Sea Creature Sunday: Booby Birds

I know, I know…birds?!? This is sea creature Sunday! Well, seabirds are still sea creatures and I also have a downey soft spot for birds.  I seriously considered ornithology in undergraduate school, mostly because I’m in love with penguins, but I also just find the little dinosaurs so fascinating!  However, after taking the Bird class at UT-Austin I quickly realized maybe I wasn’t a hard-core birder, but just a bird aficionado. The focus on identifying birds by their calls also made me nervous because I’m quite hard of hearing.

So! Sea birds! These are defined by primarily living on the ocean, especially those species that spend extended length of time at sea. Booby birds do this, as well as albatross and shearwaters. Part of what allows them to be on the ocean for so long are salt glands that remove excess salt from their blood. Interestingly salt glands are not limited to seabirds, but also found in numerous terrestrial birds including roadrunners.

You thought the ocean was salty from shark tears, but it’s actually seabird tears!  Image: Living Bird Magazine (2017)

Seabirds include a huge number of groups, like pelicans, gulls, terns, petrels, gannets, penguins, and porgs…I mean puffins. 😂

Of all these why did I choose the booby bird? Because they’re f-ing hilarious!  I’ve been on month-long cruises five different times now, and every time booby birds, especially red-footed boobies, have been the most charismatic animal I’ve seen above water.  They’re a serious thorn in the crews’ sides, because Booby Bird Don’t Give A Hoot! (literally)

“What bird spikes? Nobody tells me what to do!” Images mine.

Booby Bird is also just fun to say, and when you think of the word “boob” in the manner of a brainless fool (like “Boob Tube”) booby birds definitely come to mind. Birds of the genus Sula are all tropical and nest on islands and coastlines, but otherwise are found at sea. They also appear to have a history of hanging out on ships, which led to them being easily captured and eaten by sailors, adding to the “fool” part of their name.

“Humph. I am NOT a clown.” Image mine.

Red Footed Boobies (Sula sula) have a global distribution, so while they may be more confined to warm waters, they are spread out throughout those latitudes.  There does appear to be sub-speciation in areas, like the Galapagos Islands, Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean. With their distinct blue bills and bright white (adult) feathers I could easily pick out these birds hunting (fishing?) for flying fish off the bow of the ship (when they weren’t breaking anemometers or antennae)

These birds can live up to 22 years, and don’t begin breeding until they are 4yrs old.  They brood one egg each year, so populations are generally stable, but likely would be sensitive to human disturbances. They’re not listed on any endangered species list, but poaching has caused population declines over the last few hundred years.

Blue Footed Boobies (Sula nebouxii) are more limited in their distribution, found along the west coasts of North and South America and in the Galapagos Islands.

They are on the Least Concern category for IUCN red list, but Galapagos populations seem to be in decline due to food scarcity.

That same food is also responsible for the blue of their feet! The sardines Blue Footed Boobies preferentially hunt also provides the carotenoids that create that brilliant hue. The better a booby eats, the bluer the feet!

“What do you think, Joe? Do you think she’ll go for a periwinkle shade?”

The feet are an important part of their mating ritual, female birds are very picky about their color blue, so males have to dance a good jig to show off their lovely feet well before they might be selected as a good mate!

Apparently I’m not the only one fascinated by booby birds as well, as I found an ENTIRE storefront for tote bags of booby birds!😍

Guess who’s getting a new bag?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four other species of Booby birds include the Masked Booby, which sounds like a bad day-time TV bandit, the Brown Booby, the Peruvian Booby, and the Nazca Booby. The Masked and Brown booby are also more globally distributed, while the Peruvian and Nazca Boobies are named for their primary habitats. None of these species are listed as endangered either, and in fact the Peruvian Booby is an important source of guano-based fertilizer.

Episode 2: the Masked Booby tries to hide in the shadows but fails miserably and is caught by La Gaurda

I can only hope now you also have some similar affection I have for these goofy birds! I also hope you giggled like a school child while reading this! I certainly did while writing it

 

Thanks for reading!

Sea Creature Sunday: Crabs

No not THOSE kinds of crabs – THESE kinds of crabs!

He just gets me.

 

Someone during OCEANDOTCOMM asked me what my favorite marine animal was, and I admit I felt a bit like a whale falling from the sky and couldn’t come up with words fast enough.  After I regathered my brain I decided upon crabs. Crabs, especially deep-sea crabs, are completely unimpressed with humans, and have a sense of certainty about them that THEY are apex, despite what we humans might tell ourselves. Just ask this super gangster crab!

My name is Inigo Craboya. You took my claw. Prepare to die.

 

Crabs are a large group of loosely-related Crustaceans in the Decapoda order, which also includes shrimp, lobsters, crayfish, and prawns. These aquatic arthropods are mostly scavengers, filling an important role in healthy ecosystems

Scavenger isopod being scavenged by crab. How meta.

but some have been caught on camera trying to nab a fresher meal

Crabs are generally separated out into two groups – true crabs (Pleocymata) and…not true crabs (Anomura).  (I don’t see them called “false” crabs anywhere so I guess they like to play in the gray space of taxonomy 😉)

Dr. Zoidberg is not a true crab

 

“True crabs” is made up of nearly 7,000 species and includes some of the most important fisheries species in the U.S. – blue crabs, Dungeness crabs, and snow crabs

This is Callinectes sapidus, which means “beautiful savory swimmer.” What better than a scientific name that’s also a great fisheries ad campaign? 😆 Photo: National Wildlife Federation

The…not true crabs have 472 species, which include king crabs (you know those giant legs you get at the buffet and joust with! …. oh no, just me?), squat lobsters, and everyone’s favorite middle school pet- hermit crabs!

While your first thought for hermit crabs might be the little guys in stinky terrariums, my favorite hermit crabs have got to the species from Parapaguridae. They have cnidarian symbionts (anemones and zoanthids) as their shell – no not ON their shell, AS their shell. I also think they’re adorable 💙

These zoanthids make this Sympapagurus look like a walking hand 👀 Photo: Okeanos

 

This one likes to have an anemone that matches its shell

 

Another crab that deserves to be highlighted is the family Homolidae, also known as carrier crabs.  These true crabs carry things in their back legs to act as decoys against predators. Those legs over time have changed in size to be smaller and have a little more bend in the “foot” which makes them very efficient in their carrying – and also makes the crab look like they’re wearing some A+ Derby hats! These hats can be made up of pieces of sponge, anemone or coral.

Look at my frilly hat!

I prefer a more structured bowler. Photo: Oceana

I have no hat. 😢

 

Crabs have hard exoskeletons made up of chitin, which is most similar to cellulose chemically, but I think of it as being similar to keratin in human nails.  In order to grow larger, crabs have to periodically shed their exoskeleton, and during this time many species can also regrow missing claws or legs. How those pieces go missing….well…

Now that’s gangster.

This crab is probably trying to get a predator to leave it alone by leaving a tasty decoy, but crabs also seem to get themselves into trouble . Check out this overly curious buddy seen by ROV Hercules. And another crab that really wanted to get involved in some experiments!

No no no, Gary! You have to keep the sediment layers INTACT!  Photo: Ocean Networks Canada

How cool looking is that crab by the way?! I think it is genus Cyrtomaia, but I’m a coral biologist, so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I’ve personally had this Beuroisia sp. of crab try to fight the submarine I was in rather than just walk away.  They’re just so pugilistic!

Grumpy crab is grumpy. Photo: Amy Baco-Taylor

 

Crabs are most often solitary creatures but they have been seen aggregating quite a bit. The most famous is the Christmas Island red crab migration where they leave the forests to go spawn by the sea.

Or instead you may find an underwater crab army!

Lovecraft would be in awe

These spider crabs have gathered together for safety in numbers while they molt – this helps make it a little harder for them to get eaten – most of the time

SLUUURP!

 

Well – all this talk of crabs has made me hungry, so I think I’m off to red lobster!

For cheddar bay biscuits! I’m too poor to afford crab

 

What’s YOUR favorite crab?!?

Site one!

WOOHOO! After 7 days of transit and mapping we FINALLY HAVE ARRIVED! Or more accurately we arrived last Wed. at the very base of the Emperor Seamount Chain.  This location is still known to be fished by commercial trawlers, and is one of our “human impact” sites in the search to understand how octocorals recover from disturbances. Once we got on site we started mapping to help us pick an appropriate area within the guyot to then deploy the AUV Sentry.

AUV stands for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, and is owned and operated by Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI).  The vehicle is preprogrammed with a dive plan, then sent out into the deep blue to survey!  There are several instruments involved that keep Sentry a certain distance from the bottom and keep it from running into debris. Thus on a happily calm evening we were able to send Sentry out into the wilds.

We were able to keep sentry down for about 12 hours, but due to increasing wind and waves, we had to retrieve it a bit early. Unfortunately our calm period was not to last, and a pretty nasty storm is heading our way (we’re the green circle).

Sentry was greeted by a flock of albatross (anyone knows the species give me a shout!) who were sorely disappointed by the inedibility of our catch.

I’m super stoked to check out the images Sentry brought back, and example photos look incredibly detailed, to the point to where I’m hopeful for IDing corals to genus.  The leaps in imaging technology make me so happy!

Once Sentry was onboard, we were also able to get the CTD rosette in the water before the winds made wench operations unsafe. The water crew is sampling for nutrients, chlorophyll, and radio-carbon. Fancy chemistry stuff! Maybe I can talk one of them to writing up a post about their research goals….hmmm. 🙂

Currently we are trying to stay out of the worst of the storm and mapping another location.  30 knot sustained winds! Thankfully the Sikuliaq is capable of handling much worse conditions – just makes for a bit of a bumpy ride! Hopefully we’ll get Sentry back in the water soon!

Pacific cruise on the sikuliaq

Hi there!  After much anticipation I’m finally on board the newest ship of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) – it’s basically and collective of university-operated ships that are available to outside researchers.  The R/V Sikuliaq is from the Seward Marine Center of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.  I have to say I’m impressed! The vessel is 261 feet long and has 8 levels, two of which are below sea level.  It’s also an ice-breaker, but we won’t be using that feature during this cruise!

Currently we are about to enter the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) to the west of the main Hawaiian Islands.  These small islands and seamounts were formed by the hot-spot underneath the Big Island (a.k.a. the Island of Hawai’i or Hilo) millions of years ago.  As the Pacific tectonic plate has moved, the islands are cut off from the magma source and begin to sink/erode over time.  Until recently PMNM was the largest U.S. designated sanctuary, covering ~140,000 square miles of islands and surrounding waters. A smaller, less protected version was originally dedicated in 1909, and then was broadened both in size and legal protection once in 1940, and again in 2006.

As you may have read from my “the problems with seafood” post, commercial fishing in the Pacific (outside of PMNM) consists mostly of deep-water trawling, which lands large amounts of both fish and bycatch. Of the bycatch we are most interested in the corals that would normally grow on the hard-bottomed areas below the photic zone (where sunlight can be used for plant food 😉 ) .  The corals are slow-growing, likely due to limited food resources, and they are thought to provide shelter for many other deep-sea animals.

With the increased protection of these seamounts, trawling ceased within PNMN, and we are hoping the protection has allowed the larvae of the corals from other areas to settle and repopulate the seamounts.  The larvae are directed mostly by currents to their final settling locations (imagine constantly fording the river in Oregon Trail!), but other factors like surface type, bacterial cover, and even sounds can help the larvae choose what is hopefully the best location to permanently attach and grow.

Image credit: Okeanos

During our time at sea this year, we plan to collect some mapping data, (hopefully) determine general conditions of the water column, and take pictures and video to quantify the environment of 3 seamounts.

 

First step: mapping.  Better explanations of how multibeam works can be found here, but in general sound waves are sent to the sea floor and timed upon their return to get detailed information about depth and bottom quality (rough/flat, hard/soft, etc.). During our mapping we monitor the outputs and make sure the sounder is getting back adequate data.

Depending on how steep the bottom is, the job is generally pretty boring. When it’s flat and consistent you basically are just babysitting to make sure data is being collected.  Over steeper areas the parameters the software is looking for to determine when it should expect sound to return have to be modified.  You generally tell it what the maximum depth should be (usually over by a few 100 m), but you don’t want to just leave it at way-over expected, because then the computer is spending too much time searching the water column.  Still, not the most exciting job (which is why it’s a great time to write this blog!).

Also, while in PMNM we have to watch for whales within 200 m of the ship and stop to make sure we don’t affect their feeding.  Depending on the density of whales there, I’m also expecting that to not be the most exciting job. Who knows though?

Once we get to Our first site we start the more involved jobs of CTD water sampling and AUV deployment. More to come!

On feminism

I’ve been reading a lot about feminism in general lately, both those who practice it and those who rail against it, and I’ve noticed that in those con-arguments there is a feeling that some “rules” of feminism are what have set them off. The idea that feminist are misandrists that hope to place women in all top positions so that we can take over the men and force them to our will. While such a Feminine Utopia might sound nice at first (joking!), I feel the need to put my personal perspective out into the aether in hopes that it can give a broader understanding to what feminism means.Many of my friends (and not friends) do know me as the kind of career-driven, ball-busting, independent feminist that makes those “I’ll never date a feminist” guys do one of these numbers running the other way!

My hubs is also what I would call a feminist, in that he has always supported women being independent, treated equally, and as human beings, not sex objects. But here’s the kicker, we both also grew up on Disney movies – with graceful princesses being rescued by dashing heroes.

Though in some of those the “graceful princess” had a good deal of gumption of her own! (Rescuers, Lion King, Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.) I mean the hubs got his first kiss by asking me to dance with him while we watched Enchanted at his place! Disgustingly romantic.

So how do you combine an independent spirit with a dashing rescue? Turns out it’s really quite easy. I’m comfortable enough with my own independence and abilities that I have nothing to prove, so that I can enjoy letting my husband “play” the dashing rescuer when it comes to certain things. Other things the control freak in me won’t give up, and that’s also OK because he is comfortable in his abilities and in knowing why I want to take on some task on my own. Not because I have to prove anything, and not because I don’t think he can do it, it’s just something I want/have to do.

That’s the joy of feminism! By allowing every woman to be an individual person, with needs, wants, emotions, rather than a stereotype, men also get to shed stereotypes and have real needs, wants, and emotions. Emma Watson totally hit the nail on the head for me. While my feminism has both independent and dependent moments in my relationship, another woman’s may be fully independent, while another woman may be looking for a full-time “prince charming.” Because we are real people, and not the stereotypical versions of ourselves, being a feminist allows us those freedoms.

So before you judge someone’s personal life, career choice, partner choice…basically before you judge another person, think feminism. Think about real people versus what commercialism, patriarchies, or religions tell us what people should be.

Days in the lab

Hello world!  I have been spending quite a bit of time in the lab recently, which does not excuse my lack of recent blogging, but does at least give me an excuse to share more pictures!  I thought it  might be fun to show the general lab work I do with some brief background.  Let’s do Science!

You know you’re about to Science when there’s a micropipetter!

I have been extracting DNA for barcoding analysis.  Often described as the “beginning of the Star Trek tricorder”  DNA barcoding hopes to create a unique ID for each species so that species identification and classification can keep up with our discovery rates.  I’ve mentioned before taxonomy is facing some hurdles, and I promise I’ll get to that post!

Step one: Start the tunes.

You may think I’m joking, but lab work can get incredibly tedious without background noise.  My other co-workers often prefer NPR, but I need the dance party!  This little speaker is awesome and available on Think Geek. Warning, you will spend too much time on that website!

Step two: isolate clean tissue.

Yep. Sharp objects. Science!

Often the outsides of samples have come into contact with other species during sampling and you want to get DNA unsullied by cross-contamination.  So sometimes I have to get a little close with my samples.  🙂 I promise nothing cute or fuzzy is harmed during my science-ing.  Invertebrates only! Though I find them cute.  Sorry, non-disclosure on actual sample species.  *shrug*

Step three: digest tissue.

A proteinase (an eznyme that breaks-up proteins) is pippetted into the tubes with the tissue and a buffer solution.  In between samples I also have to clean the dissection tools.  Guess what that means?

Anyone else have Beavis in their head?

Oh yeah. Fire.  Sharp objects on fire. Isn’t Science fun?

Step four: Steep.

The precious samples are put in a nice warm bath.  The temperature helps promote the enzyme activity, and lets our samples know we love them. It’s a big, warm, melty hug.

Step five: extract DNA.

Now samples get to ride the merry-go-round! At 6,000g. 😀  The DNA is caught in a filter to help remove RNA, proteins, sugars, you know… cell stuff. Then the DNA is isolated. This is where the tunes really help – this step is about an hour of repeated pipetting. Also known as robot-miming.

Step six: check gel.

Gels are fast and inexpensive ways to make sure we actually isolated DNA. The blue stuff is a dye that binds in between the two strands of DNA. That way it shows only DNA and not RNA.  Quick refresher on Gel Electrophorisis: DNA is slightly negatively charged, so when it is placed in the gel it will migrate towards the positive end of the gel box (which is kind of like a weak battery).

You will not believe how hard it is to get pictures of the bubbles. The DNA is then further stained with UV dyes so that the DNA can be visualized.

Just need some glowsticks for a righteous DNA dance party.

So pretty.  Next I’ll be trying to isolate specific genes from the DNA that can be used for the barcode.  That will be another post!  Hope you enjoyed my lab work as much as I do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sea Creature Sunday – deep-sea squid

It has been too long since I did a Sea Creature Sunday!  Goodness time flies.  I decided that with all the wonderful new footage from Okeanos, Nautilus, and other deep-sea vehicles today would showcase deep-sea squids!

Awwww! Image from deviantart user mafferstoy.

Squid are classified in the Order Teuthida, which has about 300 extant species classified thus far.  There does appear to be some needed reorganization of squid classification, and I’m sure there are numerous specimens yet to be described, but that’s a general issue with the taxonomy of many marine creatures.  I’ll likely go into the taxonomy woes of Octocorallia soon, and you’ll understand what I mean!

Many people think of squid and then think of calamari, yet only a handful of species are commercially fished.  These include Loligo and Heterololigo squid (pencil squid), Illex, and also Sepioteuthis (reef squid). Also, in Japan and Hawaii two genera from Pyroteuthidae are commonly fished.  In general these squid are medium sized (50mm-40cm /0.12in-16in) and are found in shallow waters.  The Humbolt squid is an exception to this, as they typically are found 200-700m deep and are much larger than most commercial fished species.   Squid are known to be attracted to light, and fishermen will lure them into nets that way. Fishing activity can be so extensive it has been caught by satellite!

The adorable bobtail squid. Image from NOAA Okeanos

Deep-sea squid are less useful for fishing because they do not often migrate to the surface to feed, and some species, like the glass squid and the whiplash squid have incredibly fragile, soft bodies, which renders them difficult to catch, as well as inedible.

Grimalditeuthis bonplandi.  Also known as a whiplash squid.   Image from MBARI and Hoving et al. 2013

There is a diverse range of body types in deep-sea squid. One layout uses  extra-long tentacles that act as a style of fishing line and lure.  One species was ID’d by Prince Albert I of Monaco, who collected sperm whale regurgitations and identified squid species found within. Doesn’t that sound like regal fun?!? The species Grimalditeuthis bonplandi was finally seen in action by MBARI ROVs (Hoving et al. 2013), and you can see the long lure retracts into the rest of the tentacles.

You can also see how translucent the body of this mesopelagic organism is.  That’s a form of protection from predators, making them hard to see.

Other species of this family Chiroteuthidae also have the long-lure tentacle, and Asperoteuthis acanthoderma has one four times (!) longer than its body (known as the mantle).

Asperoteuthis acanthoderma.  Image credit: Jesse Wicker

Another form of “fishing” squid are the big-fin squids of Magnapinna.

Magnapinna seen by Shell Oil ROV exploration

These squid have an incredibly evolved body plan with all of their tentacles elongated and the fins on the mantle exaggerated for buoyancy.  Again, a live specimen of this genus had not been seen until 1988, and relative measurements were finally able to be seen in 2000 – and it was 7m (23ft) long! I’m also really jealous of this guy’s tattoo. Epic.

Joubiniteuthis portieri. Image credit Young 2009 and Hawaii Undersea Research Lab.

This small squid, Joubiniteuthis portieri, is the only species in its family, and also floats in mid-water with long tentacles extended.  It appears to form a net to catch smaller organisms.  The extended tail from the mantle probably helps with buoyancy and stabilization, but that has yet been confirmed.

Other deep sea squid are also nearly transparent, and the glass squid are a species group of the Cranchiidae that are specially adapted to be difficult to see.  They also have a special chamber in their mantle filled with liquid ammonia which helps maintain buoyancy (notice the theme! Sinking = bad). You can understand why glass squid are typically not on the menu!

Image credit: Peter Batson

The ever-famous vampire squid also floats along and captures prey in in the folds of its tentacles, but the vampire squid is not actually a squid! Squid belong to the superorder Decapodiformes (meaning having 10 appendages) while vampire squid belong to the Octopodiformes, which also includes, you guessed it, Octopuses. Vampire squid are a different order than the octopus, but are still more closely related to the ultra-clever invertebrates than they are squid.

They also don’t consume blood, or even live food! Image from MBARI

Finally, some deep-sea squid have relatively normal squid-like body plans, buy have other unique features, like dermal scales,

Lepidoteuthis grimaldii. Prine Albert I also described this species. Image credit Young and Vecchione 2014 and NIWA

Differently sized eyes, as in the Cock-eyed squid of Histioteuthis 

Image credit: Dhugal Lindsey

Or of course like being really, really big. The Giant Squid  Architeuthis dux.

The Giant Squid. Image credit: Tsunemi Kubodera

And the Colossal Squid Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni.

Colossal Squid. Image credit: Te Papa Natural History Museum.

This one is on display at the Te Papa Natural History Museum in Wellington, NZ.  I got to see it! Honestly the size is not the most terrifying thing about the Colossal Squid. Instead it’s the armored suction cups.

Whoa. Did you know the Colossal squid id actually larger than the Giant squid of Kracken fame? Yep.

Thus I leave you with this thought:

References:

Hoving, H. J., Zeidberg, L. D., Benfield, M. C., Bush, S. L., Robison, B. H., & Vecchione, M. (2013). First in situ observations of the deep-sea squid Grimalditeuthis bonplandi reveal unique use of tentacles. Proc. Roy. Soc. B., 280:1769.

Young, Richard E. 2009. Joubiniteuthidae Naef, 1922. Joubiniteuthis portieri Joubin, 1916. Version 11 September 2009. http://tolweb.org/Joubiniteuthis_portieri/19450/2009.09.11 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

Young, Richard E. and Michael Vecchione. 2014. Lepidoteuthidae Pfeffer 1912. Lepidoteuthis grimaldii Joubin, 1895. The scaled squid. Version 21 January 2014 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Lepidoteuthis_grimaldii/19833/2014.01.21 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

http://www.sci-news.com/biology/article00956.html

http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/ResearchAtTePapa/Enquiries/ColossalSquid/Pages/ColossalSquidGallery.aspx?redirectedurl=true

Weatherbird cruise summary

Sorry I’ve been away from the blog for so long! The ship internet is satellite based, and is important for navigation, communications, and well as computer access, so needless to say the bandwidth can get a bit precious! I’ve also been trying to get back on schedule – I was on night shift more often than not and I apparently prefer the vampire mode over the normal mode! My mother wouldn’t be surprised.

The cruise went extremely well for water, multicore, and piston core sampling; we were able to get samples from all of our sites! Locations of interest ranged from the Florida shelf edge to some of the deep-sea canyons south of the Alabama coast and we had 15 sites to sample in 11 days!

We started out on a great note – enjoying some local pubs in St. Petersburg. I really enjoyed this bar, The Mandarin Hide. Delicious drinks and great atmosphere – including a three piece jazz band!

Unfortunately we had some complications in the first couple days – the MILET video sled was having recurring problems with the fiber optic cable and the one of the two nets for the Bongo rig became torn and unusable.

However, we were lucky to have some of the best weather I’ve seen in the Gulf of Mexico. Absolutely flat seas really make everything easier/faster!

I must have taken 50 pictures of the moon! Absolutely incredible. I also enjoyed playing with my camera settings to try and get the best shot.  The light gathering processor is so good, the moon looked more like a hazy sun than the moon!

No seriously. This is the moon.

We deployed the multicore a total of 64 times and only had 11 failed attempts. Some really great numbers, though technically they are bested by the piston core which only “failed” 1 time. We were actually in the wrong place and the crew realized before they triggered it! I was amazed we were able to collect samples from all 15 sites. Each site can take 6-8 hours for processing, plus transit times, and we had to book it! It didn’t hurt that we had an incredibly hard working group of scientists, even with three first-time sailors on board.  Considering it might be my last Weatherbird cruise, I’m glad it went so smoothly!

My camera lens fogged up after being in the A/C and created a lovely glow about everything!

The Gulf of Mexico is an interesting place to be out at sea, because the large number of drilling platforms makes you feel much closer to land than you really are, and the number of ships is much higher than, say, the middle of the Pacific (where I’ll be in October – November!)

We also get more wildlife on the ship – birds, moths, dragonflies just to name a few.  They hop ships and platforms looking for food

I also finally got to go swimming while on a boat for weeks – just not as one might expect! Due to safety issues swim calls aren’t typically done when we are far out to sea, but we managed to jump in the harbor during our port call in Panama City. The crew thought we were crazy, but we enjoyed playing little mermaid too much to care!

I love going out to sea, I just wish I didn’t have to also leave my family for so long! Thankfully they are quite supportive! I’m one lucky girl!

The Deep-C Consortium also has a blog page – you should check it out!

 

Cruise day one

Welcome to the R/V Weatherbird!

The ship is all loaded and we are underway (and only an hour behind schedule!) That’s actually a record for this group!  Normally something goes wrong and we’re far further behind schedule – and it almost happened again.  The bow thrusters were not starting, but two new (giant) batteries and off we go!

The 116ft ship holds 20 people, 13 science and 7 crew.  It can be a little cramped, but I like to think of it as cozy 🙂

We’re out in the Gulf of Mexico to sample a series of sites looking for environmental effects that may still be lingering from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that happened in 2010.  We are funded from the money BP paid to Florida as recompense for accident (though the blowout was preventable if overseers were not lazy, it was still an accident).  Sometimes I may refer to it as “BP money” but we are not directly funded by them.

We steamed for 4 hours to a calibration site for the Ultra-Short Baseline (USBL) communications systems.  Here Dr. Ian Macdonald’s crew dropped a pinger sending location data to the bottom then we steamed around it with the receiver so that we can know the range of values off of a known point.  These pingers will be attached to the multicore and piston core so we know nearly exactly where they land on the bottom.  The camera tow runs on fiber optic cable, so it doesn’t use a pinger.

Next up we will go to a site and begin the real sampling.  We have a general cruise plan where multicore, CTD rosette (water variable and sample collection), Bongo nets, and a camera tow will be intermittently deployed. For example –  drop the multicore then get mud, process mud while CTD collects water, collect mud again, process mud while bongo nets are towed to collect plankton samples, final mud collection, camera tow.  Hopefully we can get all our samples in a timely manner because we have 16 sites to hit in about 11 days.  Let’s just say I sleep like a baby when I finally can!

Some of the gang also like fishing during steaming.  I’m not a huge fan myself, but I get great pictures from it!

The seas are nice and calm now, and we’ll do ceremonial mud dances in the morning to placate the gods/spirits/chthullu to keep them that way! Four different labs need mud samples from the multicore so there’s a lot riding on the samples. Noon tomorrow we start getting muddy!

Hah, oh yeah  -the ship’s crew has a great sense of humor.  The Ice Cream Fridge:

Preparing for a research cruise

Tomorrow morning a pod of Oceanographers (including me) will gear up and go to sea for two weeks to gather samples from the deep-ocean floor and the water column.  Today was packing day – and lets just say Oceanographers need a lot of stuff

That’s just from our lab!  Three other lab groups will be on board as well.  Our lab does take the most stuff though 😀  My co-worker is collecting sediment from the sea floor with a Multiple Corer in order to count the number of animals living in the mud.  These animals are called infauna, because they live IN the mud rather than on it, and are also called macrofauna.  Macro refers to the size of the animals, and the cut off points were designated by taxonomists decades ago based to sieve mesh sizes.  Collecting them takes a lot of sample bottles and supplies.

The Multicorer of DOOM! Well for macrofauna at least.

I’m basically going along for support and grunt work.  Other labs are collecting mud for environmental data like chlorophyll levels (how much food is there), Nitrogen (how much could be recycled into the surface water for phytoplankton – also called a nitrogen budget), and the favorite basics of Temperature, Salinity, and Oxygen concentrations. I’m told there is also going to be Bongo net sampling:

Anyone else have “Cuban Pete” from The Mask in their head? I guess I see the resemblance –

Admit it – you were thinking something more like this!

All in all this will be a very busy cruise for the for the Science and Ship crews, but hopefully it will both be informative and fun!  We will be on the R/V Weatherbird II owned by the Florida Institure of Oceanography, and I will be keeping everyone up to date as best I can throughout the cruise.  We shall do Science together!

Now that’s a beauty shot. From the FIO webpage