u.s. coast guard healy – Page 3 – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

July 20, 2008March 18, 2021

Jillian Worssam, July 20, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jillian Worssam
Onboard U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Healy
July 1 – 30, 2008

Mission: Bering Sea Ecosystem Survey
Geographic Region: Bering Sea, Alaska
Date: July 20, 2008

It is Sunday, I am relaxing. Alexei and I finished our MOCNESS last night around 4:30 am, I looked at copepods for about 30 minutes then went to bed. Got up this morning ( at 9:30am ) for a tour of the medical center and the two men who run it, they will be the focus of tomorrow’s meet the crew Monday, but for now…I am relaxing. There is not another scientific sampling station for about four hours, so it is time to kick my feet back and relax. Yes, all work and no play will make ANYONE dull!

Burgers, fries, onion rings, ice cream...delicious! — Burgers, fries, onion rings, ice cream…delicious!

Now you might think there is no life on board a four hundred and twenty foot ice breaker, but you would be greatly mistaken. Let’s take yesterday afternoon for our “Moral” dinner. At 4:30 pm the “First Class Petty Officers” made dinner and let me tell you the best burgers and “stuff” I have had in ages. You name the topping it was on the burger.

Greg and his burger of delight, it was a super moral dinner.

Then at 7:00 pm weekly Saturday bingo began. I bought three cards, won nothing, ate popcorn and had a blast. But wait I am not yet done.

Doesn't look like the Bingo was in BMCM Thomas Wilson's favor. — Doesn’t look like the Bingo was in BMCM Thomas Wilson’s favor.

We still had time before getting on station so of course a midnight game of hacky sac on the flight deck. I watched, it would have been too easy to shoot my “crocs” through the air. And after observing all this physical activity, I settled down to…

MST3 Thomas Kruger as he goes for a kick.

You guessed it a rousing game of cribbage. I am in the lead right now. We are counting wins and I am up by two. Oh I hope I didn’t just jinx it by boasting of my prowess and considerable luck.

Not that I am at all competitive, I just like to win.

But now it is Sunday, I am relaxed, though a bit tired. Was just up on the aloft-con with Gary looking for whales, and well…Summer time and the living is easy, the spray if flying and the swell is alive. The deck is wet and the walking is slippery, but hush little scientist it is warm inside.

Do you see what I see? Ops Department discussion during the Friday quarters meeting.

Quote of the Day: Now I hear the sea sounds about me; the night high tide is rising, swirling with a confused rush of water against the rocks below… -Rachel Carson

FOR MY STUDENTS: Did you have as good a Saturday and Sunday as I have had?

July 19, 2008March 18, 2021

Jillian Worssam, July 19, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jillian Worssam
Onboard U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Healy
July 1 – 30, 2008

Mission: Bering Sea Ecosystem Survey
Geographic Region: Bering Sea, Alaska
Date: July 19, 2008

Numerous times over the past two and half weeks I have mentioned the CTD, small ones attached to moorings, there is one on the MOCNESS, there are even CTD sensors aboard the HEALY, but what does this CTD really tell the scientists?

For every sampling station the CTD needs to be prepared ahead of time so that all the equipment is functioning fully.

As a review, let’s remember that a CTD records the Conductivity of the water that when adjusted for Temperature gives us salinity. The Depth of each sample is recorded because the ocean is not static; it is constantly moving both vertically and horizontally, and changing as it moves. When you sample with the CTD you can add a variety of accessory sensors to measure other ocean parameters: O2 salinity, temperature, pressure, fluorescence, turbidity and on our specific cruise we are also collecting data in regards to micro-zooplankton, nitrates, iron, and radon.

Each line represents a different element that the CTD is measuring.

Let’s stop for a moment and talk about ocean currents. There are three ocean currents that affect the ecosystems of the Bering Sea: The Alaska Coastal Current, heavily freshwater, colder runoff that shoots through Unimak Pass; The North Pacific Gyre, warmer(relatively) water that seeps through the entire Aleutian chain, like water through a sieve. And the deep ocean conveyor belt, this one actually comes from the Mediterranean…water that has not seen the surface for a thousand years or more! This dense and cold fluid flows through Kamchatka pass, and has traveled from the north Atlantic through the Pacific to get to the Bering Sea, and is really rich in nutrients. No wonder it takes a thousand years. Anyway here we have all this water filtering into the Bering Sea, and here on the HEALY we have the CTD to give us precise data on the composition of this water.

The scientists all getting their water samples out of the 30 liter bottles.

During the actual cast of the CTD at each recorded station 24 data points are collects each second, giving an excellent representation of each specific water column. It is Scott’s job to run the CTD and let me tell you this is no easy task. The electronic equipment has to be constantly calibrated, the physical instrument array maintained, and all the collected data cataloged and stored for transmission to all the scientists both during and at the end of this cruise. None of this is an easy task. I also find Scott’s role on the vessel fascinating. Scott is an engineer who works for Scripts out of California and is hired on as outside technical support. He is not technically one of the scientific team, not technically part of the U.S. Coast Guard, and the HEALY could not technically collect most of their data with out him!

Hamming it up, Scott shows us the real science behind the CTD.

Quote of the Day: If you plan for a year, plant rice. If you plan for ten years plant trees. If you plan for 100 years, educate your children. Chinese Proverb.

FOR MY STUDENTS: What is a pycnocline?

July 18, 2008March 18, 2021

Jillian Worssam, July 18, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jillian Worssam
Onboard U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Healy
July 1 – 30, 2008

Mission: Bering Sea Ecosystem Survey
Geographic Region: Bering Sea, Alaska
Date: July 18, 2008

So there I was feeling really confident on my introductory journal on krill only to realize I really knew nothing at all. Tonight I sat down with Alexei Pinchuk and Rachel Pleuthner, wow, I am so impressed with the depth of their knowledge and expertise. But now I am tasked with trying to open a small window into this vital part of an oceanic food web.You have met Kirby the krill, but we should have called him Sam the spud, for the krill is the potato of this ecosystem. These little guys fuel this bionetwork like there is no tomorrow. But I am getting away from myself. Let’s get back to the krill science going on aboard the HEALY.

Part of Tracy's day is spent in front of a microscope keying out different krill species. — Part of Tracy’s day is spent in front of a microscope keying out different krill species.

The krill team is currently involved with at least three different experiments, and I will try to describe each, but please cut me some slack, this is a field of discovery I am just beginning to learn and as Rachel was explaining I would find myself not writing notes and becoming totally engrossed with the discussion.

This machine is one of five different incubators aboard, fresh sea water is constantly run through so that the temperature stays constant for a krill environment.

Experiment # 1: Krill grazing /aging

We already touched on this aspect of the krill work, looking at the diet of krill over a 24 hour period. But what we didn’t hit on was what is then done with the krill after they have grazed. Tracy will measure and key out the specific species of each animal and then pass the krill off to Rachel…Rachel in turn will remove the eyes. Yes, this delicate operation will give a general idea on the age of the krill. Basically our team will extract from the eyes a substance called lipofusion which can then be used to age the krill.

This machine is able to quantify the lipofusion extracted from the krill.

Did that make sense? Because now Alexei comes into the picture, he is trying to actually raise krill in a controlled setting, providing valuable baseline data on how old a krill is to the day. When lipofusion is removed from wild krill it gives a general idea on aging, but is not completely quantitative, thus the two experiments work together to finding the exact age of a krill.

Experiment #2: Starvation is another component to the work the krill grazers are completing. At the start of the voyage, 14 days ago, approximately 20 krill were placed in filtered sea water. What that means is that the krill salad bar was empty. Then, once a week a sample has been removed to look at the lipids. The type of lipids in a krill will tell the scientists what they had been eating, and how the components are breaking down in their systems.

This is actually a female Krill, how can you tell?

A krill can live up to three years, with their specific ecosystem and species as two variables that can affect longevity, but what about the source and timing of food. If the juvenile (nauplii – first stage in krill development) hatch when there is no food and they need food well, you can guess what will happen. There are though some krill who store their lipids all winter so that they pass this nutrient source to their young, really fat babies, who are in turn not as dependant on the first zooplankton bloom.

Ughhhhhhh I really do have a beginning understanding to this krill research, but explaining it has been a challenge. I still have more to share, but need to do a bit more of my own fact finding and research.

There can be up to twelve stages in the life cycles of some krill.

Photo of the day:

Which of these three items is krill poop?

Quote of the Day: For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea. -E.E. Cummings

FOR MY STUDENTS: Are there any microscopic organisms that might live in our aquatic ecosystems that you think we could study?

July 17, 2008March 18, 2021

Jillian Worssam, July 17, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jillian Worssam
Onboard U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Healy
July 1 – 30, 2008

Mission: Bering Sea Ecosystem Survey
Geographic Region: Bering Sea, Alaska
Date: July 17, 2008

To fully understand the today I need to go back two nights. I had been up for over 20 hours and was ready for bed. The educational team and I had been working fiendishly ( love that word) on a power point presentation with fun activities for the students. I was also working on putting together the slides for next Monday’s webinar. Anyway, after dinner, I went to bed. The next I knew my clock said eight thirty, and I had slept 13 hours! Frantically I got up got, dressed, and went to “Aft Con” to check on the retrieval of a floating sediment trap. MST Rich Layman told me that the pick-up would be the next day. I of course disputed his time analysis; it had been 24 hours why weren’t we picking up the trap? Rich of course replied, “We just set the trap this morning, we have to wait 24 hours.” My rebuttal was fun and sassy. There was discussion about a quarter and well to make a long story short. Here it is, I had slept for, you got it, an hour. It was still Tuesday night, I was really confused and a great laugh for many people, including myself. The moral of this story; there really is a purpose for military time!But now it is Thursday, and time to take our traveling science show to St. George. The day did not turn out as we had planned, and with the advent of really thick fog well our adventure was different than what we had planned.

Thus today’s journal will be a photo montage, a sequence of eleven shots highlighting (for me) the pleasure in the day!

"Bridge, do we have permission to launch the small boat?" — “Bridge, do we have permission to launch the small boat?”

As the HEALY fades into the background I really get a good glimpse of how huge she really is.

The ride was cloaked in fog, a bit choppy and a blast.

I bet John James Audubon knows who these little beauties are.

A brief glimpse at the coast as the surf pounded.

BM2 Gaines Huneycutt patiently waits to return us to the ship.

The small boats are ready to leave while getting last minute advice on the change in weather.

The swells at over eight feet provided a wonderfully exciting ride, for most!

Both Tasha and I were loving the ride as we crested each swell.

At one point we stopped and listened for the fog horn, a muffled sound to the left.

Today’s quote is from one of my most favorite individuals, and has summed up the day gloriously!

Quote of the Day: The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences. -Eleanor Roosevelt

MY STUDENTS: DO you have a hero, someone you look up to as a role model?

July 16, 2008March 18, 2021

Jillian Worssam, July 16, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jillian Worssam
Onboard U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Healy
July 1 – 30, 2008

Mission: Bering Sea Ecosystem Survey
Geographic Region: Bering Sea, Alaska
Date: July 16, 2008

Today I would like you to meet Kirby Krill, well not really Kirby, it could be Kathy. Whatever the gender “The Krill Grazers” are interested!

(From left) Tracy Shaw, Karen Taylor, Rachel Pleuthner, Megan Bernhardt and Gigi (Virginia) Engel

These five women work nights, waiting until dark to collect their samples. They only need one sampling station an evening where they send down the “bongo net” and retrieve their live critters. What the “Krill Grazers” are interested in is: What krill eat, and if their food choice changes seasonally. They also want to know: if the krill are given a choice, what would they choose to eat. This is similar to a salad bar mentality, give the krill everything, and see what food they prefer, thus the need for a live experiment.

This krill has a parasite attached, can you find the parasite?

For the first part of our experiment, enter Tracy. She is after the live samples and will choose 4 – 8 krill, depending on size. She will then place the krill in a four liter plastic container with fresh sea water and observe them for 24 hours. Prior to placing the krill in the container, Megan and Gigi will take a sample of the sea water, and at the end of the 24 hours will take another sample of the same water from the krill containers. They put the water through a filtering process and preserve the flora and fauna. Megan’s job then continues back at the lab in Washington. That is when she will count and identify both pre and post samples to determine what the krill are eating. In the mean time, while still on the ship, at the end of the experiment, Tracy will remove the krill from their incubator, measure them, and figure out what species they are. This information will be important later when looking at the results of the experiments in order to understand whether larger krill are eating more or different types of food than smaller krill.

When you work all night it is important to have a sense of humor.

The sea water is collected with a CTD so the scientists can exactly match the depth from their live tow on the bongo and the CTD. So why are five women from three different states (Oregon, Washington and Maryland) working collaboratively on krill? Krill are a food source for many other species: fish, birds, baleen whales, and many other animals eat krill to live. Even the seals that eat fish need krill, for the fish have eaten krill. An oceanic food web is not complete without our little zooplankton buddies.

This BONGO is set up so that the samples are not crushed, thus live krill.

There is a lot more science to the grazing of krill, I haven’t even touched on what Rachel does and it involves the removal of the krill’s eyes. So check in tomorrow for “Grazing with krill.”

Gigi wondering if the krill soup is finished. Just kidding!

Quote of the Day: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. William Shakespeare

FOR MY STUDENTS: What is an example of a microscopic plant or animal that might live in an Arizona aquatic ecosystem?