returning home, and replaced by several new cruisers during our stop. Rachel encouraged me to walk around and chat with some people before they left.

In particular, Liz Labunski, the ship’s resident bird expert who records all bird sightings during her portion of the cruise. She does all of her observing from the bridge, a part of the ship I had not been to yet. I figured now was as good a time as any to venture up to the top of the ship and boldly go where I had never gone before.

Despite being nearly 41 years old (launched August 21st, 1968), the Knorr is outfitted with some very technologically advanced navigational and maneuvering systems. I was curious if I would see a characteristic wooden ship wheel for the sake of historical preservation, but the controls looked a lot more like what you would envision in a jet than a sea worthy vessel.

At the helm was Third Mate, Alyson Paz. She had the ship on auto-pilot for the moment until we reached the next station where she took control to maneuver the ship into the desired position for sampling by the scientists. I asked what the highest seas were that she had encountered during her time on the Knorr. “About thirty foot swells up by Greenland” she replied. “Unfortunately I was scheduled to get off before the ship headed back out and I missed some fifty foot swells.” I couldn’t help but feel surprised that Alyson was disappointed to have missed, what seem to me, as very dangerous conditions. I guess that is the mentality of someone who captains a ship. I would like to think that I would enjoy being on some high seas after a reasonable amount of sea time, but I wouldn’t put a large wager on it.

Liz was noting all the birds that were flying within sight of the ship. The hundreds of birds that had been following us earlier had dwindled to a few random individuals. Since her duties required her to observe the water at all times, she had seen all the whales and porpoise that had swam by the ship so far on the cruise during daylight. The fog was currently limiting our vision to only a few hundred meters, so there was not a lot of viewing area to cover. I could see how, without any type of navigational tools, you could get lost at sea pretty quick.

For me, the best news of the day came from the floor of the House of Representatives. Bill number H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), passed by a vote of 219-212. For the first time ever, America has a comprehensive clean energy and global warming bill with the potential to transform our economy by creating clean energy jobs, improving our national security, and protecting our planet from global warming pollution. Let’s hope it can pass through the senate with its core policies still intact. Sub-polar areas like the Bering Sea are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. However, I am still optimistic that we can preserve the diversity and productivity of the world’s oceans with significant government and public action. In the mean time another taste of deep sea mud will help ease my trepidation.

-Eli

June 26, 2009

6-26-09

“Mind you lad, if God ever wanted to be a fish, he’d be a whale”
-Herman Melville, Moby Dick

After many days of foggy weather, I woke in the late afternoon to some of the clearest skies of the cruise. There were hundreds of sea birds still following the ship, so I thought it would be a great time to get a little sunshine. I went up to the second level deck and exited from the cabin on the starboard side of the ship. I stepped outside and immediately saw it, a huge whale spout (about 20 feet high) a couple hundred meters from the ship! I ran in circles for a couple seconds not knowing if I should go inside and tell someone, get my camera, or stay and watch the giant marine mammal cruise by. Since the whale was going in the opposite direction compared to the boat, I guessed that I would not have time to go inside and come back out before it had disappeared. I ran down to the lower deck and told some others looking at birds in a different direction about the whale sighting. Luckily, the whale spouted a few more times before it was out of sight. We could see its huge arching back come out of the water following each breath. Judging from the small dorsal fin, black color, and large body, it was most likely a fin whale, the second largest whale species on earth. They can grow up to 88 feet long and estimated up to 77 tons. Fin whale are common in this area as well (other observers on the ship had spotted some fin whales during a time when I was asleep). It might as well have been one of the fastest whales on earth by how quickly it passed the ship and was out of sight. Even though I didn’t get any pictures, I was ecstatic after the chance encounter of one of the largest creatures to ever live on the planet.

As if the day wasn’t eventful enough, Dave Shull and company, were out coring sediment at a very deep station (3,455 m or over 2 miles). After two multi-corer drops, there was an extra core for Rachel and I to work with. I was finally going to get to slice up a sediment core! I tried to remain as calm as possible so that it didn’t make any horrible mistakes and waste the incredibly valuable sample. My heart was pounding a mile a minute as if I was about to attempt a game winning shot in the state playoffs. Rachel and I set the core on the slicing post and slid the plastic core tube down while pushing the sediment to the edge of the top of the tube. We collected the overlying water just above the sediment, and some 0.5 cm and 1 cm sediment slices (core processing pictures are of Dave and graduate student Maggie Esch). This was done with a clean turkey baster for the water, and some plastic rings, thin plastic cards and a spatula for the sediment sections.

The sediment sections looked like dark brown pancakes, to put it kindly. When it was all said and done we had successfully collected sediment ranging from months to thousands of years old. It felt a little like traveling back in time while we sliced further down the sediment core. While I was watching Dave and Maggie slice their core, I wondered out loud how the sediment would taste. Dave encouraged me to taste some of the discarded mud that they were not collecting. “Grit you can feel with your tongue is sand, and grit you can feel between your teeth is silt. That’s the ‘technical’ way of analyzing sediment grain size distribution.” I didn’t notice any sand, but there was certainly plenty of silt. I was actually surprised at how palatable the mud was.
“The saltiness makes it taste much better than pond mud” I remarked.
“Yes, it’s nicely seasoned” Dave agreed. I guess grey whales don’t have it so bad filtering all their food from huge mouthfuls of sediment.

That night we were treated to, by far, the best sunset of the cruise. It was a fitting end to a landmark day. I remembered getting upset when mud would get in my mouth from our epic pond mud conflicts, growing up. Funny how it turned out to be some of the most valuable career training I had received during my childhood or college days.

-Eli

June 25, 2009

6-25-09

When a lot of people on the ship were enthusiastic at the beginning of the cruise about the beautiful sunny weather, I though I was just as excited. However, I was not on board for previous summer cruises where grey is the most common weather you see. At this point I am thankful for all the sun we have had because it has been almost a week of consistent overcast. Being from Oregon, I can handle some clouds, and as I long as I keep telling myself that it is summer it feels a little bit warmer than mid 40s. To go along with the mild cloudy weather, the water is extremely calm today. You could probably pull out the ski boat and go wake boarding. Getting the boat hundreds of miles back to land would be the difficult part.

When I have told people that I look at sediment from the bottom of the ocean, a few times I have gotten the question “Ooo, so you go down in those deep sea submersibles to get samples?” Unfortunately, and fortunately, no. No traveling to the sea floor and reaching into the sediment with remote control robot arms to collect samples. Unfortunately, because it would be very exciting to travel to the bottom of the ocean. Fortunately, because it would be challenging getting into a tiny tube for hours on end over and over coupled with the high cost associated with repeating such an expensive endeavor. It turns out you can do almost anything you would ever need from the deck of the ship with the right instruments.


The exciting thing about studying sediment is that it is a historical record for everything that has happened above it. Since sediment accumulates at a rate of centimeters every thousand years in the Bering Sea, you can look pretty far back into the past as you go down a sediment core. This was a shelf break area, where the water depth is increasing from the continental shelf to the deep basin. It was likely an area where not very much settling material will accumulate because it will simply fall down the slope to the basin. However, I am not sure if I will get a crack at another station like this, so I figure why not collect some sediment here if it is available. The shelf break can be an area of upwelling which can lead to some interesting biological activity.

It was a less than fruitful krill tow this morning, and we had arrived at an interesting station for sediment collection. I asked our shipboard sediment expert, Dave Shull (shown in the foreground with the white hard hat), if it was possible to get sediment from him at this site. “Possibly” he said. “If there is extra mud, you can certainly have it. That is, if the multi-corer works properly.” When ever I hear the word “mud” I can’t help but think about the mud wars my siblings, friends, and I would have at our family’s house growing up. It would usually end with someone getting mud in their eye and complaints as we cleaned the scattered mud off the dock. The concern of the multi-corer working properly didn’t register at first, but I got the idea after the first drop.

I got the chance to help deploy the multi-corer so I was not able to get many pictures. The multi-corer is lowered down to the sediment with a crane. The water depth at the station was about 200 m (656 feet). As the multi-corer came back onto the ship it was very clear that this was a difficult site to core sediment. In the picture of a core from a previous station, the far right core with not very much sediment was a very successful collection compared to this station. The sediment was very rocky and sandy making it difficult for the cores to close properly. Some of the cores had little or no sediment, others were leaking, but there were still some good usable cores. After a second drop, there was the same inconsistent success. Closely examining the sediment you could see rocks and pebbles sitting in the sand. With the coring difficulties, there were no extras for me this time. I’ll just have to sit tight until the next station. No problem, we still have over two weeks to go. There will certainly be plenty of mud to go around when it is all said and done. So long as I don’t get the urge to sling it at my fellow cruisers.

-Eli

June 24, 2009

6-24-09

While I was busy wishing for a dramatic battle between orcas and humpbacks, it turned out that trials of life were unfolding in our bongo nets this early morning. There was another striking collection of bioluminescence, setting the stage for what we were about to find. After we emptied the cod ends into the cooler, Tracy spotted a small jellyfish, and quickly noticed it was eating a krill alive! The krill’s body was engulfed by the gelatinous predator, with only its tail hanging out squirming futilely as it was slowly paralyzed and dissolved into the medusa of the killer jelly. Ever since I saw the movie “Jaws” it has been a fear of mine to be eaten alive. The movies “The Edge” and “Anaconda” didn’t help matters either. At least in “Jaws 3” a victim gets his revenge after death by holding onto the hand grenade via rigor mortis for others to detonate. I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the krill, but that’s the way it goes when you are a big pillar of the food chain.

While one krill was being eaten alive, another was being violently parasitized. At first glance the krill was extremely swollen and dark colored due to the same parasitic ciliates mentioned in an earlier blog. Despite its dire state of being, the krill was still swimming around the collection dish. Minutes later we glanced at the krill again and it had exploded “Alien” style releasing its guts and the ciliates into the water. The innards eruption was actually even more violent than in the sci-fi classic. In the movie the alien would simply break a hole through the stomach of the victim, but right in front of us the tail of the krill had been blown completely off, separating the krill into two lifeless halves! In the picture you can only see the body with out the tail. Two curious copepods are swimming nearby. All of this carnage helped me appreciate the challenges that krill face in their life cycle. They are certainly a hot prey item or host for many different types of animals, not just the giant baleen whales we are all so familiar with.

With my new found respect for our krill samples and their precious eye extracts, we returned to the lab to continue analysis. The autosampler, which was shown last blog, is the third section from the top on the left side of the liquid chromatography instrument. The pump, which pushes the sample extract and solvents through the instrument, is the bottom-right section. The solvents are in the top-right section. The fluorescence detector, which measures the amount of lipofuscin or other target compound in the sample extract, is the top left section of the instrument. After running many samples some of the parts on the autosampler were clogged and had to be replaced. Rachel, cruise rockstar, was on top of things as usual. From big animals, down to the little animals, there is plenty of excitement to witness at sea. Since there are so many more small creatures than big ones out here, the smaller you go, the greater commotion you are likely to encounter.

-Eli

June 23, 2009

6-23-09

As a consequence of having a radical sleep schedule (radical by my standards), my internal timeline of events is a bit off. Many of the experiences in this blog actually happened later in the day on the 22nd, but they seemed like they occurred during a new day because I had already been awake since before midnight on the 21st. Consider if you will, a confused graduate student, on a boat, in the Bering Sea. Now consider that his sleep schedule has been turned upside down. How would he be able to decipher the date? Would time and space still have meaning? ... Well, it's not exactly "The Twilight Zone," but the confused part is pretty accurate.

After the initial krill eye extractions described earlier, Rachel and I were able to continue processing the extracts to be analyzed with the liquid chromatography (LC) instrument. The extracts were exchanged from one solvent (2:1 dichloromethane:methanol) to another (100% methanol) and then half of the volume was pipetted into small autosampler vials (the other half to be analyzed later). The orange colored liquid in the end of the pipette tip (in photo to left) is the final lipofuscin extract. Lipofuscin is an oxidation product of proteins. As the krill gets older, more lipofuscin accumulates in the eyes. On average, the more lipofuscin you measure from a krill the older it is. Once we fill the autosampler vials with extract, they are loaded into the LC autosampler to be injected, by the robotic arm in the picture, into the instrument. The amount of lipofuscin is measured by a fluorescence detector. Later we can use all of the data to go back and age all of the krill individuals whose eyes we extracted and analyzed.

While the analysis was running I went outside to check out the water. The word on the ship was that there had been an orca (killer whale) sighting earlier in the day 400 m (about a quarter mile) from the ship. When I got outside there were no orcas, but the ship was surrounded by hundreds of sea birds. They look like light and dark specks in the water from the top of the ship.
It was a bit eerie seeing so many birds with no land in sight. I am used to seeing high bird numbers at the beach. I couldn?t help but think about the scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" where a murder of crows covers the jungle gym, while the lead character waits unsuspectingly by the school. Despite my efforts to live inside a movie or TV show again, the birds just circled and waited calmly in the water. They could have been waiting for the latest sampling nets to stir up some potential food. Other scientists onboard mentioned that birds will hang out by boats because they block the wind. I guess my hopes of seeing mid air collisions of breaching orcas and humpbacks in a seasonal battle for Bering Sea supremacy is not very likely. I?m still crossing my fingers, we have 20 days of cruise left.

-Eli

June 22, 2009

6-22-09

Hey there sea monkeys, back for another round of Bering Sea Plunder with Ensign Blunder. Despite a less that stellar krill tow early this morning (only nine individuals, not enough for any additional water filtration) I was very excited because one of Megan and Tracy's growth experiments had just completed (Megan is shown in the picture standing next to her filtration apparatus). The growth experiment takes place in a rotating incubator with six tinted tubes.


The tubes are tinted to block out sunlight and expose krill to approximately the amount of light they would encounter at their natural living depth. The daily vertical migration of krill is an amazing feat for such a small animal. During the day they essentially hide in the dark from predators who have a tough time seeing and catching them in deep dark waters. During the night when it is dark at the surface the krill migrate towards to the surface to feed on algae. The algae live closer to the surface to harvest sunlight for photosynthesis. The krill can migrate up to hundreds of meters in one evening to feed. Not bad for only being an inch or two long.

The light filter that Megan has on her growth experiment allows 6% and 25% light penetration. This is a good indication of how dark it is around the depth they live during the day. It is also a good explanation why their eyes are so big compared to the rest of their bodies. After Rachel and I collected the eyes from 45 individuals, we submerged them in organic solvent (used to dissolve our target chemicals out of the eyes) in 4 mL vials, and sonicated them for 15 minutes. The sonicator (vibrates samples at a very high frequency to allow the solvent to better penetrate the eyes) is the white box by the right side of the fume hood. The fume hood is the black cabinet with the vertical sliding door holding all the lab equipment. Fume hoods are used for lab work with toxic chemicals. They suck air inward so that fumes stay in the hood and the lab worker doesn't breathe them in. Once the eyes are sonicated they are placed in either the -80 Celsius freezer or the 4 degree Celsius fridge, depending on the type of eye extract. The freezers are the off-white units shown in the picture to the left, and the fridges are the metallic units to the right.


After doing a few rounds of eye removal from the krill, I have a new appreciation for doctors and veterinarians. It is very easy to damage the krill eyes as you are removing them. I imagine it would be much more difficult to work with a patient that is still alive in which you are trying to repair a vital organ. I read a newspaper article recently which stated that there is a shortage of primary care physicians because it is a less popular specialization for medical school students. This is becoming an even bigger issue with health care reform on the table in congress. While primary care doctors may not be as high profile as surgeons or specialists, they are just as essential to the health and well being of all medical patients. Unraveling the mysteries of the Bering Sea is no easy task. It takes a team of scientists from many different disciplines to make real progress on answering tough questions about how all of the nutrients and organisms in the ecosystem interact. Some have said that our problems with healthcare are virtually un-resolvable. Right now it seems that lawmakers are at least on the right track by pulling together a wide range of experts to address all the different issues. Ugh, here I go again. Let's just say that if I had to choose between affordable high quality healthcare and seeing another whale, I would take the healthcare. But another whale never hurts.

-Eli

June 21, 2009 Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice 6-21-09

Happy Summer Solstice! This will be the longest summer solstice daylight period of my life so far. However, it will not be the most daylight I will see this cruise since we will be heading even farther north than we already are. Check our location under the Current cruise track link on the cruise website: http://www.knorr.whoi.edu/

As you might remember, I took a sea sickness med yesterday (Meclizine, 25 mg). I went to bed around 9 AM and slept until 3 AM the following day for a grand total of 18 hours strait. I woke up briefly some time in the middle, but rolled over and quickly nodded off again (one or both of the periods were well over my target of four hours uninterrupted). I would have slept even longer if Rachel didn't come wake me up for the next Krill tow. Who knows, I could have gone over 24 hours.

Once I got dressed and ate a quick snack, I was back out on deck with everyone, ready for another productive krill tow with the bongo nets. Despite being in relatively shallow water (about 70 m) we got a good haul of krill. In general you see more krill as you go towards the deeper water and less as you go towards the shallow water. We filtered particles from water collected at 18 meters (depth chosen based on a combination of light penetration and the chlorophyll maximum) using our filtration manifold (system of metal tubes with glass funnels attached to them). We would measure water in large graduated cylinders and then suck it through the filters using an aspirator pump (blue and grey box with black tube to the right and behind of the filtration manifold).

The amount of water we filter at each station changes based on how much particulate material is in the water. In general we stop filtering once the filters are so full of particles that they begin to filter very slowly. This morning the big filters (under the funnels on the left side of filtration manifold) were able to handle five liters (close to average) of water before they were loaded with particles. Sometimes the water can be so loaded with material that it is tough to filter only one liter. Other times there is so little material in the water that you can filter up to thirteen liters of water.

When we were done filtering we had some more eyes to remove from krill collected at a previous station. This is done using tweezers and a scalpel, below a dissecting microscope. Once the eyes are removed they are placed in vials to be extracted later (add solvent to the vials to remove certain compounds from the eyes).

As the light was returning and I was waking from my post sleep fog, I noticed our first real foggy weather that we had encountered so far on the cruise. Considering that the majority of the cruise last summer was very foggy, I am glad we got to experience some sunny days. I have always enjoyed foggy weather. Seeing it cover a landscape or skyline makes it seem much more mystical and romantic. Especially around industrial areas. Throw down some fog and even the most polluted oil refinery can look like a charming relic of the industrial revolution. The fog around the ship made me feel a little less like a graduate student and a little more like an intrepid explorer. Now I just need to discover something and I'll be all set. Wait, isn't that my goal as a graduate student as well?

-Eli

June 20, 2009

6-20-09

After several days of spotty sleep I was determined to make it through a full shift of work without nodding off. In theory, a continuous period of being awake would result in a continuous period of being asleep. Several cups of tea with breakfast would hopefully get me started on the right track. I went out on deck because some cool wind usually helped me wake up and feel a little less queasy. I was blessed to witness another spectacular sunset. The light from the sun shined right up to the edge of the horizon as if it was lighting up the edge of the world. As the sun dipped further behind the clouds a single shaft of light aimed strait up like it was illuminating a path towards heaven. To say the least, all of this radiant majesty was a little overwhelming. I had been at sea for less than a week and I felt like I had experienced enough inward journeys to last my whole 20s.

I thought this might be an interesting krill tow, since we were at an intermediate depth of 460 meters, in between the Bering Sea's average continental shelf depth (70 meters) and depth of the basin (1000s of meters). If my previous encounters with bioluminescent copepods were like grabbing a bag of stars, this tow was more like lassoing the Milky Way. Anywhere you touched the bongo nets, they would light up with small blue flashes. Despite repeated efforts to capture the copepod light with my camera, I was unable to get a good shot. In the best picture you can faintly make out one luminescing individual just above the right corner of my blurry blue glove (blurred because of the movement trying to shake the net to trigger a response from the copepods).

There was also plenty of krill to collect, so we carried the cooler into the light to scoop out the googly eyed crustaceans. There was a small fish that we also collected facing straight down with its face pressed against the bottom of the cooler, continuing to try and swim deeper, despite making no progress. "This is a midwater fish" Tracy commented. "They never encounter boundaries during their lifecycle so they don't know how to react in containers when they are trying to reach their optimum depth."

I couldn't help but compare the fish's behavior, to my reaction of seeing "the edge of the world" at sunset. I was trying to put a boundary on the water because I couldn't see anything beyond it.

Humans establish, and as a result encounter, a lot of boundaries in day to day life. Boundaries like walls of buildings, or sides of rocks, are physical. Other boundaries like social class, or national boarders, are established by society and government. Imagine how big of a risk it must have been to attempt to sail around the world, when the only boundary that anyone had ever thought they knew for certain was that the world was flat. Breaking these types of human imposed boundaries usually results in paradigm shifts that change how we view the world and operate in our day to day lives. Having an African American president, or maybe one day a two state solution for Israel and the Palestinians (forgive me, I finished watching the movie Munich yesterday), has, and may potentially, changed the way much of the world functions?

I drone on as if I am the first person to ever consider the implications of human imposed boundaries. It is a phenomenon that society and nature will likely always be in conflict with. I recall that in my Great Uncle Jim Moore's memoir he stated something to the effect of "in order to be a true revolutionary, one needs to believe that at no point in history has anyone ever comprehended the issues and challenges that the so called revolution is trying to overcome." I'm sure Uncle Jim wrote it much more eloquently than my memory retrieved it. He was coming to terms with his own revolution during labor disputes of the 20th century.

In Jim's honor (thankfully still with us), for the first time in my life I had a specific revolution. I decided to take some sea sickness meds for the first time (graciously given to me by the Knorr's Chief Mate Dee Emrich). As someone who has swam and played in the water a reasonable amount, I thought I should try and go without a 'chemical solution.' Tracy made a convincing comment that helped get me over the edge. "There is no glory in sea sickness" she said. "It is much better to be fully functional than to think you are toughing it out." I was told the meds can make you drowsy so I have waited until before I go to sleep to take the pill. For now I'll put institutions and paradigm shifts aside, and hope I can break the boundary of consistent day to day sleep without waking up for more than four hours.

-Eli

P.S. Happy Father's Day, Dad. I realize it is on the 21st, but I am writing this the day after its post date. I remembered a passage from the section of Uncle Jim's memoir that you asked me to read to the family on a road trip down the west coast to visit potential colleges (for Mary) and graduate programs (for me). Strangely enough, I wound up on the east coast at the University of Maryland. Thanks for passing on family history to your kids.

June 19, 2009

6-19-09

For the first month or so President Obama could receive nothing but praise from the majority of the national media (excluding the far right wingers). It was all "constitutional scholar this", and "stunning intellect" that. I have to admit that I got caught up in the romance as much as the next "yes we can-er" on the block. That is probably not surprising that an environmental science student would be relieved not to have "drill baby drill" in the white house for another four years. Then as the reality of this administration's challenges started to set in, people started asking questions about how we were going to go about solving so many monumental problems. "The honeymoon is over!" they all said, from FOX, to CNN, and even the Obamanites at MSNBC (although they did put a positive spin on it).

After almost five days of rocking back and forth, I am starting to think that my honeymoon with this cruise is wrapping up as well. The difficulty of shifting to the late night schedule when there is so much daylight has thrown my internal clock into the Aleutian North Slope Current. I thought that the second night at sea I had made the transition by going to sleep at 3 PM and waking up around 11 (pretty ideal sleeping schedule for our peak work hours). Since then it has been periodic four hour sleep sessions followed by lying awake for the next four. Then at about 4 AM I hit the wall and have as much trouble staying awake as Stephen Hawking on a date with Paris Hilton. To make things even trickier, the weather has started to get a little less pleasant. Clouds have rolled in, the wind has picked up (blowing the bongo nets sideways), and we had some rain during the last krill tow. The ship's rocking has intensified making me feel a little like the first time I got off Space Mountain at Disneyland. At least I didn't start crying this time.

At the risk of sounding totally juvenile I should put things a bit more into perspective. The truth is I am enjoying the ups and downs of this expedition even more than a high drama action thriller starring Matt Damon. It would have been naïve of me to think that a research cruise was going to be all sunsets and whale sightings. Like a marriage, or presidency for that matter, any worthwhile commitment is going to have its bumps in the road. It makes the successes that much more rewarding. Despite my nausea we had a very successful krill tow. No jellyfish, good visibility when we poured the contents of the cod ends into the cooler (not too much algae), plenty of krill, and to top it off, a nice haul of our bioluminescent copepod friends. When I shook the cod end it flashed like a blue Christmas tree (unfortunately I couldn?t get a picture because of the rain, but here is a link to a nice photo: http://blog.livebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/chris_linder_bioluminescence.jpg).

Later on when I woke up after a slightly better period of sleep I was anxious to see how the weather was faring. The boat was rocking less, which was a good sign. When I went out on deck I could see clouds again. They were not quite as thick as before so I was glad that overall the conditions had improved. When I went around the cabin to the other side of the deck it was different story. A large patch of blue sky had opened up. I was a bit surprised, but I guess you can?t predict much at sea. The honeymoon might be over, but the voyage is well under way.

-Eli

June 18, 2009

6-18-09

"The sea -- this truth must be confessed -- has no generosity."

-Joseph Conrad

After waking up and watching another glorious sunset, I ventured into the library to check the computer (caught up a bit on world events, morned another Lakers championship). Two of the crew members were talking about U.S-Russian counterintelligence. One of them, Robbie Laird, described submarine warfare between the two countries and the various tactical maneuvers U-boats would make to follow and evade each other. In order to follow another submarine and remain undetected in its radar shadow, the stalker had to be within several hundred feet while keeping the exact same course of travel. In order to spot a trailing sub, the leader would have to make very sharp sudden turns to coax the follower from its path. Seeing as how the Bering Sea separates the two countries, I was thankful to be cruising in the 21st century and not the 1980s.

With this new appreciation for sub warfare tactics we geared up for another krill tow. We had hoped to have passed the majority of the jellyfish two nights ago, but Tracy checked just to be sure. After she looked at the water she said "Oh, there are lots of jellyfish out there again."
"Really" I asked.
"Yes, I wouldn't joke about something like that."

When the nets came up Rachel made an 'optimistic' guess that we would only catch five jellyfish. We didn't see any jellies right off, but we could see that the nets were loaded with algae. So much so, that we couldn't see two inches through the water when we emptied the cod ends into the cooler. Amazingly, Tracy and Megan were still able to scoop out 20 to 25 krill with almost no visibility. A fantastic feat, but not quite enough for us to remove any eyes (the collected individuals were needed for other analyses). Tracy noticed one krill that was swollen do to a parasite. She was excited to send it on to a colleague who devotes a large amount of his research to characterizing krill parasites all over the world. When the jellyfish were thrown overboard we counted exactly five. Rachel seems to have developed a sixth sense for the bongo net tows.


The previous day we had enough krill so that I could cut thirteen sets of eyes from the krill for analysis. I had practiced this enucleation surgery back at the lab (Chesapeake Biological Laboratory) on stable ground so that I could get the hang of the process. I was warned by my advisor, Rodger, that this would be more difficult on a moving boat. I didn't doubt him, but I also didn't realize how much more difficult it would be. In my clumsiness I bumped over a vial containing the krill eyes. Rachel assured me that they still should be salvageable after I scooped them up off the lab bench. I hope her keen instincts are correct again.

Fast forwarding back to today, from one of the upper decks, I watched some of the other scientists take sediment cores. Later in the cruise I will be working with the sediment group to collect a few cores for myself, so I thought it would be good to watch the collection procedure. When the multicorer returned to the surface I could see the sediment at the bottom of each of the tubes. I remembered another one of Robbie's stories about a 'secret' U.S. military attempt to recover a sunken Soviet sub in the middle of the Atlantic. During the recovery process several nuclear torpedoes fell from the torpedo shoot. While it is unlikely that we would core a torpedo on the continental shelf of the Bering Sea, the thought sent a shiver up my spine. As I walked back into the lab I passed Robbie sitting at a computer monitoring the ship's travel. "Any subs tailing us" I asked.
"None at the moment." Robbie chuckled. "But I'll let you know."

-Eli

June 17, 2009

6-17-09

One of the great aspects of working at night in an area where the night is so short is getting to see both the sunrise and the sunset every day. The fiery sky is something you never get tired of. It's like saying goodbye to an old friend and being reunited hours later. The weather the last two days has been absolutely gorgeous, a balmy 6 degrees Celsius, which works out to about 43 F. The wind has been even calmer than the first night. Rachel informed me that last summer the cruise started with two weeks of clouds and overcast. I feel fortunate to have such pleasant whether while I learn the ropes on this ship. It would be much more difficult with waves crashing on my head.

"Did you see the jellyfish on the CTD? They were nasty." This was one of the last things I heard before heading to bed yesterday afternoon. We were unsure if the cnidarian invasion would be a brief encounter or a constant challenge during our sampling stations. As the bongo nets were hoisted up by the crane we looked out to see clear waters. A good sign, if we didn't see jellies at the surface we would probably not find them at depth. When we pulled in the bongo nets I didn't see any jellyfish, but I was a little worried about catching any krill because there was not much phytoplankton (food for krill) in the nets. When we detached the cod ends and poured their contents into the cooler for sorting it was a different story. Paydirt! Over a hundred, possibly two hundred krill. Blue whales can grow up to 190 tons on these animals (almost exclusively), so we were bound to find them eventually. These small shrimp like crustaceans are easy to identify because of their ?googly? eyes, as Megan put it. To fish them out of our cooler we simply used large soup spoons like the kind you would find at a Chinese restaurant. My apatite was not exactly piqued by the krill, but that did not diminish my excitement!

It was a little tricky to scoop up the krill as they swam around the cooler. The numerous black spots in the picture are crab larvae. We also spotted some mysid shrimp and fish larvae. Megan, Tracy, and Rachel are all much more experienced at krill spooning than I am, and it showed. In the picture you can see that I had a lucky scoop and was able to get three at once (the clear tube-like animal below the ripples is a chaetognath). I got two at once a couple more times, but was not able to replicate the threesome (good in front of a camera I guess). The krill were taken for analysis and we collected water particles to go along with the krill samples for this station.


As we collected the water from the Niskin bottles attached to the CTD rosette a couple crewmen looked over the side of the ship alerted us ?there?s a whale!? We looked out at the water and sure enough there was a Minke Whale about 20 feet from the ship. Under the light of the ship we could make out the pale shadow of the whale. I was not quick enough with my camera to take a picture, but after the whale left our view it surfaced briefly for a breath and continued on out of sight. Minke Whale?s can grow up to 35 feet long and 14 tons. Despite their size they are still the smallest baleen whale. Judging from our success catching krill, there should have been enough to provide at least a snack for the Minke. At one point the crewmen said the whale was right next the ship (within 5 or 10 feet). With the edge of the continental shelf in our near future and the potentially curious nature of the beautiful marine mammals, this first whale sighting could just be a small taste of what lies ahead.

-Eli

June 16, 2009

6-16-09--Post written by Eli

Studying a biologically productive ecosystem can be incredibly fascinating. Nevertheless, such productivity can present challenges when it manifests itself in the form of numerous jellyfish that cover your instruments and fill your sample nets. When we reached Slime Bay it was clear how it got its name (not loved by fisherman). While at each sampling station the ship lowers its CTD (Conductivity-Temperature-Depth) recorder into the water to make measurements such as salinity, temperature, pressure, depth, and density down the water column. When the CTD returned to the surface I thought the brown stringy material hanging from the recorder was some type of algae. But, after surveying the surrounding water I could see many translucent jellyfish bells (Chrysaeora spp.) ranging from 6 to 12 inches across. In the picture you can see the tenticles wrapped around the top of the CTD.

In the galley several of us discussed the issues with jellyfish covering the CTD. Some expressed their displeasure with jellyfish clogging up their sampling equipment and leaving an unpleasant smell on anything they touch that is difficult to get rid of. I had been aware of large lion's mane jellyfish (up to two meters across) becoming a problem clogging up Japanese fishing nets. Tracy informed me that jellyfish of this size had always been present in the ocean, but they are occurring closer Japan because of changing ocean currents and more favorable conditions for jellyfish larvae (warmer, calmer, higher salinity waters). It has been hypothesized that these changing currents are due to climate change. A crew member noted that others have speculated that jellyfish will become the dominant predators in the ocean with favorable conditions (mentioned above) and overfishing.

On a lighter side, the same crew member described a prank that he and his friends used to set up at the beach by digging a hole in the sand, filling it with jellyfish, and covering it with a thin layer of sand at the top so that an unsuspecting person would step into a pit of jellies. They never waited long enough to see someone fall victim to the trap. One would hope, if they were not involved in the plan, that such a burrow would cave in and fill with sand after a short amount of time in order to avoid the slimy surprise.

During our nightly krill tow we experienced the same fate as the CTD operators. As the net was lowered into the water we tried to will each passing jelly from entering the net like an opposing fan watching a basketball approach the rim from a buzzer beating shot. When the nets were pulled up, after being submerged down to 80 meters, we definitely bagged some unwanted gelatinous guests. There were seven in all, but given the quantity we observed in the water it could have been much worse. Only three of the seven made it to the cod ends. When it was all said and done we had enough krill for a few measurements, but not quite enough for any eye dissections yet.

Picking up more than one jellyfish at a time is definitely a challenge. Another scientist sampling plankton from a separate series of nets filled up a pitcher with jellyfish in order to measure the volume they displaced from his nets. When he tossed the jellyfish from the pitcher into the water, Rachel described the site as jellyfish fireworks. While I was certainly anxious to dissect some krill, and a little disappointed that we did not have enough from the second tow, Rachel reassured me. "Don't worry," she said. "There will be so many krill later on that you won?t know what to do with them all."

-Eli

June 15, 2009

6-15-09 --Post written by Eli

Cruise life is a bit of an adjustment. The main difference is changing my sleeping schedule to the night shift. I'm a little off, but I think I'll catch on in few more days. Getting around the ship hasn't been too difficult, we're pretty stable (and I'm taking fewer wrong turns as I figure the place out). Running on the treadmill is a bit of a challenge. One of my favorite adjustments is the food. I thought I had died and gone to heaven after our first couple of meals on board. Rice and steak, my two main staples (ground beef at home), have been plentiful. The cooks are more than willing to make whatever type of food you need, and will save a plate if you are unable to make it during mealtime. The galley is also a great place to chat with other scientists on board and the crew who work around the clock to keep the ship running smoothly. The captain told me a story about free diving to work briefly under another ship in the Pacific Ocean. Without any warning he got the wind knocked out of him by a "playful" dolphin. "I thought I got hit by a linebacker," he said. Once he caught his breath, he dove back down to finish his job and the dolphin hit him again. A friend got his attention after he surfaced and said
"I think you should head back down again."
"Why," said the captain. "I'm done working on this spot."
"I know, but I want to get a picture of the dolphin slamming into you again."

Even without dolphins, I knew I was in heaven after we pulled in our first krill tow. It was chilly (about 43 F) and a little windy, but we were outfitted with steel toed rubber boots, rain bibs, rubber gloves, and hard hats. The seas were calm which made the experience all the more enjoyable. Since the captain had informed me that he had maneuvered the boat with scientists on deck during Deadliest Catch style conditions (waves crashing over the bow), I felt pretty fortunate. The ideal time to catch krill is during the darkest period of the night when they come up the water column to feed. At 2:30 AM the bongo nets (2 adjacent long cone shaped nets about 2 feet across and 17 feet long with collection jars called cod ends at the bottom of the nets) were lowered into the water and towed for several minutes. When we pulled the nets up they were covered with brown phytoplankton. We poured the contents into a cooler and Tracy Shaw and Megan Bernhardt (krill experts) searched through the water for krill. Unfortunately there were not enough individuals for any experiments or analysis. However, the nets collected many blue bioluminescent copepods, which would flash while we hosed off the nets. It was like swinging a butterfly net through the sky and catching a cluster of blue stars.

If a slow night of sampling can generate this much excitement, I can only imagine what lies ahead as we encounter much much more of what the Bering Sea has to offer.

-Eli

June 14, 2009 Set Sail

6-14-09

"The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... 'Beware of me,' it says, 'but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.'"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dutch Harbor, we have liftoff! It has finally happened. We have set sail for the Bering Sea. Funny, Rachel and I didn't notice at first because we were in the lab area setting up instruments and work space for all the samples we will be prepping and analyzing. Every now and then I would look out the window and feel like I was moving while we were still docked because of the movement of the water in the harbor. At one point the water was moving faster and it took me a moment to realize that the landscape was moving as well. That should be a pretty good indication that we had left the dock.

From the top deck of the ship we could see the breathtaking mountains and cliffs of Unalaska Island open up to the sea. The combination of the hum of the ship?s engine and the sound of the gentle waves injected new energy into the cruise. Before we left the harbor, I still felt like a tourist carrying gear around a big boat. Now that we are moving I feel more like a part of the expedition. As we admired the scenery, a bald eagle soared by the Knorr to investigate. I had been told that bald eagles congregate around the dumpsters in Unalaska like seagulls. I was pleased not to have seen this before the cruise so that my regal image of our national emblem remained intact for at least another month. The eagle made one pass over our heads and turned back towards land as if to say "Good luck, you're on your own now." I couldn't help but feel a little empowered and patriotic. It is comforting to remember that I will be working with a group seasoned experts, so I will not be alone in this incredible and challenging journey.

In the lab we have gone to great lengths to secure all of our equipment and instruments. Everything has to be tied down with bungie cords or zip ties to keep it from falling off the lab bench in rough conditions. The High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) instrument, which we will use to measure lipofuscin in krill eyes (more on that down the road), is of special concern because it has so many intricate parts that need to remain intact for the instrument to run properly. On last summer's cruise, Rachel and company were drastically hindered by a broken flow cell in the HPLC fluorescence detector, followed by a malfunctioning gradient valve in the pump. This spring, Rachel and our P.I. (Primary Investigator) Rodger Harvey were able analyze over 450 pairs of krill eyes. Having received lab assistance from Rodger a number of times, it is not surprising that everything worked well in his presence. Call it experience or skill (probably some of the first and a lot of the second), but Rodger knows how to handle just about any instrument problem that may arise. Rachel packed a spare of almost every part to the HPLC, so I think that we have a good chance to mimic at least some of the spring's successful instrument performance this time around.

-Eli