Update
Now Archived! PolarConnect event with Sandi Thornton and the Chukchi Sea Borderland Research Team from the USCGC Healy on 8 August 2016. You can access this and other events on the PolarConnect Archives site: https://www.polartrec.com/polar-connect/archive
What Are They Doing?
A ribbon seal on the Chukchi Sea. Photo by Andrea Skloss.
The Arctic Ocean is one of the most remote locations on Earth and the area where the impact of climate change may be most strongly expressed. In the Chukchi Borderlands (CBL) area, water masses from the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet and interact over tremendously complex bottom topography, creating intricate currents and sea ice drifts. It is also the region of the most dramatic summer sea ice meltdown in the last decades. This project is a multi-disciplinary group effort to explore marine communities from microbes to mammals and from sea ice to seafloor in this poorly known, bathymetrically and hydrographically complex Arctic region. We will use a combination of photographic mapping using ROV, physical sampling, and state-of-the-art metagenomics to assess the diversity of this region. Field work involves a ~30-day icebreaker cruise in the summer of 2016, with use of the ROV Global Explorer that provides unique opportunities to capture fragile pelagic organisms and observe benthic fauna in relation to the bathymetric and geomorphological features of the seafloor.
Where Are They?
The crew readys the CTD at dusk aboard the USCGC Healy icebreaker. Photo by Andrea Skloss.
The team will live and work from the United States Coast Guard Cutter/Icebreaker Healy. The USCGC Healy is a research vessel designed to conduct a wide range of research activities and can break through 4 ½ feet of ice continuously. They will travel in the Northern Chukchi Sea.
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Sandra Thornton teaches biological and physical science courses at Broadwater Academy on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. A narrow peninsula that separates the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean, the Eastern Shore's abundant natural resources set the stage for extending classroom studies in marine and environmental sciences. A lifelong love of science, fostered by parents and teachers who encouraged her to explore the world around her, motivates Mrs. Thornton to instill this same love of learning in her students. Thornton holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biology, and feels fortunate to have a career that allows her to combine a passion for science with working with teens. When not teaching, Mrs. Thornton is an avid reader who loves to travel and explore with her husband.
Dr. Katrin Iken is one of the lead investigators of the Chukchi Borderland project and is a benthic ecologist with particular interest in the Arctic ecosystem. She studies benthic community structure with focus on the biodiversity and structure of epibenthic communities, i.e., the organisms that live on the surface of the seafloor. She also studies food web structures through stable isotope analysis. Katrin has been working in the Arctic for over 15 years, with significant time spent in the field in the summers; previous to her Arctic work, she was mostly engaged in Antarctic research. Aside from several other Arctic research projects, Katrin also is active in the international Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program of CAFF (Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, an Arctic Council Working group) as the US benthic expert member. Katrin received her PhD at the Alfred Wegner Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Germany and did post-doctoral work at the AWI and the University of Alabama at Birmingham before starting a faculty position at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
