By Angela, Anjana, Luciana, Vincent and Felaniaina | We were on “tenderhooks” for a day and a night worrying that the Research Vessel (R/V) Polarstern might have to leave without us. We had to stay one more night in Punta Arenas (Chile), because the plane that we were supposed to take ... [Read more]
By Katharina Hochmuth | A couple of days ago, we featured the working group with the most members on board. Today I introduce the group with the highest quota of female scientists: Welcome to team Geophysics. Shackles, tie wraps and split pins are a geophysicist’s bread and butter. The ... [Read more]
By Yani Najman | It has long been my dream to work in the Antarctic, both because of its fabled beauty and remoteness, and because of the special importance it has on our planet’s changing climate; if the West Antarctic Ice sheet were to melt, predictions suggest a rise in global sea level of 3-5m. ... [Read more]
By Thomas Ronge | 'Furious Fifties' and 'Screaming Sixties' – these are the infamous names of the ocean regions we crossed in our transit towards the Amundsen Sea. Despite our misgivings, the weather has been surprisingly good. Hence we had a smooth and uneventful journey to our working ... [Read more]
By Katharina Hochmuth | At midday on February 8th, we began our long transit from Punta Arenas, Chile, to the Amundsen Sea on the coast of West Antarctica – the main area of interest for Polarstern Expedition PS104. After the anchor was lifted in Punta Arenas, we slowly left the port city and cruise ... [Read more]
By Thomas Ronge | Sometimes you read in expedition blogs of other research cruises that an expedition is delayed due to minor problems by one or two days. Until we boarded Polarstern this week, our expedition, PS104, was delayed by two years! Initially, our plan was to set sail in 2015 as PS90. ... [Read more]
By Alessa J. Geiger & Max Zundel As autumn commences in the southern hemisphere it seems the low-pressure cells are keen to share their full monty with us. This has led to the total cessation of decks and laboratory work with waves of up to 8 meters and winds of up to 10 Beaufort (see ... [Read more]
By Jasmin Heiden, Florian Koch et al. On March 2nd it was our (the biologists) big sampling day. We sampled seawater from 25 m depth at a site in the Drake Passage. During this cruise we will sample three stations where we pump water on board in order to conduct incubation experiments with the in ... [Read more]
Von Jasmin Heiden, Florian Koch et al. We are 12 biologists and chemists on board R.V. Polarstern from several research institutes (Alfred Wegener Institute, Universities of Geneva, Bremen and Oldenburg and the ETH Zürich) that constitute the working group ProIron. Our mission on board is to ... [Read more]
By Thomas Ronge | As mentioned before, we use sediment cores from the ocean floor for our climate reconstructions as well as for our analyses of the regional geological history. Because we are working in an area where geological data are sparse, it’s not always easy to find a suitable ... [Read more]
