Report of Activities on the RVIB N.B.
Palmer Cruise 02-04
August 9 was a very different day from the 8th when we were stuck for a good portion of time and wondering if we were going to go anywhere. On the 9th, we were able to cruise along through the pack ice with no difficulty. Still we did not go very far because there were sufficient predators out on the ice to make the Marine Mammal and Bird Groups on the Gould want to stop and go to work. This was part of the plan for the steam to the southern section of the SO GLOBEC grid, so the investigators on the Palmer were ready with a series of tasks that could be undertaken quickly to take advantage of the break in steaming and kept working. The first encounter with penguins happened right after a fire and boat drill. The sea bird observers were allowed to go back to the bridge after signing in and it was a good thing they did. Right at the end of the session in the Palmer's level 3 conference room, the call came that a big group of Adélie penguins had been spotted. It was an exciting morning chasing penguins. A coordinated effort to capture some of them was mounted by both the Gould and the Palmer. Chris Ribic and Erik Chapman first spotted about 40 to 50 Adélies in a group on the ice pack ahead of the ship about 0930 hrs and they notified the Gould. Then the Gould moved ahead of the Palmer to get next to the penguins, but the penguins started moving away. So the Palmer moved up to cut the escape route and the penguins moved within a short distance of the Palmer before turning back towards the Gould. By this time about 10 investigators from the Gould had been put onto the ice using the forward crane and personnel basket. The investigators began to walk over the ice pack to the penguins. They stopped halfway to the Palmer, fanned out, and crouched down when they realized that the penguins were now moving right back to where they were. When the penguins were within feet of the investigators, the investigators sprang into action capturing with nets quite a number of the penguins. It was an amazing sight with the sun coming up in the background just behind the Gould, which from our vantage point, was directly in line with the investigators and the penguins. It was a scene right out of a movie. After the free-for-all, the Palmer was positioned to allow the HTI acoustic system and the CMiPs/CTD to be deployed as our first attempt at a rapid response to get some work done. Having both pieces of gear in the water turned out not to be good for Kendra Daly's work with the HTI system. The ship had to keep the propellers going to keep the CMiPS/CTD area clear of ice and this messed up Kendra's ability to keep a calibration ball under the pair of transducers.
The Gould had barely completed the work on the penguins when they spotted
four crabeater seals on the ice nearby.
So they again deployed a team on the ice, drugged one of the seals, and
then did their physiological/biochemical measurements and satellite tagged it.
The HTI system was again deployed for some more calibration work, but ice
chunks kept drifting in and interferring, so the ship
moved around and a nice hole was formed.
In the end there was only about 45 minutes of measurements, which was
not enough to complete the work.
Late in the day, the seal work
was completed and we again started to move to the south, but only for a mile or
two. Another set of penguins were seen
and the Gould made a bee-line for
them. On the third stop, Frank Stewart and Jenny Boc
took a group on to the ice to do ice-coring and Scott Gallager
did an ROV under ice survey. Once the Gould finished their work, the work on
the Palmer was stopped and the two
ships again set off along a trackline headed for the
southern sector of the grid at about 5 kts.
The weather on the 9th was ideal
for the science activities on both ships because the winds were light (<10 kts) and there was a good bit of sun during the day, after
the morning clouds gave way to clearer skies. The air temperature was warmer in
the morning (-4.6ºC at 0900) than in the evening (-9ºC at 1900). The lower portions of the mountains of
CTD Group report (Eileen
Hofmann, Baris Salihoglu,
Bob Beardsley, Chris MacKay,
Francisco (
Throughout 9 August and into the
early morning of 10 August we did an XBT survey during the southward transit to
escort the Gould to the first process
site. The XBT survey was ended when the
decision was made to turn offshore and head for an area that the most recent TerraScan image showed to be less ice-covered. The track followed by the Palmer after making this turn was not
conducive to continuing the XBT survey.
During the southward transit, usable temperature data were obtained from 14 XBT probes, either T-7 or T-4 depending on the depth, spaced at about 10 nm intervals. Additional probes were dropped, but interference from the extensive sea ice cover caused the wire to break prior to reaching the bottom or the maximum depth of the XBT. The data from the incomplete XBT drops, however, do provide information on the upper water column.
The XBT transect started north of
A striking feature in the
temperature section is the presence of Circumpolar Deep Water in Marguerite
Trough. This water mass extends from 300
m to 500 m and is found along the northern side of the Trough. Maximum temperature associated with the water
mass is 1.54ºC. During the April-May 2002
The vertical temperature
distribution shows a thick, 80 m to 100 m, Winter Water layer (minimum
temperatures of -1.8ºC) in the upper water column over most of the
transect. At two locations the -1.8ºC
isotherm breaks the sea surface and upper water column temperatures are between
-1.75ºC and -1.78ºC. The locations at
which this occurs are where the northern and southern edges of Marguerite
Trough were crossed. A potential (very
speculative) explanation for this structure in the temperature distribution is
that the abrupt change in bottom topography results in enhanced local mixing
that allows Circumpolar Deep Water to mix with the surface waters. The input of the warmer water from depth would
then warm the surface waters. Understanding the dynamics of how mixing occurs
on the west Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf is the focus of several
research groups involved in the U.S. SO GLOBEC field effort.
Sea Ice Studies (Frank Stewart
and Jenny Boc)
Sea ice biota samples were
collected at three ice stations during the period 6 to 9 August: two near the
west entrance to Crystal Sound northeast of Adelaide Island (6 August, -66º
33.98′S, -67º 32.45′W; 7 August, -66º 31.92′S, -67º 37.84′W)
and one west of Adelaide Island in the immediate vicinity of the L.M. Gould penguin/seal sampling (8/9,
-67º 13.38′S; -70º 38.52′W).
Sea ice at stations covered 9 to 10/10th of sea surface area and was
dominated primarily by consolidated first-year (FY) floes ranging in thickness
from ~0.5 m in west Crystal Sound (7 August) to ~1.4 m in rafted/ridged ice (20
to 30% areal ridge coverage) west of Adelaide Island
(9 August). Consolidated ice cores and
interstitial water (brine) were collected at each station and processed aboard
ship for algal and bacterial biomass and for bacterial community composition (preliminary
data not available). In conjunction with
field sampling, members of the ice collection group, with the generous help of
F. Viddi, R. Beardsley, and S. Beardsley, have taken
shipboard sea ice observations (according to ASPECT protocol) on an hourly
basis beginning at the northern ice edge (~ 60S). Ice conditions along the transit route have
varied considerably, ranging from <1/10th areal
coverage in the
Sea Birds (Chris Ribic and Erik Chapman)
Today (9 August)
the ship traveled with the L.M. Gould,
following in its wake off the western shore of
Marine Mammal report (
During the last two days (8 and 9
August), the Palmer has been
assisting the Gould transit to the
southern sector of the survey grid. Due to the thickness and ice coverage
(10/10) during most of the day on Thursday, the Gould had a difficult time moving through the ice and slow progress
was made. For this reason, and the fact that it was “virus disinfection day”,
only an incidental effort was made. Only some crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophagus)
were seen on 8 August. On 9 August, the day was mainly spent tagging, as well
as diet sampling, seals and penguins by the Gould
team. The bird and marine mammal observer team on Palmer assisted in finding the animals while active counting during
the transit periods. While the penguin tagging and diet sampling was being
carried out at 1110, a dispersed group of crabeater seals was seen (-67º 11.24′S;
70º 32.94′W). Once the work on penguins was done, the Gould headed to the seal group to start
tagging a few animals. After a few hours working on this, and having started
back on the track line, the bird team on the Gould decided to work on three more penguins sighted along the way.
While this event was happening, a minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) was observed at 1611, 62º
to starboard at 0.16 nm from the ship (-67º 13.39′S; 70º 38.49′W).
This whale surfaced for a few times in a very narrow and long lead of open
water.
ROV report (Scott Gallager, Phil Alatalo)
The second ROV deployment in
While waiting for penguins to be
captured from the Gould on 9 August, and
the ice team to take cores and pump microplankton
samples from the Palmer, we had a
quick response opportunity for another ROV deployment, ROV 3. At 1659 local
time, while parked in ice at -67º 13.369′S; -70º 38.604′W, the SeaRover was deployed over the stern by the starboard crane.
The ice was approximately 1 m thick with 50 cm snow cover that blocked the
penetration of any remaining ambient light in the late afternoon hours. Four
transects were made extending out approximately 100 m from the starboard
quarter in a radial pattern. The under ice topography was very rough with
ridges and jagged edges jutting down to a depth of 6 m. The ROV traveled about
3 m below the ice under surface scanning with its stereo cameras, ADCP current
meter, and sonar system for larval krill (furcilia)
and their predators. Furcilia aggregations appeared
sporadically along the transects with organism density
ranging from 10 to a few hundred individuals per group. The larvae were generally
nestled up into the nooks and crannies of the jagged ice, but occasionally
appeared in dense aggregations at the bottom tips of an ice projection. Such
aggregations are probably caused by an interaction between water flow
characteristics around the projection and swimming behavior of the individual furcilia. No furcilia were
observed while the ROV traversed regions of smooth ice. Ctenophore predators
were observed about 1 to 2 m below the ice under surface with tentacles
extended. Body diameters were on the order of 1 to 2 cm, but full
quantification of abundance and size must await further data processing. A
number of large amphipods swam through the light beam and attached to the ice
surface. They remained attached for 10s
of seconds. The entire deployment required 70 minutes from start to finish with
58 minutes of actual surveying time. A photograph was taken from the helicopter
deck to qualify the ice conditions. We hope that additional opportunities will present
themselves as we transit south toward Station 77 where our grid survey will
begin.
Current Position and
Conditions
The third day of our steam
towards the southern sector of the SO GLOBEC grid with the L.M. Gould continued with deviations from
the straight line course to avoid ice pack too thick for the Gould to transit through. Our current position
at 2355 on 10 August is -68º 08.672′S; -75º 25.442′W. The ice pack
is variable with mostly 10/10 coverage, except along the outer continental
shelf. The air temperature is -11.5ºC
and the sea temperature is -1.851ºC. The
barometer (982.6 mb) is rising slowly. Winds are out of the west (269) at about
10-15 kts. The skies are cloudy.
Cheers, Peter