Photo of the Day

Adelie penguins avoiding the "orange monster" Nathaniel B. Palmer in Antarctica

XBT

The Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) has been used by oceanographers for many years to obtain information on the temperature structure of the ocean to depths of up to 2000 meters. The use of XBT's to measure the ocean's subsurface has significantly increased over the past decade. For the PRISM cruise, so far, we have fired a dozen of them to identify the modified circumpolar deep water (MCDW). The following picture shows one deployment of the XBT.

Marco Pedulli firing an XBT near the Ross Bank, Antarctica

Tierra Del Fuego

No crossing (of the Drake Passage) is complete without rubbing the foot of the indian in downtown Punta Arenas, Chile 

PRISM Seminars

In between sampling and other lab/computer work, the science team has also been actively engaged in a number of PRISM science seminars. Thus far, the talks featured the various investigators onboard of NBP whose presentations included related past work from the region (i.e. The Ross Sea, Antarctica) and/or other places and more importantly addressed preliminary results from the current cruise. The latter means that everybody has to finish analyzing the data as soon as they come in. This is a great way for the planning process of the cruise whose motto is adaptive sampling, among other things.

The project (PRISM-RS) obviously has a solid plan of execution but is flexible enough to accommodate small changes on the fly depending on model output, satellite images (e.g. ice and chlorophyll) and observations. The latter is done at a finer scale using moving vessel profiler (MVP) and video plankton recorder (VPR), both of which have a number of sensors for chlorophyll, temperature, salinity, etc. onboard. MVP and VPR are towed from the ship in between sampling stations. To date, a total of 26 stations have been occupied and sampled using CTD rosette, trace metal tow fish, bongo nets (for plankton: phyto-and zooplankton) or a combination thereof.

Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI) discussing a plan of action at a PRISM seminar (Photo: Marco Pedulli)

Rescue Operation in the Ross Sea, Antarctica

Rescue operation in the Ross Sea, Antarctica (Photo: Marco Pedulli)

Photo of the Day

Adelie penguins on sea ice near the Ross Sea (Photo by Marco Pedulli)