Back from the field

I just returned from an interesting field season. I was lucky enough to go twice down south to the Ross Sea!

First, I spent 5 weeks south in October - November 2022. Together with a team of amazing colleagues from NIWA, Cawthron, and Otago Uni, I flew to Scott Base as one of the first teams in the season. After the first few days of field training, we went out and camped on the ice for 4 weeks. We used new gear to sample the platelet ice layer underneath the sea ice, and not even cancelled flights and delayed cargo could stop us! We even met the NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. I sampled the ice for metazoan and filtered thawed ice cores for chlorophyll and DNA, and drilled more ice holes than I can count. What an adventure!

Then, in January 2023, I went on the Tangaroa voyage to the Ross Sea. I was responsible for deploying the Continuous Plankton Recorder, towed the Bongo net and sampled the underway system for zooplankton. We were at sea for 5.5 weeks and explored the northern coastal Ross Sea around Cape Adare, Cape Hallett, Cape Wheatstone and Coulman Island. Because of too much ice, we could not go further south into Terra Nova Bay, but I collected enough samples to keep me busy for the next year. We even saw some whales and heaps of penguins. I feel very privileged to work with so many inspiring scientists!

If you are interested in more field experiences, I’ll give a talk on March, 16th for the NZ Antarctic Society:

Edit: If you missed the talk, you can watch it on YouTube.