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Drake Passage Opening

Hi Katie, I just read over some of your past journals in class,sounds like a great adventure!I was out of pocket for awhile, but I am back to business. A couple of questions from my class: 1. Is the subduction zone you mentioned awhile back at the Antarctic/south American plate boundaries? 2. Are there a lot of humpbacks where you are, is it mating season? 3. Is it getting darker there? Is it always nightime? 4. what is the temperature ? also, I saw a picture of Kevin Pedigo from Raytheon-who else is on the cruise from Raytheon? Please say Hi from me! He was on my cruise last year too :) all for now, enjoy every minute! Lollie

Fri, 05/16/2008 - 09:24

Katie Pena

Hi Lollie,
Kevin P. says hi back and he said that he is the only person that was also on your cruise! What type of research was done on your cruise? Here are the answers to your questions.
1. The subduction zone that we were dredge around was between the small Sandwich plate and the Scotia plate. These plates are the smaller plates in the central Scotia Sea between the South American plate and the Antarctic plate.
2. We have seen both Humpback whales and Fin whales-- we think, it is hard to identify them completely accurate because you only really see them for seconds at a time. Mating season has not quite arrived, it is during
winter and it is currently fall here.
3. It is getting darker everyday, we still get about 7-8 hours of daylight, and we are all thankful for that.
4. The temperature today is -3 C with a wind chill of -25C. Too cold for me, it is nice for about 10 minutes of fresh air and any time after that is just freezing cold!
Thanks so much for the great questions!
Katie