Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 07/24/2009 - 11:14
Forums
High Arctic Change 09

Mike, Looking like an AWESOME experience so far.........have you done any real science yet? Nice shooting during practice....so .....how do you take a rifle with you in the water and still have the rifle useful?

Are you using/checking your email (school or otherwise?)

Terry

Fri, 07/24/2009 - 12:22

Mike Rhinard

Hi Terry!!!The rifle and email first.
We put the rifle in a dry bag.  As mentioned, the odds of seeing a polar bear here are slim this time of year.  Let alone one we need to shoot at.  We've done some hiking to, on and around some of the glaciers here and we carried a "1/2 loaded" rifle with us.  If we see one swimming toward us in the fjord, we can probably motor away - I hope.
 
I do check school email occasionally.  But I've been using mrhinard@polartrec while I'm here.  
Real science yet?   Well . . . kinda sorta.   What I mean is we have not taken any samples yet.  We have had some lectures on what we're doing and on glaciology.  Plus we've been outfitting our boats with instruments and gear.  Today we went out past the docks to try out our tools and instruments.  We will be using 2 different gravity corers.  They are basically steel tubes with a narrowed end.  Inside is a clear plastic tube.  The corers are attached to aircraft cable which is attached to a hand winch.  Basically we let the corer drop into the sea bed, then winch it up to see what we got.  The cores can then be analyzed in the lab.
We are also trying to map the bottom of the fjord ahead of the glacier front using an echosounder.  So we are setting up a boat with that.
Hoping to start collecting samples, info and data tomorrow.  I'll try to do some journals on the undergrad students that are doing the work which will become their senior thesis. And also on the different things we are doing.  But I'm waiting until we get going successfully so I can include some pics and better explanations.
Thanks for checking in.  Send me an email: mrhinard@polartrec.com
 

Sun, 07/26/2009 - 17:13

Mrs. RayRay

Love all of the pictures! You look great! Reminds me of when I hiked the iceline trail in Banff....Wow! Wished I were there....but, not interested in whale meat!!! Yuck!