Travel and Science!? For three months?! New Zealand, Antarctica, and Chile!? How did I land this gig? This is
my jam! Is this really happening? Pinch me. I should
probably blog about this experience. But
I don’t blog. Yet here I am giving birth to one! I hope my stories are
interesting, informative and inspiring. I have my boss, Mónica Orellana, to
thank for this grand opportunity to travel and do research in Antarctica.
In a collaborative research effort, chief scientist Dennis Hansell invited four co-chief scientists (Alexander Bochdansky, Jack DiTullio, Rob Dunbar, and Mónica Orellana) to be part of a
grant looking at the origination, utilization, and movement of carbon in the
oceans, specifically the Ross
Sea. The National Science
Foundation funded the grant and it has been dubbed the crafty acronym TRACERS which encompasses the objective
of the research: TRacing the Fate of Algal Carbon Export in the Ross Sea.
See
the collaborative cruise blog tracers-nbp1302.blogspot.com
 |
| On February 7th, we will fly from Christchurch, New Zealand to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. On February 12th we will board the research vessel icebreaker (or RVIB) Nathaniel B. Palmer and depart McMurdo Sound to spend 53 days at sea sampling seawater in the Ross Sea. Each scientist has a different research focus and will be carrying out a unique assortment of measurements, collections, and experiments while aboard. In addition to studying the algae and carbon of the sea, we will also have the opportunity to help Dr. Jerry Kooyman (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) tag emperor penguins (or Aptenodytes forsteri for you nerds or trivia buffs out there) for the study on their molting patterns and behavior. The cruise will end in Punta Arenas, Chile on April 5th. |
This open-jaw travel path (flying in from New Zealand and heading home from Chile) makes
for the perfect opportunity to vacation before and after the cruise! My
colleague Andrew Margolin and I headed down early to spend two weeks
vagabonding around New Zealand’s
South Island. Colleagues Cody Harrison, Rachel Stevens, Sarah Bercovici, Andrew Margolin, and I spent additional vacation time in Chile at the
end of the cruise backpacking around Torres del Paine.
I want to write about my New
Zealand adventures, my Chilean adventures and my
scientific endeavors and hope to inspire you all to fall in love with travel,
science, fun and the extremely cold continent of Antarctica.
An additional nugget: while in Christchurch, I went to the exhibit Scott’s Last Expedition at the Canterbury Museum. Captain Scott led the 1910 British Expedition to the South Pole but died on the return route. I was inspired to do a time-line comparison, just for fun, between our modern 2013 cruise to Antarctica and Scott’s 1910 expedition to Antarctica. I hope you enjoy seeing the differences/similarities as much as I do.
An additional nugget: while in Christchurch, I went to the exhibit Scott’s Last Expedition at the Canterbury Museum. Captain Scott led the 1910 British Expedition to the South Pole but died on the return route. I was inspired to do a time-line comparison, just for fun, between our modern 2013 cruise to Antarctica and Scott’s 1910 expedition to Antarctica. I hope you enjoy seeing the differences/similarities as much as I do.
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