Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 18:10
Forums
Drake Passage Opening

Is it vitally important that you fill out the watch log every five minutes?  Will it affect the research the people on the boat are doing? and is everybody on the boat working to research the same things? By the way, have fun traveling!

Stephanie, Hartford High

Wed, 04/23/2008 - 16:20

Katie Pena

Hi Stephanie,The watch log is important for keeping track of the data, and we alsorecord when a trawl, dredge, or any big instrument is going into the water,and the scientists need that for their data. There are 2 main groups ofscientists on board our ship, 1 group is mainly studying the biology ofcorals and the other is rocks and geophysics. The cool thing is that bothgroups have some of the same main objectives, like understanding how theCircum- Antarctic Current changed the climate and environment. It is allabout gathering data and trying to understand and reconstruct the past topresent day, and of course, the geophysics side having a much older pastthan the biologist. Thanks for the questions!