Life Beyond the Beaker

The main aim for me on this cruise is for my point measurements ( collecting and analysing oxygen within water samples taken from the niskins on the rosettes at different depths across the water column)  to be compared against the sensor data to see what drift we are getting, this is called calibrating the sensors. Find out more about this below... In 2018 when we were on the RV Neil Armstrong we did the same research cruise to swap over deep-sea oceanographic moorings and calibrate instruments. We are only doing the eastern side of all of the moorings this year because collaborators and different scientists are on the Neil Armstrong completing the moorings from greenland toward iceland to fill in the gaps. This is the 3rd time I have done oxygen analysis on a research cruise, but this time I was in charge of packing, transporting, and sorting out all of the chemicals and equipment. It is pretty stressful because if you mess up mixing the chemicals or don't pack something it can re...

I will be honest, after 5 months of being on furlough, I am finding work hard. Mostly the big drive twice a day from Glencoe to Oban, I feel too tired to exercise and I've been waking up early to send emails before going into the lab because I working from home when not on a boat or in the lab. Very weird times, but hopefully I will settle back into it in the next few weeks. Seol mara the wee SAMS vessel took 2 months to fix, finally, we headed out to do some science. John, Norman and myself who make up the vessels team headed to our local site near SAMS and deployed a mooring! I was crewing and at the same time learning from John about how to prepare and deploy a moulding safely. What is science without correct labelling of samples and calibration of instruments?! My first proper week in the building of SAMS and I have been packing for my next cruise which I leave for in 4 weeks. 2 years ago we dropped off some deep-sea moorings with...