Mark McKay's Journals
July 8, 2009 - 3:13pm
Well during the night we arrived at our most northerly and westerly position of the expedition. I was up collecting water samples from the CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth) probe and it was as cold as one would expect it to be given our position. The foghorn, which is right above my cabin by the way, was going all night because of the thick fog we have been in for the last couple of days. We have since turned south and are following the 70-meter line, which will bring us back to Dutch...
July 4, 2009 - 6:41pm
Its been a little difficult to get work done here on the Knorr for the last couple of days. The ocean has been giving us 15 foot swells most of yesterday and today. It has slacked off a little but it is supposed to get a little rougher in the next 24 hours. Nothing seems to stop, everyone keeps working even with the deck rocking. You do get used to it after awhile. I wonder what solid land is going to feel like when we get off of the ship.
I attached a short video of our current sea condition...
Bering Sea Conditions
July 1, 2009 - 1:38pm
What a busy couple of days we have had here on the Knorr. We have been crisscrossing the shelf following a plankton bloom we can see from the MODIS satellite. MODIS, which stands for Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, is a key instrument aboard both the Terra and Aqua satellites. Terra's orbit around the Earth is timed so that it passes from north to south across the equator in the morning, while Aqua passes south to north over the equator in the afternoon. Terra MODIS and Aqua...
June 27, 2009 - 7:32pm
It has been a very strange couple of days. One of the routines that you have to get used to on a research vessel is that there are no routines. When I first got on the ship I went to bed at regular times, eat my meals at the same time, for a couple of days at least. Now that I have a project that I am working on I have to be available to collect samples whenever and wherever they are required. A lot of what I have to do is to balance collecting samples in route between stations verses...
June 24, 2009 - 7:57pm
It has been a very busy couple of days here on the Knorr. I haven’t received very much sleep. But then again, none of the science team has either. We have been a little ahead of schedule so it was decided that we could stay on station at a pretty interesting site for a longer period of time and due some diurnal studies, meaning, how are the organisms and ecosystems we are studying changing as we cycle through daytime to night. I am working on a project on phytoplankton so this was especially...
June 22, 2009 - 4:38pm
We spent the day cruising in one of the shallowest regions of the entire expedition. The depth below us is only about 40 meters. We are also getting close to what ice is still present this time of the year. I checked with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu/arcticseaicenews/) to see what the status of the sea ice in the arctic currently is. So far I haven’t seen any ice but I am keeping a look out for it. Of course we cant see anything, we are cruising through...
June 20, 2009 - 6:25pm
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Some very interesting activities have been going happening on board the Knorr the last couple of days. While everyday there is a routine of cruising to a station, stopping and dropping plankton nets and/or other probes, other, more exotic experiments get deployed. For example, yesterday researcher Pat Kelley from the University of Rhode Island and his team retrieved sediment traps that they had set out 24 hours before. Their interest is seeing what is settling to the...
June 18, 2009 - 6:37pm
Thursday, June 18, 2009
In the middle of this great big Bering Sea, who would have thought that we would meet up with another research vessel going to the same station at the same time as us? The NOAA ship R/V Oscar Dyson was in our area. This ship’s primary objective is to study and monitor Alaskan pollock and other fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The ship also observes weather, sea state, and other environmental conditions, conducts habitat assessments, and surveys marine...
June 17, 2009 - 5:33pm
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
During the night the Knorr turned south westward to start it’s collecting along the CN (Cape Newenhan) line. We had skirted the edge of Bristol Bay before heading back out to into the Bering Sea. The expedition is following a plan that lets it stop at locations they have stopped at in previous years. This allows the scientists to compare data from multiple years so they can get a more accurate picture of what’s happening in the Bering Sea.
When I got up this...
June 16, 2009 - 4:49pm
Monday, June 15, 2009
Well things are starting to settle into a routine here on the Knorr. What appears to be chaos is actually a very well staged operation. Everything has a place and is secured so as it doesn’t become a hazard in rough seas. The researchers and crew all know their jobs and the ship runs like a well-oiled machine. There are several science labs here onboard. The largest is the main lab pictured below, but there are other labs, which serve specific purposes, spread through...
June 15, 2009 - 12:55pm
Sunday, June 14, 2009
We are underway!!! Got up this morning to a flurry of activity as the Knorr was preparing to get underway. I hooked up with my researcher Dr. Ray Sambrotto from Columbia University. His interests are in phytoplankton and the different chlorophylls they produce. There is a lot of plankton work happening on this cruise, as well as some benthic (seafloor) studies and surveying of seabirds. It’s amazing how much science they squeeze into a cruise.
One of the things I saw as we...
June 10, 2009 - 9:11am
Wow! I woke up this morning and it really hit me that in a couple of days I will be on the R/V Knorr heading out of Dutch Harbor, AK heading for the Bering Sea. How cool is that? I have spent the last several weeks making preparations both personally and at my school for this trip. Have a lot to do. Arranging live events with the help of the great ARCUS staff, getting my paperwork done at school, and getting the family situated for me to be gone for a month.
The vessel I will be on is...
February 26, 2009 - 8:55am
Okay, note to self; check batteries in cameras before heading out in the field when it is this cold!
Had a very interesting day. We are in Fairbanks right at the time that the winners of the Yukon Quest 1000 Mile International Sled Dog Race cross the finish line a couple of blocks from where we are doing our training. According to the office race webpage (http://www.yukonquest.com) its name from the "highway of the north," the Yukon River, which was a historic winter land routes...
February 23, 2009 - 4:54pm
“Just think about the fool who by his virtue can be found in a most unusual situation playing jester to the clown”
Gordon Lightfoot
I thought the above song lyric was appropriate; I just got done pouring water onto my laptops screen during our training session. I would be upset but this training is so cool that nothing going to bother me today. I have had an opportunity to meet some incredible teachers and the staff of ARCUS, the organization who is responsible for our time here...