Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be part of a research cruise? Ever since I joined the WASCAL master’s program in Climate Change and Marine Sciences, I have earnestly been waiting for the program’s shipboard training component. My expectations prior to the cruise were quite high as I could not wait to immerse […]
Towards the East Pacific Rise and assessing the efficiency of the biological carbon pump
2nd Weekly Report from the SONNE expedition SO289 (deutsche Version weiter unten) Progress: After a delay of nearly five days, we were able to leave the port of Talcahuano on February 22 and start the cruise SO289. We are now in international waters and will keep sailing west towards New Zealand and New Caledonia. We […]
Tracing particles through natural radioactivity
(deutsche Version unten) But to what do I personally lose my sleep exactly? Sinking particles! More exactly, determining the flux of particles, thereby transporting carbon down into the deep of the ocean. Relying on available nutrients and sunlight, phytoplankton flourishes in the upper layers of the ocean by converting CO2 in organic molecules such as […]
#MSM106 WASCAL FLOATING UNIVERSITY: The Ocean around us
>deutsche Fassung siehe weiter unten< It is unbelievable that around Cabo Verde, there exists a large expanse of blue water bigger than a River. The research voyage on the R/V MARIA S. MERIAN began on February 26, 2022 and we are still excited and impressed by the famous big blue ‘water body’ that is called OCEAN. […]
All aboard SO289!
(deutsche Version unten) With 33 scientists and 32 crew members on board, on the 22nd of February 2022 the Sonne expedition SO289 left Talcahuano, Chile, to conduct a South Pacific section as a part of the International GEOTRACES Program for assessing sources, sinks, distributions and internal cycling of trace elements and their isotopes in the […]
#MSM106 WASCAL Floating University-Our excitement prior to Cruise
>German version below< The research trip on R/V MARIA S. MERIAN was scheduled to start on the 26th of February, 2022 and we were all excited and couldn’t wait to get started. This cruise being one of the scholarship packages of Climate Change and Marine Sciences under WASCAL motivated most of us and raised our […]
#MSM106 WASCAL Floating University – from white to blue
>German version below< It’s kind of crazy that you want to investigate the oceans and have to go to the mountains first. Huh, why is that? I haven’t quite understood it yet myself , but that is what I did.Due to the Corona pandemic, it is unfortunately no longer so easy to explore the ocean […]
S287-CONNECT finished successfully (Last blog entry from chief scientist of SO287- CONNECT Birgit Quack)
After 5 months of extremely intense preparations, the cruise SO287-CONNECT finished successfully in Guayaquil (Ecuador) on 11.01.2022, a harbour town in the tropical Pacific, the fourth ocean area we passed during a transit of around 6000 nm (11,000 km) towards this important working area of RV Sonne. After pandemic caused 20 months of work in […]
SO287-CONNECT: Das Tischtennisturnier auf hoher See
english version below Der letzte Tag an Bord. Die ersten von uns haben heute am 11.12.2021 bereits das Schiff in Richtung Heimat verlassen. Der Rest tritt morgen die Rückreise oder den verdienten Urlaub in Quito, der Hauptstadt Ecuadors oder auf den nicht weit entfernten Galapagos Inseln an. Zum Abschied einer Expedition wird traditionell ein Expeditionssticker […]
SO287-CONNECT: Patience is Key
The cruise is coming to an end, and there are 8 days left until we enter the port of Guayaquil. While some of the measurements on board can be read out directly and preliminary interpretations are presented during the cruise, there are also a lot of samples that can only be analyzed in the laboratory […]