Dilemmas at sea. Should I take some pictures of penguins zipping across the water on my right or the humpback whales on my left. Not a bad problem at all. As we traveled through the fjords taking our water and sediment samples we made sure to take some time to enjoy the incredible scenery. No matter how nice a photo is, it doesn't really convey how intensely gorgeous this place it. At least my photos don't. Sorry. But it is awe-inspiring. I felt like I had landed in a fairly tale somewhere. Thankfully I didn't hear any of the animals actually talking to me. When it gets to that point, I think we have a serious problem at hand. But it was dreamlike.
This humpback whale was poking its head up as we sailed by.
There were a number of penguins scooting around on the water looking for some food.
This pair of whales appear to be sleeping. They clearly just had a big tasty krill lunch and need to let it digest a bit.
So we are back at station, but only for a day. We set back off on the Gould to go fishing for more icefishes. By the way - when referring to more than one species it is correct to say fishes. But fish can also be plural when referring to one species. Huh? That means when I say we are going fishing for icefishes, than that means we may catch more than one species of icefish - there are 16, you know. As for this past cruise into the fjords, Craig has a lot of samples of sediment, water, and animals to fuel his investigation into the ecology and ecosystems of the fjords. By understanding the complexities of the food web in this environment and the organisms that thrive you can learn quite a bit. By studying these fjords and the marine ecosystems over time, we can also see the effects of human activity and climate changes. The whale bones study, that his grad student David is involved in, is pretty cool also. As I mentioned, there are species who are only found in these bones. There is a whole community of organisms that live in whale-fall sites. Whale-fall? In other words, when a whale dies and the carcass falls to the bottom...hello! A lot of organisms now have a fancy new home with meals provided. One of the questions they are investigating is how many of the animals found on the bones are also feeding on them and how many just reside there. Apparently these bones can support chemoautotrophic (break it down into parts - chemo and autotrophic - easy!) communities similar to those at hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. That's pretty cool. The species found on the whale bones have been compared to those at the vents and seeps and there is the hypothesis that these whale falls were an evolutionary link between these seeps and the deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
Just another beautiful piece of ice down here. I continue to be awed by the way the blue stands out as it gets cloudy. I find myself staring out at all the different bergs, the sea ice, the snow. It's captivating and seems to have a mind of its own as it drifts, breaks apart, reforms.
There goes the yo-yo cam down for another run along the seafloor. Lots of cool stuff down there to look at. You can learn a lot about the ecosystem by observing who is thriving and present and who isn't.
After spending my first day in this wonderland of fjords, I told Craig he made a good choice in fields of study that would land him in such a beautiful place for work. He made the excellent point that as long as you are doing good science, there is nothing wrong with having fun while doing it. So keep that in mind all you future scientists!
Can you figure out this picture?