Journals 2004/2005

Laurelynn Brooks
Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon, Washington

"Investigating the link between alkenones and sea surface temperature" R/V New Horizon July 5-23, 2004

Journal Index: July 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12       13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19       20 - 21 - 22 - 23

July 17, 2004
Time and resources are precious at sea

At 0400 Ida and I drag ourselves up the stairs, through the galley to the lab to help Chris, a grad student at the University of San Diego. We find him in a plastic hut that he has created to keep out airborne contaminants.

Even the exhaust from the ship could pollute the water that he is collecting for his carbon 13 tracing experiment. He appreciates our help as we shuffle the carboys full of water in and out of his plastic tent.

The morning flies by as we retrieve the array from yesterday. Brian lassoes the float and pulls in the array.

Timing, communication and teamwork are critical in getting the bottles and sediment traps off the line and on the deck.

I am thankful to be a part of this team, but we don't have much time for celebration. I need to get the samples from last night titrated so that I can reuse the bottles for the 1500 CTD cast. Only 32 bottles were packed for the cruise.

Time and resources are precious at sea.

At 1200 Biancha finally gets the moment she has come all the way from Italy for!

She has permission from the Captain to tow the plankton net and attempt to collect some coccoliths. She is hoping to net her favorite, Emiliania huxleyi (known as Ehux) see http://www.soes.soton.ac.uk/staff/tt/.

While waiting to deploy our thirtieth CTD cast, Fred, Brian and I brainstorm ways we can inform the public about our research. We decide that a website would be a great start. We set a goal to communicate with each other after the cruise. I sense a happy collaborative spirit as we collect our samples from CTD Cast 30. It gives me energy to titrate 28 more samples, although I feel like a walking zombie by now.