returned to the surface and what are the possible effects climate change may bring about to this process.
Richard trying out being a crew member by operating the winch @ Emma Cavan
As these biological sinking particles are known as marine snow, the piece of equipment I use to measure this snow is called the marine snow catcher. Witty I know. I deploy the snow catchers at around 6:30 and 8:30am each day. Simply they are massive water bottles( 100l). After pinning bits of it together, with help from the crew when I haven’ t woken up properly yet( see pics), the snow catcher is lifted overboard. I then send a messenger down( a heavy weight) which hits a release and closes the catcher, which fills with water. The only incident we have had so far was when it was bought back on deck last week and the 20kg weight suspended from the base almost took me out. Thankfully, the crane holding it took the hit. Hydraulic fluid starting leaking everywhere and the deck engineer was called to fix it. All was fine; remarkably the snow catcher had nothing more than a small dent – and we have changed our system so it can’ t happen again!
Once the snow catchers have been deployed I spend the remainder of the day filtering water and picking out the particles which have sunk to the base of the catcher, to photograph them under a microscope. This is the exciting part as I get to find out what I have collected. So far it has mostly been zooplankton feacal pellets or bits of biological looking stuff that needs proper identification back at base. After photographing, I take the particles to the fridge where I drop them one by one into a measuring cylinder full of water and see how fast they sink.( Technology at its best!)
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