Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Today with the help of Katlin and Lisa I was able to finish up my incubation experiments and begin packing up all of my samples for the night. Since most of my samples are frozen to prevent further demethylation and methylation of mercury from the time they were collected the most important thing I have to do tonight is organize my bottles in the freezer. When I get back to WSU I will test the incubation samples for rate of methylation/demethylation of mercury, and I will also test water samples taken at various depths at each station to show NO3, DOC, MMHg, Dissolved Trace Metals. The incubation water will also be tested for TOC, Fe, and bacteria count.



Tonight I watched my last sunset at sea as we deployed the mini rosette for the last time. I will miss the experiences at sea, but I am glad to be done because the mini rosette gets a little heavy after a while.



I would like to thank NSF for funding the cruise and experiments. Also a big thank you to the crew of the R/V Endeavor for keeping the ship on track, helping collect our samples, and providing fabulous meals. Thank you Mercury Team for teaching me more lab procedures in 11 days than I ever would learn in a class room. Thank you Dr. Hammerschmidt for allowing me to work with you while I work on my masters. Lastly, thank you Tristan for helping filter the water I will use in my experiments/analysis.


Will

The Mercury Team!

Back row left to right: Dr. William Fitzgerald, Dr. Chad Hammerschmidt, Will Ehresman, Allan Hutchins, Prentiss Balcom, Tristan Kading
Front row left to right: Lisa Romas, Katlin Bowman, Michael Finiguerra, Amina Schartup, Lynne Butler, Dr. Maria Andersson

What an Experience

What an experience this has been! Tonight I watched one last sunset on the bow of the ship, surrounded by nothing but ocean and it felt amazing. For an undergraduate from Ohio, this has been quite an opportunity. I feel that I have learned so much about the ocean, things I had never even given thought to before. The beauty of it all is that the discovery has just begun. We will be bringing back coolers full of water samples and sediment samples, and carboys full of sea water to analzye and learn more about mercury in the ocean. Life at sea has been an adventure! Now I am going to end my last flux chamber experiment, then the rest of the evening will be spent packing up. We should arrive at port tomorrow around 1pm, back in Ohio Thursday.



-Katlin

Acknowledgements

This evening, we have reached our final station (#15). I have had an amazing adventure thus far. In fact, this experience has totally surpassed any expectations I had formulated prior to the cruise. I never imagined how exhilarating it would be out on the ocean completing research! I honestly do not want to return to land! This is especially ironic for myself, because I have long had a personal battle with motion sickness; however, it the same respect this cruise is truly meaningful to me because I have made significant achievements, both scientifically and personally.

Thank you to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for funding this research cruise on the biogeochemistry of mercury in the oceans!!!

If it were not for this organization, we could never have afforded to conduct such unprecedented research. The data that we have collected from this research cruise promise to further advance the current state of knowledge on (methyl)mercury in the Atlantic Ocean and its sediments.

I also want to thank all of the crew members, whom have been so very helpful and kind throughout our trip. Thank you for working so hard and sharing your stories with us! Perhaps we will see you again on another cruise in the future.

Thank you to the entire scientific party. It has been incredible getting to know some of the most intelligent and proficient scientists in the mercury field. Everyone has been so caring and I have had a blast conducting research with you all. We must keep in touch!

Finally, I would like to give special thanks to Dr. Chad Hammerschmidt and Dr. William Fitzgerald. Both of you did a phenomenal job with logistics, guidance, and enabling us to efficiently and effectively collect samples. I, as I am sure everyone else, recognize the tremendous amount of time and effort you put in to make this a very successful research cruise!

All too soon we will be back at port in RI…tomorrow afternoon! We have a lot of packing to do and our final station to complete before we can return home.

My sincerest gratitude to you all,
Lisa

Station 12

This was one of the last cores we took from station 12. The depth was 3200 meters which was our deepest core yet, and one of our most successful. We were able to collect eight cores from just the one box.

Michael spent the better part of last night when we were on station trying to catch a squid. After a few hours of failed attempts he finally caught one in a net he got from the crew. After a few pictures he finally let Mr. Inky (the squid) go unharmed.

Mud!

Yesterday, we spent the majority of our day at station 12. By the time we finally obtained a successful sediment core, we decided to have some fun with the mud. We painted our faces with deep sea mud!

Next, we cleaned up while the boat was repositioning so we could deploy the rosette a few more times. While we were out collecting water samples, we could see the amazing nocturnal sea creatures. We saw tons of squid. These agile organisms were under about one foot in length and changed brilliant colors (deep red, purple and white) as they gracefully darted through the water, chasing their prey. There were flying fish, as well! Never before have I seen such awesome creatures!
~Lisa

Monday, August 25, 2008



We have been sending Styrofoam cups down with the box corer and rosettes in a mesh bag. The high pressure (about 320 atmospheres or 4700 psi where we sampled from) near the ocean floor pushes all of the air out of the Styrofoam and shrinks the cup; so the cup on the left was the size of the cup on the right when we started! We write and decorate the cups before they go down. This one is for you Bowman family, it went down 3176 meters :)

The only sun we saw on Sunday, but it was worth it!
~r o u g h s e a s~

Wet and foggy day!
This morning when I woke up I was surprised to see calm seas. Yesterday was rough weather, the winds got up to 27 knot winds with 5ft swells which made for rough seas mixed in with some rain. Good thing we all have our sea legs by now! A piece of framing from the box corer got ripped off during sampling and we ended up having to use a Van Veen to collect our samples. It has a similar design to the box corer, but is designed more to scoop up sediment and does not bring up as much pore water. We were still able to collect some samples though! Dr. Hammerschmidt was up late with the ship's technicans working on the box corer but they were able to get everything fixed. They say it should work even better than before!

Right now we are at station 12 which is about 3200 meters deep. There havn't been many scientist that have box cored this deep to study methyl mercury so this is a big step for us! It should take about 1 hour for the box corer to go down, and another hour to recover so hopefully all goes well!

This morning we began to pack up some of our science equipment and samples that don't need to be kept cool. Tomorrow will be our last full day at sea, we will be back on land sometime Wednesday afternoon. I can't believe the trip is almost over, I'm going to miss the ocean so much once I'm back in Ohio!

-Katlin

Sunday, August 24, 2008


Brining up the zooplankton net; next Michael will separate the zooplankton by size to measure methyl mercury concentrations and to use in different experiments.

Michael Finiguerra, a University of Connecticut PhD student, and chief scientist Dr. Fitzgerald are getting ready to send down the zooplankton net!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Today I finished the last water collection for my incubation experiments. I have completed 2 out of 5 station for the actual incubation period of 96 hrs. At 24, 48, and 96 hrs I measure out about 300 mL from the 5 different 2 L bottles to test for methylation and demthylation of mercury, and at the 96 hr mark I also collect samples testing for bacteria count, total dissolved carbon, and total iron in the water.

Last night was a fun night collecting water. We watched small groups of a smaller species of squid swim around the surface water near the lights from the boat.

Today we watched dolphins swim along the waves created by the ship on our way to station 10.

Will

The dolphins were swimming by the front of the boat this morning! They like to swim and jump in the wake that the bow of the ship creates.

Lisa is filtering water for her inhibitor experiment. The helmet and vest are required when working outside near the J-frame (for zooplankton and water sampling) or A-frame (for sediment corer).

Kaitlin is determining the position of the box corer inside in the main lab from the transmissions emitted by the "pinger" on the corer.

Friday, August 22, 2008



Katlin operating the A-frame to lower the box corer into the water.


Tristan filtering water in the clean van. Tristan is wearing a gown, clean shoes, gloves, and a head cover to avoid any contamination of the samples.
The Mercury Team! From left to right: Dr. Bill Fitzgerald (Dr. Hammerschmidt's Ph D advisor and chief scientist on the cruise), Will Ehresman, Katlin Bowman, Lisa Romas, Dr. Chad Hammerschmidt.
Thursday night's sunset
Here's a picture of Will working hard on the water team! The woman in the yellow hat is Lynne, one of the ship's technicians. She is giving hand signals to the doghouse where another crew member is controlling the line. Will's job is to keep the rosette from swinging into the side of the boat; he does this with a tag line connected to the bottom that he can slide off once the rosette is in the water.
This was a core we did this morning at station 8. This sediment is from about 2020 meters bellow the surface. We had a giant brittle star (the kind that form into sand dollars) on top of the sediment that we had to pick off before we could take the samples!

Halfway Complete

Last night Tristan, Katlin and I watched the sun set for quite some time. The colors were so beautiful (deep orange, purple and blue) and the sky even seem textured. No matter how hard I tried, a camera could not do justice to capture the essence of the moment. We were hoping to see the green flash of light that sometimes occurs at sunset when it is really clear out , but we did not get a chance to see it. Perhaps on another cruise! Oh, I also saw what we think was a mola mola (see a photo I found on google below). It was pretty neat. I thought I saw a patch of algae or a skate and then I noticed a dorsal fin periodically pop out of the water. It was moving pretty slowly, rolling up and down (rather than jolting laterally like a shark would) and was by itself so that is how we inferred it to be this giant sunfish. I have only seen them on TV, so it was neat to finally see a part of one!



Today we reached station 8. The zooplankton and water samples were collected starting at 8 pm and we began our sediment coring at 3:30 AM this morning. The weather has been amazing lately. I was seasick a day or two ago and had to sleep it off for awhile; well, 17 hours! I never slept so much in my entire life. Luckily, Dr. Hammerschmidt and Katlin were able to cover my experiments for me. In fact, Dr. Hammerschmidt used to do all of our experiments on prior cruises (being Will's, Katlin's, mine and his own....No wonder they call him "The Mercury Man!").

Now that the wind has died down to about 6 knots and the swells have shrunk, I cannot get enough of the ocean! When I went to the aft of the boat this morning, the sky was dark blue and it was so calm I could even seen the stars (they were not darting all over the place like they do normally when we are moving). There was a half moon hanging high in the sky and you could just barely see the horizon. As we were waiting for the box corer to go down and back up nearly 2000 meters (yes, we reached the slope), the sky began turning orange and pink as the sun began creeping up in the sky. The boat seemed to slice the sky in half, demarcating night on one side and day on the other. Oh, it was phenomenal. The human body really does not have enough senses to truly capture the moment! This cruise is already scientifically invaluable; this is the first time anyone has collected sediment samples from the slope to study mercury! Yet, it is moments like this make that this cruise personally purposeful, as well.
~Lisa
It is now Thursday night at 8pm and we have just arrived at station 8. We are at the edge of the continental shelf now, so we are close to 2000 meters from the bottom; this means longer sampling times for the rosette and box coring! Earlier today at station 7 (we are in Canadian waters now) we did a successful box core at 1900 meters. We attached a “pinger” to the box core line that transmits sound waves between the ocean floor and the boat. Lynne, one of the ship’s technicians taught me how to read the signals on a computer screen inside the boat so I could tell what depth the box corer was at. I used a radio box to communicate with the crew controlling the box core line, so they would know when the corer was close to, and on the bottom.
The cruise is right on track now, so we were able to catch a nice break today. Lisa and I sat at the bow of the ship, while we were on transit to station 8, and just took some time to enjoy the view and the sun. Time on the boat is pretty bizarre; sometimes there is only three or four hours between each station, so when we are done sampling we take a few hours to nap, then we are up again to sample some more. This puts us working and sleeping at the oddest hours so it gets hard to keep track of the days! Even though the hours are long, every second is worth it. To be here in the middle of the ocean, collecting samples, and doing experiments is the experience of a lifetime and I am loving every moment of it! It’s also great to get to see the ocean at different times during the day and night. We have seen some great sun sets, sun rises, and I love the way the ocean looks at night.

I’ve been doing some whale watching in my spare time but seem to always miss them. Some of the students spotted dolphins and a couple of whale spouts yesterday, but I have yet to see any! We have seen some small needle fish swimming in the light of the boat while we are doing our box coring.

We have plenty of pictures to share with everyone, but we don’t seem to have a strong enough internet connection to upload any. Maybe I will be able to post some when we are closer to the coast, but I can for sure do some next weekend when we are back on land, that way you see for yourself what we have all been describing! Well, it’s now nap time for me. The zooplankton nets are going in outside right now, which means the water sampling will begin in about an hour or so. Because the ocean floor is so deep it will take a lot longer to send the rosette up and down so I should have some time to rest before sediment collection begins!
-Katlin

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

To the top is a picture of the box corer that we use to collect our sediment samples. Below is a picture of my experiment. The flux chambers here are in an incubation chamber (that is the black you see in the background). In my hand is a picture of the magnetic stir bar that keeps the water in motion.; this cap goes on the flux chamber below.
-Katlin
p.s. I finally got to see whales and dolphins today! We finished station 8 around 8am this morning and we will be arriving at station 9 at 5pm. The water is very calm today and I had some time to sit on the upper deck and enjoy the sun. The splashes from the whales and dolphins are easy to spot with the calm water, I've seen about 15 and counting!






Benthic Flux Chambers - Katlin's Experiment

Right now it is only day three of the cruise and it is already more than I could ever have expected. I am working on the sediment team, which are the last samples collected at each station. The sediment is collected in a box corer (picture to come soon!) and is designed to bring up an undisturbed sediment water interface. What fascinates me about the box corer is it's use of gravity to collect the samples. The corer is a rectangular box, with two large jaw-like structures attached to the bottom. When the corer is sent down to the ocean floor the tightness of the line and the weight of the corer holds open the jaws; when the corer hits bottom and the line goes slack, a pin is released snapping together the jaws and scooping up the sediment. At the same time a piece slides over the top of the box, trapping the water above the sediment. Now, inside the box is a little piece of the ocean floor; about 10in of sediment covered by 8in of water. The interesting part is that the jaws snap closed so fast, that the line between the water and sediment is undisturbed. The box corer allows us to reach down and pick up a little piece of the ocean floor and with these samples we can study how mercury is released from this benthic environment.



To collect from the box corer a plastic cylinder with two open ends is gently pushed down into the sediment. Placing a stopper in the top end of the cylinder creates a vacuum and the tube can be pulled out with sediment and water intact.



The purpose of my experiment is to study how mercury is released from floor of the ocean. Right now I have three cores from station 2 along with 10L of sea water collected from 5 meters above the ocean floor. The cores are placed in an incubation chamber located on the upper deck of the ship. The chamber is black to keep the inside dark and chilled to around 8 degrees Celsius so that the sediment cores are in an environment similar to ocean floor. Inside the chamber, the sediment cores have special caps with a magnetic stirring bar to create a gentle movement in the water, that would be present in natural conditions. Every 8, 12, and 18 hours the water in the chamber is collected and frozen for analysis back in the lab. A time 0 sample is also collected to measure the initial content of mercury in the sample, before introduction to the sediment chamber. New pore water is placed in the chamber to restart the experiment until the next time period. By doing this I will be able to see first of all how much mercury is being released from the sediments, and I will also be able to see if the release is gradual or more sudden.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Well, alot has happened since we left the port in Narragansett, RI. We arrived at station 1 around 6pm (after dinner) and began the deployment of our water sampling equipment. Will (WSU), Tristan Kading (Dr. Joop Varekamp's graduate advisee), Dr. Maria Andersson (Dr. Robert Mason's post-doctoral assistant) and Prentiss Balcom (Dr. William Fitzgerald's research assistant) are on the water team and were in charge of deploying the rosettes (which use the J-frame on the starboard or right side of the vessel). The first larger rosette (aka"senior") has one dozen 8 Liter collection bottles which Prentiss programs to open and close at various times/depths. It also has a CTD which is a multi probe that measures conductivity, temperature and depth. The smaller rosette which is deployed after the larger one is nicknamed"junior." Since it was our first station, it took a bit longer than anticipated to obtain the samples. Next, Michael Finiguerra (a graduate advisee of Dr. Hans Dam at the University of Connecticut) completed the zooplankton tow.

Then, at 4 AM, Allen Hutchins (a lab assistant with Prentiss Balcom and Dr. William Fitzgerald at the University of Connecticut), Katlin (WSU), Dr. Chad Hammerschmidt (WSU) and myself successfully completed the sediment coring in the aft of the boat (the stern or back part) using the A-frame. We started off the morning in a "star performance" huddle to boost our morale after an arduous day. We took 9 beautiful cores (there was practically no turbation at the sediment water interface) in less than 2 hours. We even noticed some interesting biota during the coring (e.g. mysid shrimp, etc.). Next, as a part of the sediment team I (as well as the rest of my team) processed samples for the next few hours. As a part of my experiment, I prepare 8 treatment solutions in 250 mL square glass media bottles for my assigned stations. Each solution contains a salt that inhibits or promotes various anaerobic bacteria that are suspected or known to play a role in methylating mercury. In other words, I am creating solutions that will kill or foster bacteria (that do not use oxygen - hence, they are anaerobic) that convert inorganic mercury into organic forms (s.a. monomethylmercury or MMHg) which are some of the forms harmful to organisms (e.g. these forms can (bio)accumulate in our bodies). Then, I pipette about 50 mL of each solution into three replicate sediment slurry samples (the bacteria live in the sediment) and spike the samples by adding Hg-200 which we will later measure on land to determine methylation. At various steps in the experiment, I also have to flush my solutions and samples with nitrogen gas (N2) to eliminate oxygen and maintain an anoxic environment. It may sound a bit complicated but it's actually straightforward and rather systematic. I'm definitely interested to see what the result are and get a better idea of who the main players are in Hg methylation in ocean sediments!
It's almost time for the sediment team to move on to station #2!!! We'll write again as soon as we get another chance.
~Lisa

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Welcome to the Endeavor


One of the state rooms, there are two students to each room. The "head" (restroom) is shared by two rooms.

This is a picture of the ship's galley where we eat all of our meals.


This is a picture of the ships library where we are able to find a variety of movies and books.


Here is Lisa in her state room!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

These monitors are in the main lab area and they control all of the science equipment on the boat. There is a camera view from the back of the ship where sediment coring and water sampling is done, a screen for meteorology, and another for mapping that tells which direction the boat is heading and how long until the next station.

There have been plenty of jellyfish floating alongside the boat today!

This is the inside of the clean lab (the outside is picture below) which is located on the back deck of the ship. The clean lab is sterile and has hepa filtered air so there are no particles floating around. To enter the clean lab, special shoes, gloves, head covers, and tyvex gowns must be worn to avoid contamination of any samples. Water sampling, filtration, and also zooplankton samples will be handled here.



Unloading and setting up lab spaces.


Will is bringing the incubation chambers to the upper deck.

Last day on land

Lisa, Will, and I are here in onboard the Endeavor, sitting in the main lab area. Surprisingly, we have wireless internet, which we were told would work throughout the duration of the cruise :) Sitting in the lab, you can feel that the boat is rocking, but we are still docked so it's nothing big. Sea sick...so far so good
Our journey began yesterday around 4am; Will picked us up and took us to the Dayton airport where we flew to Philadelphia, then connected to Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. Hammerschmidt left Thursday in the early morning hours with the trailer and Wright State Departmental van and was there at the airport to pick us up. We had lunch at a Rose Beach Cafe in a little historic town about an hour from the airport. Afterwards, we drove to where the Endeavor was docked to unload the van. When we first got out of the car, the ship was incredible. It was a lot larger than I expected. We got a tour and some quick ground rules for the ship, then spent the rest of the afternoon unloading and unpacking. Later on we went to the hotel and out to eat where Dr. Hammerschmidt and Lisa enjoyed some New England specialty South County clam chowder.
We got to the ship today around 9AM and have been busy setting everything up. Dr. Hammerschmidt and Will have been on the top deck securing the incubation chambers they built (pictures of those once they're complete!) and Lisa and I have been in the lab setting up our stations, and just helping out wherever needed. Everything on the ship has to be tied down or secured in some way. We can drill into our lab tables so a lot of stuff is screwed down, and more fragile things are tied with string. For the rest of the day, the plan is to get everything set up and maybe have time to go over our SOPs. SOP stands for standard operating procedure and includes detailed instructions and materials needed for our experiments. Tonight will be our first night sleeping on the ship, we set sail 8AM tomorrow!!!!

That's all for today!
-Katlin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today I hooked up the incubators for the water experiments and sediment cores spending a good portion of the morning in the sun. Unfortunately I forgot to put on some sun screen this morning and will be a little red tomorrow when we depart for station one. I am looking forward to tomorrow and beginning my set of experiments.
Brief discussion about the Incubators.
Dr. Hammerschmidt and I built three incubation chambers this summer. Two incubators for the water samples and one incubator for sediment cores. We had a little set back this morning with some minor damage to one of our incubators. One of the sediment incubator's corners was loose, but with a little duck tape and new sealant we we able to patch the side back together. The next repair to be completed on the incubator was to replace two legs on one of the shelves built to hold the sediment core upright. With a little ingenuity, we were able to screw wooden legs onto the shelf, but not before we broke a drill bit off in the old plastic leg while trying to fasten it to the shelf.
I don't know much about how the incubator works for the sediment cores since my experiments deal with the water column, but if you have any question feel free to ask and one of the science party will be able to explain more.
The incubators for water is where the 2 liter bottled of sea water spiked with Hg-200 and Hg-199 (labeled methyl mercury) will basically cook in the sun as sea water flows through the incubator. These samples will then be collected from the 2 liter bottles various times over the next 11 days, and then these samples will be frozen for further testing back at WSU. When we return to WSU the samples will be tested using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer.
-Will

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Here is an image of our intended cruise path! There are a total of 16 stations, extending out along the continental shelf. The distance between each station ranges from about 50-100 miles.
~Katlin


Monday, August 11, 2008

Welcome!

This is the first official blog of our adventure and we have yet to embark on our trip! Let me fill you in on what exactly this research cruise is all about and who is involved. First of all, the purpose of this nearly 2 week excursion is to study the biogeochemistry of mercury in the oceans. Like many things about our oceans, not much is known about the behavior of mercury. Since the 1990s, a significant amount of research has been conducted on mercury and alot of progress has been made in perfecting sampling procedures, improving detection limits and increasing our understanding of its cycling in the environment. In fact, many freshwater ecosystems, the atmosphere above the Arctic, terrestrial systems, and some coastal environments have been studied. However, not much is known about mercury in the oceans. This is ironic, because, as most of you recognize, the main route of human exposure to mercury is via the consumption of fish and, yet, the majority of the fish we consume globally is derived from the oceans! Clearly, studying what happens to mercury in the oceans is an integral part of understanding potential human exposures to mercury.

Almost a dozen scientists and nearly the same number of crew members will be on board the University of Rhode Island's R/V Endeavor for the duration of our research cruise. We will be collecting water, zooplankton, and sediment samples for analysis. Those of us from Wright State University (WSU) include Dr. Chad Hammerscmidt, Katlin Bowman, Will Ehresman, and myself (Lisa Romas). Several other scientists will be joining us from various institutions, including UConn and Wesleyan University. Dr. Bill Fitzgerald (who was Dr. Hammerschmidt's graduate advisor) is the chief scientist. Many of us are novices so it should be an interesting trip. Nonetheless, it will surely be a huge learning experience!

As of lately, we have been packing hecticly for the cruise. Today at WSU, we packed a whole trailer (about 4' x 4' x 5' or so) full with supplies - everything from carboys (big plastic jugs with a spout for water, acids, etc.), incubators (we'll store water and sediment samples in them so we can control/maintain the proper conditions) and tools to I-Chem bottles, pipettes, clean Tyvek clothing and other supplies for various experiments. Katlin, Will and I have individual experiments that we will be carrying out while on board, which we will explain more once on board. For now, we have to finish tying up any loose ends and pack our own suitcases. Dr. Hammerschmidt will be driving the trailer to Univ. of RI this Thursday (Aug 14th) and Katlin, Will, and I take our flight from Dayton to Philly to RI on Friday (Aug 15th). Before we know it, we will be on board, ready to to start our journey! As you can imagine, the excitement is beginning to outweigh the anxiety! We'll be in touch.
If you would like to check out some stats on the R/V Endeavor, check out this webpage:
http://techserv.gso.uri.edu/
Enjoy!
~Lisa