May 2021

Post-cruise:

The samples are back home safe. We and the team have been working hard to process our samples and analyze the data to put together a story for the site. Our findings will help inform carbon cycling across two oceans and provide ground truthing data for NASA's next phase, the PACE mission. To learn more about this high resolution ocean color sateilite, visit https://pace.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .

There's lots of lab work and writing to do and we arbe busy working away and sharing our findings in conferences. See what the team has been up to:

Postcards from the Field- NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry

EXPORTS News and Announcements

May 2021

EXPORTS PAP Cruise in Review:

Back home safely, here's a slide show of some of our favorite moments. Thank you to all the classrooms who followed our journey and participated through "Ask a Scientist", "Letters to a Marine Scientist" and Twitter! We loved hearing your questions and showing you what we were up to.

My average day started at 2 am, on deck by 2:30 for the first CTD cast of the day. The CTD nisken rosette, collects water from as far down as 1000 m (on this cruise) and brings it up in giant, sealed bottles on deck. We all gather round, take our water from the bottles into new bottles, and head to the lab to filter that water and start all sorts of experiments. From measuring how much bacteria breathe, how much carbon dioxide phytoplankton turn into biomass, and where all that carbon and organic matter goes!

May 4, 2021

We Made It!

After over a month of quarantines and isolation, the research team received notice on April 27th that there was a 24 hour mechanical delay for the RRS James Cook and at least another 24 hours needed to be spent in the hotel. The next day, the team was given an hours notice to meet the bus. The team FINALLY met the vessel.

Then the work began... 9 shipping containers needed to be loaded onto the ship, some of it by hand, over the next 24 hours and set up began. Typically the team has more time to set up, but the RRS James Cook was committed to keeping it's planned departure.

April 23, 2021

Several Days Later...

Yes, I'm still here. It's crunch time! The glider team is already looking at data being sent from the sea gliders, picking the location to send our ships to next week. Counting down the days until we get to move aboard the vessels (Tuesday the 27th).

*Jeopardy music plays in background*

April 19, 2021

Voice of the Sea

Tune in Tuesday at 3:00 pm EDT for the YouTube Premier of EXPORTS Episode 4: Colors of Phytoplankton by Voice of the Sea. Hear some of our scientists talk about what they will be doing on the research cruise, from gliders to phytoplankton. The team will be logged on for the premier and will answer questions from the chat at the end of the episode.

Hope to see you there! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rdrpxSIMG4

Past episodes:

Episode 1 On board the Sally Ride (2018 Survey Ship)

Episode 2 On board the Roger Revelle (2018 Process Ship)

Episode 3 Tracing Carbon Flow to the Deep Sea

April 18, 2021

Trivia Night

Day 5 of isolation, it's Trivia Night! Some fun team bonding/ sorta human interaction...

Don't worry, we are working, planning our experiments, and designing the lab work stations while we are sitting here, but you don't want to see the spreadsheets, trust me. So many spreadsheets...

Instead, try some trivia questions yourself --------------------------------------------->

April 14, 2021

Shaking off the Jetlag

We are now at the Room2 hotel in Southampton, UK. The hotel is adorable, I love it! They greeted us with afternoon tea and showed us to our rooms where we will isolate for 2+ weeks. (I'll tell you how I feel about the room after the 2+ weeks...) We want to make sure everyone is healthy before we board the ships and live/ work in close quarters at sea. Not too much science today, mostly figuring out credit cards, how to Zoom the US, setting up UberEats, and a third day discussing how to open the windows. We'll figure it out...maybe.

Shout out to #room2southampton for taking care of us the next 2 weeks!

April 4, 2021

Seagliders Deploy

Thanks to the Discovery cruise before us (DY130), their science team has dropped off 3 seagliders that will start to survey the PAP site and send us information about the ocean conditions. We will use this information to help pick the spot to send our ships to in May. The gliders also measure water temperature, light and chlorophyll (among other parameters) which helps us track the "bloom conditions" and plan for our experiments. DY130 will leave the gliders at PAP and continue on their way to complete their own science missions.

Thanks DY130!

March 8, 2021

Shipping Day!

These research vessels are designed to do science at sea, but we still need to pack all the supplies and instruments we might need. Here are 11 pallets of lab supplies that will be used by the three lab groups from North Carolina. There's no Wal-Mart in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, so don't forget anything! We are so excited to finally have the labs packed up after so much planning and Covid-19 delays! The supplies will be shipped across the Atlantic and will be waiting for us in the United Kingdom when we arrive.

Fingers crossed for smooth sailing!