Today we are starting on our next project. This is going to be about the polychaetes. Judging from the other groups reactions they are nigh on impossible to identify easily and there has been talk of one hour per creature. We have a polychaete ninja on board though. A Russian scientist who is astonishing when it comes to recognising polychaetes. She can tell what it is with a glance often, and that deserves some credit.
The steaming over night was through some rough weather, so people aren’t feeling overly flash, mostly just tired. Although I’m not looking forward to staring down a microscope in the rough seas. We woke up in Hindlopen which isn’t a fjord, the shock of finding some part of the Norwegian coast that isn’t fjorded! Golly gosh! But it’s still pretty spectacular.
The steaming over night was through some rough weather, so people aren’t feeling overly flash, mostly just tired. Although I’m not looking forward to staring down a microscope in the rough seas. We woke up in Hindlopen which isn’t a fjord, the shock of finding some part of the Norwegian coast that isn’t fjorded! Golly gosh! But it’s still pretty spectacular.
There was an unknown find in a sample yesterday which has been rather enthusiastically labelled “alien”, although when sketched on a whiteboard there is a certain alien-esque quality to it. Although it looks distinctly less alien than many of the other creatures we’ve seen so far. Either way, we are yet to identify it, which got everyone a little excited hence it got its own whiteboard sketch. It has been the inspiration for a potential mystery plot on board though.. the plot thickens.
There was a little bit of waiting for the samples, the grab has to go down and up and down and up and down and up, the process of which takes 10-15 minutes each yo-yo. So I got to play with my camera a little more.
And we got to wear the outdoor clothes and hard hats which do a lot to help you feel like you’re doing real hard-core science, kind of like the syringes but in the opposite direction.
But then when the samples did make it up on deck there was LOTS of work to be done. Each of the 3 samples had to be washed very very gently, to avoid damaging the little organisms that live in the soft sediment whilst also making sure they weren’t still covered in mud. Considering the shock these critters must go through they don’t seem too panicked and seem to recover fairly well, going from a dark high pressured area to low pressured and light, it must be quite weird.
After making it through the washing which took the best part of 4 hours for the 3 samples (there was a lot of clay) we had samples to sort, on our white trays. They looked a little like this, sometimes with more rocks, sometimes with less.
Some of the things are easy to spot, some less so ie. The little shell below. Because this is a quantitative, or numbers based, analysis of whats living down there we have to get everything, EVERYTHING!
It’s a great opportunity to listen to some music and start to get a handle on where the little creatures live, what kinds of tubes they build to live in. It’s quite interesting in a destructing kind of way. Once again, the determination of life to use every little skerrick of opportunity to live, thrive and survive.
I’ve mentioned the divers going down before, for a few different things, sometimes they are taking photos, sometimes they are collecting specimens and sometimes they are playing with the moorings. Just for interest, this is the rig they use to take photos, it’s a pretty awesome piece of kit.
I’ve mentioned the divers going down before, for a few different things, sometimes they are taking photos, sometimes they are collecting specimens and sometimes they are playing with the moorings. Just for interest, this is the rig they use to take photos, it’s a pretty awesome piece of kit.
We had a really awesome lecture today about the moorings that are happening around Svalbard and around the world. Hopefully I’ll have time to go into that some more later. There’s some really cool new developments happening in long term monitoring of the deep ocean.
Stay tuned for some more sorting and the beginning of some IDing tomorrow!
Stay tuned for some more sorting and the beginning of some IDing tomorrow!