along and the water in the water sampling bottles was emptied into them. These were then taken off to be analysed in a mind-bewildering array of different procedures and instruments. Some samples were also filtered( sieved) to examine the particles within, many of which are living organisms, the plankton. Other water samples were poisoned and then frozen, to preserve them for analysis at some later date.
Collecting a sample from the CTD @ Jeremy Young
While the ship was stopped for our measuring station, a lot of other devices were also lowered into the sea. Special nets were dragged through the water to catch larger plankton, and a titanium CTD was also used, to capture seawater without any metal contamination, for reasons that will become clear in later blogs. Some other individual sampling bottles and pumping devices were also lowered separately, all as part of a major effort to collect, measure and examine the local seawater in as many different useful ways as possible. From all of the different analyses we will build up a detailed understanding of the life that lives there, how healthy it is, how actively it is growing, the chemical environment it is living in, and much else.
There are a number of different microscopes on board and so we often find out quite quickly if there is something interesting or unusual in the water. Today we had a first surprise – the water was full of pteropods. In fact the numbers seen today, in the first place we have stopped, are almost as many as seen during the whole of the previous research cruise in the Arctic. Pteropods are‘ swimming snails’ that are a particular target of our cruise, because previous research has shown them to be strongly affected by the chemical changes associated with high levels of carbon dioxide in seawater. Again, they will be the subject of later blog entries, but it was good to see that there are many of them about, because otherwise of course we wouldn’ t be able to study them.
We have been accompanied for much of today by some albatrosses floating alongside. It is tempting to think that they are here out of curiosity. They spend the large majority of their lives out at sea, wandering the ocean searching for food, and so perhaps a ship is a welcome respite from grey sea stretching from horizon to horizon. Much more likely is that they are unable to distinguish us from a fishing ship, and so are accompanying us in the hope of fish scraps being thrown overboard. Unluckily for them, we have a policy of no pollution, which includes no throwing overboard of food or any other waste.
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