Tuesday 14 July 2015

Keep in touch!

Hello there!! Lot's of people have asked me how to keep in contact or to hear about what I am getting up to when I go down South. So I've made a blog to keep in touch with you all and keep you crazy people informed of my Antarctic Antics.


Rothera (below) on the Western Peninsula of Antarctica will  be my new home for the next year to eighteen months. My job as Marine Assistant is to keep the long term time series data up to date. This includes coxing a rib and taking CTD (Conductivity Temperature Depth) samples down to 500 m at various sites near the base, in the winter when we can’t get the boat out we will sample in Cheshire cove and have to cut through the thick sea ice.

For people that don't know, I have recently finished studying Marine Biology and Oceanography BSc at Plymouth and have been employed as a Marine Assistant for the British Antarctic Survey.







 Additionally, I will be conducting dive surveys to photograph sediment plates and collect species for Rothera aquarium; my job is to also keep the tank healthy. 

I will be assisting the Marine Biologist and other scientists to collect valuable data; research including the depth-diversity relationship and also how temperature increase is influencing organisms, especially on the target species Fenestrulina rugula; a Bryozoan. 


I am due to start the job in September,  my approximate date to fly from South America on a Dash-7 (above) is mid November!  In the meantime I am preparing my P-box to be shipped out on the RRS James Clark Ross.

If anyone has any fun ideas of what to pack let me know!