Finally, we are back on track! It looks like science has successfully resumed after the rescue operations, which, by the way, went very well. Needless to say they were very organized. Hats off to the crew, passengers and guests of the Nathaniel B. Palmer. There is no way these operations could have been dealt with more professionally.
The ban on sharing photos and intimate details about the incident still holds to protect the privacy of the fishermen. More on this soon!
Now, after a two-day hiatus we are back on track with our sampling protocol. The next stations to be occupied and sampled will be Station #7 followed by Station #8. The former is the site of the Ross ice shelf water while the latter features a high biomass (HB#1, with high chlorophyll concentrations). MODIS satellite was used to describe HB#1 based on fluorescence values, while Temperature-Salinity plots will be used to characterize the distinct ice shelf water. The usual sampling protocol includes trace metal sampling followed by CTD casts from different depths and net towing. As mentioned in one of the earlier blogs the PRISM project hinges around 4 major hypotheses. One such hypothesis is that sea ice tends to melt during the austral summer (December-February) because of high solar incidence (24hrs of sunlight) and this water mass is a potential source for new iron for photosynthesis to take place unhindered, resultantly allowing biomass to accumulate.
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A side note:
Pictures were not uploaded properly in my earlier blogs. Apologies for the inconvenience this might have created. I'll try to fix the problem as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and please don't hesitate to drop me a line or two whenever you can at the following address:
"Marco Pedulli" <marco.pedulli.guest@nbp.usap.gov>
or twit your queries at @mpedulli
Signing off for now.
Marco Pedulli
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