Ross Sea Connection

The Palmer spent most of today on the move. We steamed 180 miles northeast of Ross Island to recover a glider for Dr. Walker Smith of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Then we turned toward Station 16 (see Jan 28 post), about 120 miles to our northwest. Along the way we are sampling the […]

At 5 a.m. we came to a stop at the sea-ice edge about 10 miles north of McMurdo Station. A single emperor penguin was asleep about a quarter-mile away, its head tucked snugly out of sight. In the patch of open water our ship had created, a minke whale surfaced. Underneath the ice plain before […]

We spent all day today just outside McMurdo Station, docked to a tanker and refueling. Most of the scientists relaxed, or talked about what they hoped to find in their next sampling stations, or sneaked into the galley to see when the cook brought out warm cookies. (For the record, it was about 8 p.m.) […]

Clouds form and dissipate, snow falls, and the sun emerges in this time lapse video shot during the transit from the central Ross Sea to the entrance of the McMurdo ice channel. At the end of the video, Beaufort Island, Cape Bird, and Mount Erebus come into view in that order. It represents 13.5 hours of real time.

The Palmer spent all day cruising back toward McMurdo Station to refuel. The ship travels at a steady 10 or 11 knots (about 12 mph), and we had about 300 miles to go. The scientists took this opportunity to review their data and decide where to visit during the second leg of our expedition. Yesterday […]

See exactly what the glider sees during this video montage from a glider test dive. In the first part of the video, the glider is launched from the zodiac, then it travels to a depth of three meters, and finally surfaces. As the glider prepares to surface you can hear the sound of the pump changing the buoyancy.

This time lapse video shows the mooring being deployed from the back deck. It represents two hours of real time.

After three days of overcast skies and whitecaps, today the wind settled and the sky cleared. Sun warmed the observation deck on the bow, and stiff-winged snow petrels flittered among the waves as if impatient for the wind to return. We had steamed south about 120 miles to get some more information from an interesting […]

The science team samples Ross Sea water from the Niskin bottles.

We love getting questions from people reading along on our blog or in classrooms. Yesterday we heard from Shiquan at Monument School, who asked why iron makes plants grow. That’s a great question that gets right to the heart of biological oceanography, so let’s take a day and explore the answer. If you remember from […]