A day in the life of a Principal Science Officer( PSO) Geraint Tarling, January 18, 2013
PSO is shorthand for Principal Science Officer. Mostly it is a senior scientist who has a strategic overview of science operations and also an understanding of how a science vessel is run. Their role is to coordinate daily activities, liaising between the scientists and the ship’ s crew so that things run as harmoniously as possible. This is not my first PSO role but it is certainly the most complex, with many different types of activities carried out by a number of different working groups. My tasks are varied and multifarious and so far, each day has brought new challenges, some foreseen and others not. I thought I would take you through this particular day as my contribution to the blog, as typical or atypical as it may be.
01:35 My alarm goes off and I wonder for a few moments where I am and why I need to get up in the middle of the night. Then I remember it is a bioassay set up day. This is an activity we undertake every 5 days to bring water on board to incubate in our specialised containers. Setting up a new bioassay involves almost three quarters of all the scientists on board, and one by one, they start appearing, sleep heavy in their eyes. They set to their task soon enough, carrying ultra-clean water sampling bottles to the CTD( a water profiling instrument) which is waiting on deck.
Sampling with the Bongo nets @ Jeremy Young
My role here is to check that the location and conditions are suitable for sampling activities( e. g. not too rough to be carrying heavy bottles around, or too icy to deploy the CTD). I sometimes also make a few phonecalls to those whose alarm-clocks have been ineffective. When I see that everything is going smoothly, I leave them to their task and get a couple more hours sleep before my day begins in earnest.
06:00 Quick check that everything is still going OK with the bioassay set-up. This is the second time we have done one on this cruise and they have already shaved an hour on how long it took last time – practise makes perfect.
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