Rabbit Rabbit

Place: McMurdo Sound

Time: ? -- it's light out though

We received our orientation to the ship today in four parts -- emergency plans, IT, Lab safety, and safety on deck during operations.  I'm super impressed with the organization of the ship -- there are ET's, IT's, MST's, and MT's which help the science personnel with everything.  (Electrical/Info/Marine Science/Marine techs)And basically even though we boarded and are on the water (although not going anywhere) we are ready to go.  I've got email, a guide to the equipment which I'll be using, help with a bandsaw, and many more creature comforts which I'm forgetting.  And that's in addition to the crew who have been running the ship and feeding me for the last 2 days.

Aside from a quick game of soccer on the ice (very difficult), a helicopter ferry of prior cruise members to McMurdo, and the all-important meals, I've been working.  Let me introduce you to my responsibilities.  I will take samples of water collected at different depths (a vertical profile) at specific locations (a horizontal cross-section) and either process or analyze them for their chemical composition.  This is what many people on this cruise are doing, except that we are segregated into different chemicals.  I am working with my guru Brice Loose to look at 2 things -- dissolved gases, and inorganic nutrients.  For the gases, we are simply storing the seawater samples in appropriate conditions so that they can be analyzed later (i.e. by others in labs off the ship).  For nutrients, we have an autoanalyzer on board.  This piece of equipment is caused the LaChat which is pronouned latchet, not like a french cat (this is another rookie mistake).  All of these things fit into a category of chemicals which oceanographers call tracers -- you can use their concentrations to imply where they've come from and how long it's been since they've been there.  I'm getting tired so we'll go into details later but here is what will be analyzed from my samples: Helium (3 and 4), Neon, Tritium, CFC's, SF6, Oxygen-18, Phosphate, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia, Silicate.  We prepared "helium channels" today -- copper tubes which will be sealed off as water flows through them so no bubbles (containing lab air) are present.  Some serious labor involved but a team effort.

Here is our position: 166.343185, -77.512915.  We'll likely still be here tomorrow night.  Till then,

 

C