The Story of the Styrofoam Cups

Hello!

This past spring we visited Ms. Carrithers's fourth grade class at Chase Street Elementary School as part of our NSF grant outreach, and told them about the things we would be working on during this cruise.  While we were there, we talked about how much pressure there is underwater and about the special instrument we have to send down to collect water from depths up to 5,000 meters.  As an activity, we had the kids decorate styrofoam cup  for us to bring on this cruise and send down with the rosette.  Our story of the cups is a little more complicated than just sending them down and bring them back up.  So here it is, told in pictures.

Here is Leanne stuffing the cups with toilet paper so that they don't collapse in on themselves under the pressure

We put the stuffed cups in a laundry bag.  There were so many from Chase Street Elementary, and from the science party onboard.

Securing the bag on the rosette with lots and lots of zip ties.

Deployment of the rosette with all the cups.

Recovering the rosette

But there were no cups.  The laundry bag seam had spit open, and all but one cup was lost in the North Pacific.  On the bright side, the fish have some beautiful decorations for their homes!

We had some extra cups, so we decorated them for Chase Street Elementary, and tried to deploy them.  We were not going to give up on these kids!

Here is the rosette going in to the water.  So far no cups had gotten loose!

Before sending the cups down

Success!!!

Admiring the shrunken cups

It was a long and emotional journey, but the important thing is that we got some shrunken cups for the kids at Chase Street Elementary!  And we managed to make one for the Miller Lab back in Athens.

We will be back on land tomorrow- it's hard to believe we've been on this boat for three weeks!

See you land-lovers soon!

- Meg

The CTD Men

These two guys are Ryan and Cole.  They are responsible for getting all the water bottles ready for collecting water all the way to the bottom of the ocean (over 5000 meters in some spots) and closing them at the correct depths that are requested by the scientists.  It is a very important jobs because if the bottles don't close at the right places, we researchers don't get the water to study that we want.  They are doing a great job..... so far.  But we only have two more stations to stop and collect, so odds are pretty good they will finish with a gold star each!!  Thanks CTD men!

- Bill


CTD = conductivity, temparature, depth (conductivity tells us how salty the water is...).  Oh and Hello to Marcie!!!

Fixing the FeLume

Hi all!

Bill and Jade working away

Our beautiful standards!

Yesterday we had a lot of samples that came out of the solar simulator that we analysed for carbon monoxide, hydrogen peroxide, and photochemical fading (basically, the last one is looking at how much the molecules in the solution absorb light).  When we started up our instruments to prepare to run the samples, the instrument we use to measure hydrogen peroxide (the FeLume) was not working properly.  So Jade and Bill set out to fix the problem!  They changed tubing, check connections, changed reagents, and checked many other

things to no avail.  Jade had a few of the main components of the FeLume that she brought with her just in case we needed them, and she decided that it was time to take the FeLume apart and switch them out!  So she and Bill replaced what's called the flow cell, where our chemiluminescent reaction takes place and the detector measures how much light is produced.  That seemed to help, but when they ran solution through the flow cell they found a leak!  Jade was so scared that the flow cell might be broken, but luckily it was a minor problem that we fixed with relative ease.  To make sure everything was working properly, we ran our standards.  Standard solutions are ones that we make in seawater, and add in known amounts of hydrogen peroxide.  That way, we can relate the signal the FeLume gives us to the concentration of hydrogen peroxide present in the solution, and can calculate the amount of hydrogen peroxide in our samples that we irradiate with the solar simulator (or solar similar-ator as I think Bill called it in his previous post).  As you can see in the picture, our standards came out beautifully!  You can clearly see how the the increasing concentrations of hydrogen peroxide that we added effects the FeLume signal (the first three peaks are just the seawater with no hydrogen peroxide added, and we increase the concentration up to 100 nanomolar).  We had a lot of samples to run once the FeLume was fixed, but at least we were able to run them!!  And all the samples that we've run today have looked GREAT!  Let's hope that tomorrow is just as good.

Best,
Meg

P.S.  Keep tuned for a blog post about the chemiluminescent reaction that we use to measure how much hydrogen peroxide is in our solution.  It's pretty cool!

Meet the Chief Scientist

Dennis Hansell, a professor at the University of Miami, is what we call the Chief Scientist for this expedition.  That is the person that talks to the Captain of the ship and plans where to go, when to stop, how to deploy the rosette for getting water for ALL the scientists on board.  If anything goes wrong with the science experiments, the Chief Scientist is the one that works it out with the ship Captain and Crew.  It is a big job to coordinate all the science activities that happen of a big ship like the Melville.  Dennis has been doing a great job.  We are getting everything done and on schedule for a safe return to Seattle.  You can tell the cruise is going really well.... just look at the smile of Dr. Hansell's face!!!


- Bill

Bringing the Sun Inside!!

We have 2 solar simulators (the white boxes)

So, what happens when you want to study the effect of sunshine on the chemicals in the ocean but it is all cloudy and rainy?  If we depend on the real sun for our experiments and it doesn’t shine, we could be stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do!!! 

To make sure that doesn’t happen, we bring the sunshine into the lab with a machine called a solar simulator.  It has a special lamp filled with a gas called xenon that produces light that is similar to sunlight.  Maybe it should be called a solar “similar-ator” huh? 

Anyway, with this machine, we bring the sun into the ship!!  There we can carefully measure all the chemical changes that the sun will cause when it IS shining... whether it really shines or not.   

      

Problem solved!!

-Bill

Sunshine under the Solar "Similar-ator"

Calibrated Eyeballs

Hey guys,

Today we have been at the same station all day which has given us time to catch up with some experiments in the lab!  In one of our experiments, we have to add a certain amount of a chemical reagent to a certain amount of seawater.  To add another level, we also have to know how much seawater is left after each experiment so that we can use the same water.  That wouldn't be too hard if we had a beaker with marks on it, but ours is a special jacketed beaker (water circulates through the outside to keep a constant temperature) and it doesn't have any marks!  So we had to make our own.  Leanne measured out 50 milliliters of water and poured it in to our beaker, and I used a sharpie to mark the level of the water.  Then she added 50 more milliliters and I added another mark.  I then measured the distance between the two marks and used that to make the next mark until we reached 600 milliliters.  But later on when we were ready to start our experiment, Professor Bill measured out 200 milliliters and poured it in the marked beaker and it didn't reach the 200 milliliter mark!!!  So instead of redoing the marks on the beaker (they were sharpie), we calibrated our eyeballs.  In order to do this we found the distance from the beaker we had to stand for the water level to look like it was at 200 milliliters.  But since we are all different heights, we had different spots, and I marked them with a piece of tape.  That way, when we stand on our personal tape mark we will be able to tell how much water is in the beaker.  You might be wondering why we had to do this if Leanne and I measured out the water.  In a perfect world, that would have worked.  However, we assumed that the beaker was the same size on the inside all the way up, which may not be the case.  Also, it was a fun exercise!

The beaker with my marks

Bill calibrating his eyeballs

Our tape marks (the taller people are further back) 

The full view

This is Norbert, our new friend in the lab thanks to Meredith

Fishy Business at Albatross Banks

photo by  Joe Ferris

Yesterday, since the weather has been very nice and we are ahead of schedule with our science, we stopped to fish just south of Kodiak Island, Alaska (...see if you can find that on the map!) at a place called Albatross Banks (named for the Albatross birds that fly around there).  The scientists and ship's crew caught a bunch of fish!  Big ones!  Some 20 pounds or more. We used pretty yucky bait but it worked!!  We caught cod and Halibut.  Halibut is like a flounder and is pretty weird.  Look at the picture below and find the eyes all on one side of its head, one right next to its mouth!  It's eyes are like that because it lays on the bottom and hides in the sand, and it needs both of its eyes pointed up to see its meal when it swims by.  Too bad it mistook our hook for a tasty meal... but everybody on the ship is eating fresh fish for OUR meals now.  We had fish tacos and baked fish already...Mmmmmmm good!  

-Bill

Bait is pretty gross but it works!!

Halibut Head with Wierd Eyes!

    

The Mornings Catch: Pacific Cod on the left in front and Halibut.

Waiting for the Trip to 4000 meters

Waiting for the Plunge.

Decorated Head

 So this is interesting....  while we brought cups decorated by the Chase Elementary 4th grade class to shrink when we send them to 4000 meters, a group from Miami Florida brought styrofoam wig holders.  They are tied in the window along the hall waiting for their long trip to the bottom of the ocean where all the air will be squeezed out of their heads.  We know the cups will shrink, but how small will these heads get?  We will be sure to post the results.  And while you think about it, take a look at this freaky one that someone has already decorated.  It weirds me out every time I pass it on the way to the galley to eat!!!

Cheers!!
Bill

Oh Hey Alaska!

Good afternoon!

We were up at 5:00am this morning to run experiments and to collect water from our 14th station and were lucky enough to see the sun rise over Alaska!  It was the first land we've seen since we left Seattle.

We were traveling north, so by the time we reached our next station it was late morning and the mountains were much clearer.  We could even see the snow on them!  Now we have a long steam to the next station- we won't be there until tonight.  So in the meantime we will continue running our photochemical experiments on water we have collected.

It's time to take a sample out from under the solar simulator!

Bye,

Meg

Measuring the Sun

Hey Guys!

Today was nice and sunny, so we decided to go out on the deck and measure the sun.  You might be wondering why we would need to do this.  Well, there are other scientists on the cruise who are doing incubations for their experiments, and these incubations are in tanks on the deck of the ship.

But for these measurements they need to know how much sunlight is shining on their incubations, so that's what we were measuring for them!  The scans take about thirty minutes each, so Jade and Leanne decided to get some exercise while we waited.

Until next time,

Meg

P.S.  Follow the R/V Melville by visiting www.sailwx.info/shiptrack

We Saw Whales!

Hey guys,

So today while we were in the lab working, one of the crew members came in and told us that there was a whale off the port side of the ship!  See if you can identify what kind of whale it is by the fin and post your guesses on the page.  We have a few guesses of what we think it is, but we're not completely sure...

To all the kids at Chase Street Elementary School, hope you have a great first day of school!!

- Meg

How do you collect samples from the ocean?

It's our first day really out at sea (in the Pacific Ocean!) and we are in the middle of processing the samples we collected from our first "station".  A station is a place in the ocean we stop to collect samples - for this trip we are planning for 30 stations, which means we will stop at least once a day.

I captured this image from my phone last night as we were passing through the Puget Sound out into the ocean.  You can see where Seattle is located (again, that's where we started) and we just west of here now, out in the ocean.  We'll try to get a map posted for you guys so you can keep track of where we are!

We got to our first station around 10:00 AM today, and dropped the CTD into the water.  The CTD is an instrument that allows us to measure how cold the ocean is, how salty it is, and how much oxygen is there at a specific depth.  For this station, we lowered the CTD down to 2500 meters, which is just over 1.5 miles deep!  The water down here was about 2 degrees Celsius, which is just above freezing.  Jade's hands got really cold holding the bottle from the deep water!

The picture above shows Leanne, Jade, and Meg collecting water from the bottles on the CTD.  The other great part about this instrument is that there are bottles on it that we can use to capture water samples from any depth we want to.  This works by leaving the bottles open when we put the CTD in, and then we can press a button on the ship and the bottle will snap shut, keeping whatever seawater was in there at the time.  Being able to tell the CTD what to do from the ship is awesome, because otherwise someone would have to swim all the way down there and close the bottle themselves!  And that would be really hard without very special equipment or a submarine because of all the pressure, so this makes it easier.

Once we have opened the bottle we want (thankfully they have numbers so we know which bottle holds water from a specific depth), we pour the water in a container to bring back into our lab on the ship.  Then we use a lot of different types of equipment to find out how much carbon is in the water, or whether we can make chemicals in it using light, etc.  For my experiments I will be mostly filtering water to bring home to Georgia where I can figure out what kinds of microorganisms (bacteria or archaea - these are tiny cells that live in the ocean that we can't see, but are very important in recycling certain chemicals for other organisms to live) are there.  Here's a couple pictures of the lab fully set up for Leanne, Bill, Feng, Meg, and Jade:

Well, back to work!  We'll update you again soon, and let us know if there's anything you want to know that we've left off!

-Bradley

And We're Off!!

Entering the Lock

 Hey!

Draining the Water

Today we left to go out into the open ocean!  In order to get out from where we were docked, we had to go under a couple of drawbridges and one lock.  That's what is in the pictures you see here.  A lock is used to accomodate differences in water height between two areas.  The water that we were going into was lower than the water that we were in.  So we entered the lock and the water was drained until we reached the level of the water we were going in to.  As you can see in the second picture, it was much lower!  So far the seas haven't been bad- but we only got into open ocean a couple hours ago.

Bye for now,
Meg

Cupcakes for Breakfast!!

Mmmmm... Bubble Gum and White Chocolate Raspberry

Hey guys!

We arrived in Seattle Thursday night at 9:00pm (midnight east coast time!), and we spend all day yesterday working to get the lab set up.  It was tough work because we had to lift several palettes with a bunch of boxes onto the ship using a huge crane.  Then we wheeled those up close to the lab door so that everyone could bring their equipment into the main lab.  At first it looked pretty messy in the lab, but right now it is looking better.  We will post a picture of the lab once we get everything set up.

As you can see in the picture posted with this blog post, there were cupcakes for breakfast today!  There was other food too, like eggs and hash browns, but obviously the cupcakes were the most important part.  As Jade (an undergraduate from Colby College and my roommate here) and I were commenting about having cupcakes for breakfast, one of the crew members said, "Just wait until you see dessert!"- this sounds like it's my kind of ship if we eat like this!!

Cheers,
Meg

Mr. Bill

Professor Bill and his Friend Mr. Bill

Oh Nooooooooo!!!  

Less than 24 hours until we fly to Seattle, Washington to meet the ship and begin setting up our lab, tying everything down, and preparing to sail into the Pacific Ocean in search of DORC. Have we packed everything? Are we ready?  Will the weather be good?  Will the waves be big?  Will we all be sick?  Will we see whales? or maybe Meg's favorite, sharks? Will our experiments work?

Soooo many questions.  Follow us to find out some answers.  See ya at Sea.

Getting Ready to Leave!

Only three days left until the UGA DORC crew leave for Seattle to meet the ship!  Last week we packed the whole lab and shipped it, so it should be arriving in Seattle very soon.  We had about thirty boxes!!  Now we've just got to get our personal luggage together and we'll be all set!