Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 18:07
Forums
Seafloor Organisms and Changing Ocean Conditions in Antarctic

Hi Ms. Herrmann,

I hope your traveling has been going well so far, how long do you think you will be on the boat until you reach your destination?? Will you be collecting any samples along the way or will you do all of that once you are at Palmer Station? Will you be analyzing the data you collect while you are there or will most of the tests be done once you arrive back in the States? Sorry for all of the questions, but I think what you are doing is really interesting. Hope you are having a wonderful time!

Thanks, Rosie

Wed, 02/15/2012 - 02:30

Nell Herrmann

Hi Rosie,Never be sorry for asking questions-I love it! Keep them coming! It's wonderful to hear from you. We will be approaching the Shetland Islands in a couple of hours and will be arriving at the northern part of the western Antarctic peninsula tonight. A team of geologists on the ship will be getting off to look at one of the islands as a potential site for a long term climate change study they are doing. They are drilling into permafrost and collecting a large variety of data.
I'll arrive at Palmer Station on Friday and will be going out in a small, inflatable boat called a zodiac with Dr. Amsler and his team each day (weather permitting). They will be SCUBA diving and I'll be a dive tender on the zodiac. We'll bring the samples back to the lab and will run tests on them there. Specifically, we'll be collecting crustose coralline algae, limpets, and snails and seeing how changes in water pH and temperature affect them. Growth in diameter and fluorescence as a measure of photosynthetic capacity, calciification, growth, biochemical content, [protein carbohydrate, lipids-to see how they're storing those], degree of calcification, and changes of calcification over time.
Cool, don't you think? :)
--Ms. Herrmann