Land ahoy!

What an experience! Lots of science, amazing bird life, terrific people, sealegs that were more like placebo (3 different types!), being sick over the side in the dark and having a wave wash your face straight after...it's great to be home!



Back at Wellington





Niwa



Message in a bottle!

Russell (crew) gave me the idea of throwing a couple of bottles over the side and seeing where they turn up. He had a couple of bottles and corks all ready. It will be really interesting to see where they turn up. Being in the Pacific, they headed south. (Ocean Currents) I wrote a message in them, Russell sealed them up and bon voyage!

Approx position of throwing bottles overboard

Messages all sealed and ready to go!

Airborne!

Last seen sailing south!

The Crew on the RV Tangaroa

Retrieving the Sediment Trap

There was a slight problem finding the southern mooring with the sediment trap. There is an instrument on board that is meant, once lowered below the hull, to talk to the mooring and tell it to release the trap.

Lots of little things were going wrong with this. Most being battery trouble. Fiona has been like MacGyver in trying to get it to go! You really have to think outside the box when a problem arises at sea- no going to the local Dick Smiths! Once this was good to go the signal was sent to the mooring to release the sediment trap, (it takes about 20 min to reappear and all look over the side for it.)

Fiona- aka MacGyver!

 Roger (cpt) shifted the ship around to be close to them and the first was hooked up and pulled on board with the crane. Then the others. It was amazing how long this took and how far away the various floats were. All good though!

 Really cold outside filming this- wind coming straight from Antarctica in the south.

What in the world!- The top of the sediment trap.



Scott Nodder- been on many trips deploying and retrieving these Sediment Traps.



Sea Birds

There were an amazing number of birds out at the Chatham Rise and further south.

I identified Royal Albatross, Wandering Albatross, Buller's Albatross, Sooty Shearwater, and Northern Giant Petrel from a book up on the bridge. Here is a terrific website with info about them.

Watch the way these majestic birds take off- right at the start of this clip.

Stunning Sunsets!

At times like this, you just cant help but count your blessings!

CTD's and DIC's!!

One of the jobs I had on the Tangaroa was to collect water from the CTD instrument for Kim Curry down at Dunedin. There were 2 samples I had to take from different depths and Kim will be running CTD and DIC tests from these. A CTD — Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth — determines the main physical properties of sea water. It gives scientists a precise and comprehensive charting of the distribution and variation of water temperature, salinity, and density that helps to understand how the oceans affect life. A DIC --  Dissolved Inorganic Carbon Profiles -- was the other.

CTD coming back up

The CTD was lowered over the side and sent to the bottom. Then, on its way back up the water column, Nikki told a crewman to stop and start it at different depths and she, using her laptop in a lab, sent the instrument an electronic signal to collect a water sample in a bottle mounted on the instrument's cages.  

Once the CTD was back on deck, Nikki put tags on the bottles, informing us the depths and which ones we could take water from. Different people were taking the water for different tests.  Sometimes another scientist would have their name on the same container, other times I was on my own. For each water depth, I had a plastic 1 litre bottle and a smaller glass (400ml?) bottle. 1^st I attached a plastic tube to the bottom of my water supply.  There is a plug at the bottom you push in once the plastic tubing is on. The actual tap though is at the top. I put a little of the water in my bottle, swished it around and poured it over the cap.

Taking a water sample- interesting temperature variation at different places.

Did this 3 times to wash out the bottle. Then filled it, taking care not to get air bubbles in it. With the 1 litre plastic bottles, I had to leave a 5ml (1 teaspoon) gap at the top. This was tricky sometimes because it is easy to squeeze the bottle! The glass ones had to be filled, then keep filling for 1 ½ times. (overflowing) The way to do this was to fill the bottle, counting up to say 20, then let the water overflow, counting another 20, then 10. Just before I put the cap back on I had to tip a bit out (1cm gap at top)

The levels for memory were 3000m, 2500, 2000, 1500, 1000, 750, 500, 300, 200, 175, 150, 125, 100, 75, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10m. These were done over two drops. The 1^st being the deep water then the top 10.
Once done, we had to put poison in the bottles to kill off any thing! Mercuric chloride. HgCl₂
Very carefully done in a lab with a fume vent, special rubber gloves, and plastic glasses to protect your eyes. Scott put 2 drops into each bottle while I screwed them up tight. I’m going to be doing this next time- yikes!


Carefully adding HgCl₂in lab


Finally we put a paraffin tape around each bottle to seal them. They will all go to Kim Curry to work on.
I did the 2^nd lot of filling all by myself which was cool. Scott must have thought I was doing an ok job to leave me to it!

Water Pressure

There is a lot of pressure in the ocean with all the weight of the water above it pressing down. To see what this means, I brought along some polystyrene cups with me. There were put in a stocking and tied to the multicorer. This multicorer went down to 3000m (that's 3km of water above you!) . Look at how the pressure of all this water compressed the cups!

WOW!

Multicorer

The multicorer is used to examine a small amount of the surface sediments. Up to eight tubes are lowered down to the sea bed and pushed into the soft sediment.

 As they are pulled back up, these tubes are sealed at either end so that a small plug of undisturbed mud is hauled up to the ship- can you see the tubes with sediment in them below?



Valley of Death- Chatham Rise Sediment



Southern Ocean Sediment

The sediment was different colours and texture at the different locations. Above is an example of Southern Ocean sediment which was quite pale. The Valley of Death is an area just south of the Chatham Rise. This area may have a methane gas issue as nothing grows here (hence Scott Nodder giving it this name!) This had a darker colour. On the Rise itself, the multicorer was sent over twice as it hit a rather harder surface. In the Northern area, the sediment had a definate muddier colour and was more clay-like in appearance.

Once back on board, the tubes were scooped, sliced and diced for a load of things such as sediment characteristics, bacterial analysis and sieving out the animals that live in various horizontal sections.

Marine Worm from the Chatham Rise- put in a jar with a water proof label saying where and when. (Lid labelled as well)

Tangaroa's Dynamic Positioning System - How does it work?

RV Tangaroa has a DP2 system - currently the only one on a New Zealand vessel. This dynamic positioning system enables more accurate manoeuvring and path following capabilities for enhanced science work - Greg Foothead explains. 

Day One on the RV Tangaroa

We left Wellington a little late as there were a few engineering problems to sort out. On our way just after 4pm, a glorious day! Very strange heading straight out of Wellington Harbour rather than turning right towards Picton. I forgot how big the south coast of the North Island is! A lot of land to the right (or left!) of Wairarapa.

We headed south for a bit and then took the first CTD samples out in Cook Strait. This is something I got to do quite often on the trip.

Up on deck, I was amazed to see, while land was in sight, little fairies (dandelion seeds) blowing around. You almost wish them well, having travelled so far! 

After this, we were rewarded in a splendid sunset over the Kaikouras.



On the Tangaroa!

The RV Tangaroa



RV Tangaroa. Photo: Dave Allen, NIWA



This is one of Niwa's Scientific Research Vessels- the one I'm sailing out to Chatham Rise on tomorrow!

There are 29 people on this trip. The Captain, Engineers, 1st and 2nd Mate, Cooks, Bosun, Deckhands, and scientific staff (I guess I'm counted as one of them!)

Here is a cabin plan. My cabin will be on the main deck- cabin 122

How a Sediment Trap Works

Dr Scott Nodder is a Marine Geologist who works at Niwa. He will be going out to the Chatham Rise on the Tangaroa with me checking on the Sediment Traps that are moored out there. Scott had a couple of these traps in the warehouse at Niwa. Here is a short video clip of him explaining how a Sediment Trap works. 


Sediment Traps look like a huge funnel and are put out just above the seabed to collect material falling from overhead — the Marine Snow) The traps can be placed anywhere in the water column, down to about 6000 m!
At the top end they are wide open so that they can catch all the material falling to the seafloor over an area of about 1 metre². Anything that falls into the top of the funnel then slides down the smooth sloping walls of the funnel to the bottom and into a collecting bottle. Instead of having a single bottle at the bottom, the trap has 21 separate bottles on a rotating stage. At set intervals, the stage rotates, closing off the current bottle and positioning a new bottle under the funnel to collect a new sample.

Sediment Traps

Photo:Niwa

 When I go out to the Chatham Rise, I’ll be helping check on the Sediment Traps that Niwa has out there. Sediment Traps are large, funnel- shaped contraptions that collect organic material (like plankton, plant parts, and fish poo!) All this organic matter is called “Marine Snow”. Often many particles stick together to make flakes that can be several cm wide. Being this large, they can sink ‘quickly’ through the water, falling hundreds of metres each day. This “marine snow” can take 20–30 days to reach the ocean floor 2–3 km down. As they sink, they are broken down by animals and bacteria in the cold, dark waters of the deep ocean. Also they provide food for animals at the bottom of the sea (e.g., worms, crabs, starfish).

What do you take on a scientific research vessel?

Here's a list of all the things I have to take on the Tangaroa with me...

• Hard Hat
• Life-Jacket
• Overalls
• Wet Weather Gear
• Gloves
• Floatation jacket
• Steel-cap gumboots

I had to have the steel-capped boots for the trip to Bluff (not too sure how handy they will be in the classroom though!) Thankfully, I can borrow most of this gear from Niwa. They give you a big plastic box to store all this gear in while at sea. 

Our Sunlit Ocean - a Biological Pump

Did you know that there is a huge connection between our oceans and our atmosphere?  The top layer of oceans is soaked in sunlight during the daytime. This bright ocean layer is called the euphotic zone (euphotic means "well lit" in Greek) and is about 200 m (the depth of the ocean averages about 4,000 m) The temperature in this zone ranges from -2 to 40°C.

In this zone, there is enough light for photosynthesis to take place. In fact, most of the life in the ocean is found in this zone and there is heaps of food, although it is the smallest ocean zone in terms of volume of water.

 Most of the oxygen is produced by phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are the first link in the food chain in the ocean. Because of this food source, many animals also live in this zone. Photosynthesis is a process in which sunlight and carbon dioxide gas are converted into food (chemical energy contained in carbohydrates) and oxygen. We know about this with plants on land but it is just as an important process under water. They call it the “biological pump” here. The taking of light and carbon dioxide and converting it to oxygen.

Photosynthesis in the oceans creates approximately 90% of the Earth's oxygen!



http://terra.nasa.gov/FactSheets/Oceans/



Desert dust and carbon dioxide settle into the ocean and act as "fertilizer" to stimulate the growth of phytoplankton, enhancing the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (the "biological pump). Over time, more than 90 % of the world's carbon has settled into the deep ocean.

"Our Far South" voyagers return!

 Video clip from TVNZ One News tonight.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/antarctica-trip-inspires-kiwis-act-4769540

Off to Sea!

I'm busy getting gear ready for a trip out to sea. Friday week I'm heading out to the Chatham Rise on the Tangaroa Very excited but nervous as well! There is a group of Scientists checking the moorings they have out there.

This is an interesting area with the Chatham Rise being a dividing line between the Sub-Antarctic waters to the south and the Sub-tropical waters to the north. I've already ordered my sea sick tablets- Paihia Bombs have been recommended  (had to ring the Paihia Pharmacy for these!)
 Reading up all about Sediment traps in the meantime as well- more to come on this!

The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt

The oceans are made up of warm salty water near the surface over cold, less salty water in the ocean depths. The ocean currents are driven mostly by the wind. 
In some areas near the polar oceans, the colder surface water also gets saltier due to evaporation or sea ice formation. In these regions, the surface water becomes dense enough to sink to the ocean depths. 

The oceans are made up of warm salty water near the surface over cold, less salty water in the ocean depths. The ocean currents are driven mostly by the wind. 
In some areas near the polar oceans, the colder surface water also gets saltier due to evaporation or sea ice formation. In these regions, the surface water becomes dense enough to sink to the ocean depths. 
This pumping of surface water into the deep ocean forces the deep water to move horizontally until it can find an area on the world where it can rise back to the surface and close the current loop. -usually occurs in the equatorial ocean, mostly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. This very large, slow current is called the Thermohaline circulation because it is caused by temperature and salinity (haline) variations. 
The above animation shows one of the major regions where this pumping occurs, the North Atlantic Ocean around Greenland, Iceland, and the North Sea. The animation also shows another feature of the global ocean circulation: the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The colour on the world's ocean's at the beginning of this animation represents surface water density, with dark regions being most dense and light regions being least dense. 
The depths of the oceans are highly exaggerated to better illustrate the differences between the surface flows and deep water flows. 
All credit due to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre Scientific Visualization Studio.

Enhancing Leadership Course- Dunedin

Ross Notman, myself, and Kris Cooper (Course Lecturers)

I survived and thrived on the “Enhancing Leadership” week long course.  A time of reflecting and looking at any leadership strengths I have. The 360 degree assessment was helpful and full of insight. The Myers Briggs Personality Test found me out to be an ESFJ and it was fun and made sense seeing why I do what I do! Another part of the Myers Briggs Session was to understand the different personality types and how to work with these differences.

The whole Leadership Course was a practical course - learning how to build on my strengths in the areas of managing change, setting the tone and strategy, and motivating people

Thoroughly recommend the text for the course- Kouzes & Posner 'The Leadership Challenge'. (Click on image for link)

One neat side line was that Ross Notman is the cousin on Pete Notman (Niwa) who took those awesome photos earlier of the sea floor at Bluff- a small world!

Our Far South Video Clip

Tour of Dunedin