Today started out like any ordinary day, I woke up and went to breakfast.
Going to breakfast does of course involve going down two sets of stairs and down to the mess hall. I decided on some cereal and some hot chocolate. I noticed there wasn’t many people eating breakfast not like a usual morning. I thought maybe people knew something that I didn’t know. I realized that we weren’t moving anymore either. So I began to think where is everyone? I checked the science lab and you would have thought it was a ghost town. I made my way up to the conference room and said Maggie, "Do you know where everyone is?” She didn’t either so I stepped onto the deck and saw where everyone had gone…the ice. Even the brow had been put down for people to move on and off the ship.
Ice Going Up
Ice being brought up the brow to be taken to the lab for further tests.
So Maggie and I were off to find Mustang suits and catch up with the scientists on the ice. We got down to the science lab and found the selection of mustang suits was slim picking. So we put on the ones we could find that were at least a size too big and headed towards the brow. A few nights ago, a meeting had been called to bring up that everyone was really missing the main component in the Bering Sea, the ice algae.
So a decision was made to do an ice experiment. This would involve a collaboration of the entire science party to be able to perform all the various tasks and the right ice conditions.
Stations
The collaboration of scientists in action on the ice.
The plan was for drilling of ice cores, oxygen measurements down incremental depths, iron sampling, and a return to the same area later in the day. The basis of the experiment was to get to the ice algae before sunrise to measure the oxygen content and to return in the afternoon to recheck the oxygen amount. This would hopefully give some raw in situ measurements of the ice algae productivity.
Drilling for Fe
Rob Rember and Ana Aguilar-Islas working on drilling the ice holes.
Actual Depth of Ice
The measurement of the ice depth as seen by this photo was 75 cm.
Setting Up for O2
Scientists working together to set up the station that would measure the oxygen at increasing depths.
Being on the ice was a very unique experience. It was really warm out on the ice and all the white around was nearly blinding. Of course, all the scientists looked alike in the orange mustang suits. I was able to help in collecting the some of the samples that were being taken whether it was ice cores or water samples. It was a real team effort and it will be exciting to find out in the next few days if they got any real data to use. Many of the scientists were concerned that this was more a practice run and that to really know more about the ice algae this would hopefully be repeated a few more times. Only two scientists did the return visit to the sampling spot. Rob Rember and Masha Prokopenko went back on the helicopter to do the follow up work at the site. Bill Springer, the pilot, actually landed on the ice for them to conduct their work.
Heli Landing
The helicopter landing onto the Healy with help from the Coastguard flight crew.