UAB in Antarctica 2004

Homeward Bound Detours

J McClintock — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 15:36:23 GMT

With winter fast approaching and the days on the western Antarctic Peninsula growing shorter by the week, it was time to turn my thoughts to my return to South America and onward to Birmingham where both my personal and UAB family awaited. And so it was with some mixed feelings that I learned ...

Snowbirds

Maggie Amsler — Wed, 19 May 2004 16:49:11 GMT

Snowbirds

The last few weeks it has been increasingly quiet around Palmer Station. Much of the avian wildlife that abounds in our neighborhood during the summer months have headed out to sea, further south to an ice edge, or migrated north to balmier climes. The other day while returning from a ...

Hope Rising

J McClintock — Tue, 18 May 2004 12:52:48 GMT

The e-mail had reached me via the UAB Antarctica web site and was addressed from the Executive Director of the Foundation for Hospital Art. What could this be all about I wondered? Reading through the message it became evident that the director wanted to know if I might be willing to ask a ...

Palmer Station Science Monitoring Programs

J McClintock — Thu, 13 May 2004 21:02:37 GMT

Palmer Station Science Monitoring Programs

There are a variety of science programs housed at Palmer Station that are long term monitoring programs dealing with topics far afield from whales, penguins, macroalgae or krill. In order to gather information on a long term basis, research agencies ...

Lab Open House

Kevin Peters — Mon, 10 May 2004 15:57:09 GMT

Hello to everyone out there. I know it has been a while since I have written a journal entry, but I am still doing fine down here.

This past week, we had our weekly science lecture take on a little different form. Instead of everyone gathering in the lounge to listen to someone give a ...

Training Time

Maggie Amsler — Thu, 06 May 2004 19:03:18 GMT

Were I back in Alabama right now, I would be enjoying yards of swimming, hours of pedaling and miles of running the streets and trails. My friends, who share this form of play with me, and I do this not only for sheer fun of physical exertion, but to train for a running race or a triathlon. ...

Adélie Penguins!

J McClintock — Wed, 05 May 2004 16:23:51 GMT

Just yesterday while I was assisting the divers off of Hermit Island a “flock” of Adélie Penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae for you scientific aficionados) erupted from the sea just a few feet from our zodiac’s bow with a most impressive display of “porpoising” behavior. This swimming ...

Oil Spill at Palmer Station

C Amsler — Sun, 02 May 2004 18:50:08 GMT

The first environmental disaster that I remember occurred just about a week after my tenth birthday. On 28 January 1969 an oil well off Santa Barbara, California blew out and caused the Santa Barbara oil spill. Even at age 10, like the rest of the country I was shocked by the television news ...

Tourist Tanks

Maggie Amsler — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:09:11 GMT

The aquarium building of Palmer Station is where our project spends many hours a day running taste test experiments on the sea stars, checking on bucket experiments as Anne described last week and as you will read about in later entries, conducting feeding experiments on fish. It is also where we ...

Earth Day

Anne Fairhead — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 18:05:37 GMT

On Earth Day last Thursday Palmer Station personnel once again participated in cleaning up the area around station. Last year members of the station were able to get over to the site of Old Palmer Station, and clear up lots of buried rubbish. This year the snow cover was too great to allow any ...

Those Amazing Sponges

J McClintock — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 19:44:33 GMT

One of the fascinating groups of marine invertebrates that we study here in Antarctica are the marine sponges (yes, there is also a small group of freshwater sponges). Sponges are ancestrally primitive animals (first considered plants, Aristotle identified their animal nature) that while ...

Falling in Stride

Maggie Amsler — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 17:55:53 GMT

Chuck has been back in Alabama for almost a week now. I turn green with botanical envy with his correspondences describing what a beautiful spring it is at home. He tells me out front yard is ablaze with hues of crimson Kurume azalea cooled by a now wall of white southern indica azaleas. The ...

Winter Darts!

Kevin Peters — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 16:56:08 GMT

The winter crew has settled in nicely and things are going quite well now. It is great to see several of the people that were here when I left Palmer last June. Another fun part of the winter crowd getting here is the tradition of Continental Darts!

Continental Darts is where many of the ...

Doc Betty Carlisle

J McClintock — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 23:24:20 GMT

This season at Palmer Station I have had the good fortune to get to know and work with Betty Carlisle, MD. She is indeed a veteran of the US Antarctic program, having now served as a medical doctor at all three major US research facilities on the continent (South Pole, McMurdo Station, ...

Almost Home

C Amsler — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 22:27:45 GMT

It is 5:30 AM central time as I start this entry. The Gulf of Mexico is 30,000 feet or so below me and it shouldn’t be long until the lights of the Texas coast come into view out the window. In 7 hours I should be back at UAB and tonight, I’ll be home.

So many of my thoughts are of our ...

The Bucket Experiment

Anne Fairhead — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 01:54:29 GMT

The Substrate Experiment, which I have written about earlier, is a major part of what I am doing this season at Palmer Station- but I also have another experiment running. The Bucket Experiment involves lots of buckets, a large tank, lots of plastic tubing and some critters. More scientifically, ...

Dan the Man

Maggie Amsler — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 13:30:14 GMT

As you have read in Chuck and Kevin’s latest journals, Palmer Station has had a facial. Lots of new faces appeared with the arrival of our support ship the Laurence M. Gould. Similarly, many a familiar, ‘old’ face sailed off into the fog when the Gould headed north last week. Like Kevin, I ...

Shhhh…where is everybody?

Kevin Peters — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 01:39:03 GMT

Well, hello again to everyone. I am still here; no one needs to worry! Things are going smoothly still even though we are less one member of our team (Sorry Chuck) and plus 3 new people (Good to see you Bill, Jim, and Dan).

When the ship left, it took most of the people that have ...

Whale Song

J McClintock — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:13:19 GMT

Bill, Dan and I comprise the "second wave" of our UAB/USF research team, now steaming aboard the National Science Foundation research vessel (RV) Laurence Gould towards Palmer Station. Once we arrive we will join the rest of the research team led by Chuck, who have been working at the station ...

Sweet Workouts

Maggie Amsler — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 14:22:36 GMT

Anne’s journal entry (or entrée) this week featured the Deep South’s finest chefs here at chez Palmer. Wendy, Marge and now Danielli, provide nutritious as well as delightfully delicious meals and an enticing array of yummy baked desserts. The diners must provide the self-control or as Anne suggests ...

A Day in a Crevasse

Kevin Peters — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:45:25 GMT

It has been a while since I have written a journal entry. I hope no one has missed me too much! Everything down here is going pretty well. We have been able to get out diving most days and are getting a lot of work done in the labs as well. However, there was a day last week that our group ...

Changing of the Guard

C Amsler — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 23:11:16 GMT

The Laurence M. Gould arrived back at Palmer from Punta Arenas, Chile this past Saturday. The good news is that it brought in Jim as well as the third co-leader of this project, Bill Baker (from the University of South Florida), and Dan Martin, a technician/diver working for Bill on the ...

Southern Home Cooking

Anne Fairhead — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 00:13:35 GMT

There were many things about Palmer Station that I was looking forward to seeing and experiencing again this year. These included, of course, the wildlife and islands and glacier hikes, and seeing people that were here last year and meeting the new people. But for me, and I think for many other ...

A Whale of a Flower Picking Seal Tale

Maggie Amsler — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 20:04:58 GMT

After too many consecutive days of unrelenting high winds that prohibited field work, Tuesday dawned with a fluttering 5 knot wind, mostly cloud covered sky and modest air temperature of –2 C (28F). At our routine morning meeting, it almost seemed foreign to be discussing intended dive plans for ...

A Morning with the Birders

Anne Fairhead — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 19:09:02 GMT

Last week I was lucky enough to spend a very pleasant morning out on Humble Island with Heidi Geisz, one of the birders, and Gary Jirschele. Gary and I had come along to help Heidi with her work on Southern Giant Petrels. Heidi works for Bill Fraser and Donna Patterson who have been conducting ...

A Tunicate Anti-Cancer Discovery

J McClintock — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 10:28:44 GMT

As our research team continues its ongoing studies of the chemical ecology of Antarctic marine macroalgae and invertebrates we take pride in the applied overtones of our basic ecological research. With pipe lines to the UAB Cystic Fibrosis Center and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), it is a ...

Skiing on the Glacier

C Amsler — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 11:42:35 GMT

One of Maggie’s and my favorite recreational activities at Palmer is cross country skiing on the glacier that rises behind the station. During much of the summer precipitation falls as rain more often than snow and there is little or no snow over the rough glacial ice. So skiing is not ...

Diving in Antarctica: the dive!

Kevin Peters — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 22:30:27 GMT

Greetings to everyone again! Last week’s adventure (Diving with “friends”) is not part of the norm down here. We like to keep things very simple when we can, and diving is no different. You have read in

A Trip in Time

Maggie Amsler — Wed, 24 Mar 2004 22:48:14 GMT

I awoke Tuesday morning at 0430 (4:30 am) at my ‘campsite’ over looking Hero Inlet. It is a short walk from the station to the Hero Inn (or HI for short) where I have stashed a bivy sack (one person tent) with a down sleeping bag and thick foam pad inside. The view from my ‘room at the Inn’ ...

Walking About

Anne Fairhead — Tue, 23 Mar 2004 19:48:17 GMT

You have probably realized by now that we spend a fair bit of time out in the boat away from station. Most of the science groups here need to do the same, and we feel very lucky that we need to go boating as part of our “work” (especially on sunny days). Most of the support personnel have jobs ...

The Forests of Antarctica

C Amsler — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:28:15 GMT

We’ve been spending quite a bit of time talking about diving and still are not quite yet done with the "Diving in Antarctica" journal entry series. But I thought that this week I’d talk a bit about what we see on those dives. I might just as well start with what we see most, which are macroalgae ...

Diving in Antarctica: diving with “friends”

Kevin Peters — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:05:11 GMT

Hello again to everyone! I know that each and everyone of you have been keeping up with everyone’s journal entries while we have been down here, so you know a little about what we are doing. Chuck has already told ...

Diving in Antarctica: a tender perspective

Maggie Amsler — Tue, 16 Mar 2004 23:36:17 GMT

Continuing with the “Diving in Antarctica” series, I will write about some pretty heavy stuff: dealing with the diver’s gear when they are not wearing it. I will describe a typical tending operation with ideal conditions - which means that some of what you will read now is truly fiction! Later ...

Diving in Antarctica: heading out

C Amsler — Sun, 14 Mar 2004 23:51:28 GMT

We are going to triple up on the "Diving in Antarctica" series this week. In this entry, I’ll take you from the dive locker to the dive site from the diver’s perspective and get us geared up and ready to drop into the water. Later this week,

Starry, Starry Nights!

Kevin Peters — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 19:45:08 GMT

Hello again to everyone! Things have been going pretty well down here although the past several days have made it impossible to go out diving. Due to no diving, I have been able to spend more time in the lab (Chuck likes that). One of the things that I do in the labs is test the palatability ...

Elephant Seals

Anne Fairhead — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:45:14 GMT

One of the experiences we have had when setting up the substrate experiment is a little hard to convey in writing. The aroma of a pod of hauled out elephant seals is something you really have to experience yourself. At the moment there are several groups lying on the rocks around Kristie Cove, ...

Coordinated Boating

Maggie Amsler — Tue, 09 Mar 2004 16:14:16 GMT

Monday through Saturday at 8 AM our group meets in the dining room to plan the day’s field operations. (Sunday mornings we have off and meet instead at 1PM.) Monday, over our serving of breakfast cereal, toast, or eggs we gazed out the windows knowing that the horizontally falling snow and high ...

Diving in Antarctica: gear preparation

C Amsler — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 13:40:49 GMT

Diving here is such an important part of what we do that we’ll be writing about it throughout the season. So this is just the second of a series of journal entries about all the things that go into our scientific diving operations, or "dive ops" for short.

In my most recent journal entry, I ...

The Substrate Experiment, part 2

Anne Fairhead — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 20:27:08 GMT

Once the substrates were finally in place we could begin to work on collecting the algae which is not a simple task. The two species I am working on (Desmarestia anceps and D. menziesii) account for a large part of the macroalgal biomass here, and as you can see in the first photo, ...

Living at Palmer Station

Kevin Peters — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 15:50:59 GMT

Here I am again! For the second week in a row, I have changed something about my appearance. Last week was the haircut, this week was the hair coloring. I now have what people are calling reddish hair. It really depends on the lighting as to how well you can see it. A lot of ...

KaBOOM! The birth of an island

Maggie Amsler — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 23:21:04 GMT

It is not uncommon to hear the sound of explosions at Palmer Station. Demolition can rattle the station buildings day and night. Rather than fiery explosive charges bursting, the sound of kaboom! is generated by Mother Nature rearranging the glacier forming the back wall of Arthur Harbor. ...

The Substrate Experiment, part 1

Anne Fairhead — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 22:30:27 GMT

The main focus of my time down here at Palmer is investigating the role of brown algal phlorotannins. Phlorotannins are a group of polyphenolic compounds that are involved in constructing and strengthening the cell wall in brown algae. This function is called a “primary” role, but we are ...

Diving in Antarctica: initial preparation

C Amsler — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 17:26:13 GMT

Diving here is such an important part of what we do that we’ll be writing about it throughout the season. So this is just the first of a series of journal entries about all the things that go into our scientific diving operations, or "dive ops" for short.

In my first journal entry, "

Boating (installmant two)

Kevin Peters — Sat, 28 Feb 2004 10:26:21 GMT

One small little comment to make because some of you might notice…I got a haircut. Let me know what you think when you see the pictures.

The final part of Boating 1 is where we first get to do something “hands on” occurred in the boathouse and was dedicated to the hands-on ...

Boating (installment one)

Kevin Peters — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 00:41:09 GMT

{Moderator's comment: Kevin's entry is so long and detailed that we are splitting it into two parts. Look for part two on Saturday, 28 February!}

Here I am again, to tell you more about our experiences down here at Palmer Station. We have now been here a week and it ...

Inaugural Dive of the 2004 Season

Maggie Amsler — Mon, 23 Feb 2004 22:41:23 GMT

Just like players anxious for that first pitch or kick off of the regular season of competition, our dive team was anxious to get our new season of diving at Palmer underway. The pros usually shake the bugs out with an exhibition game. Our dive team essentially did the same thing but our only ...

Intertidal collections

C Amsler — Sun, 22 Feb 2004 14:54:07 GMT

A few hours before we arrived at Palmer on the Laurence M. Gould I gathered the team together in the ship’s lounge meeting area to discuss our priorities upon arrival. We talked about how we’d set up our labs and our section of the aquarium building and about what our top priorities for ...

Coming in to Palmer!

Anne Fairhead — Sat, 21 Feb 2004 15:51:58 GMT

We woke up on Monday morning in the waters around the Antarctic Peninsula. The snow covered islands were all the more beautiful after the previous couple of days at sea, with not much else but ocean and more ocean to look at. It was a cloudy morning but this just made the snow covered peaks all ...

ECW Gear

Kevin Peters — Sat, 21 Feb 2004 15:50:04 GMT

The weather down at Palmer Station is what you might consider a bit chilly! It is not the brutal cold that the other two American stations on the continent get where temperatures can often drop below zero degrees Fahrenheit, but it is cold enough to require some extra clothing that an Alabama boy ...

Anchors Aweigh

Maggie Amsler — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 18:12:29 GMT

"Sailing 14:00 12 Feb" was written on the message board of the Laurence M Gould, the ship that would transport us to Palmer Station. The Gould (LMG for short) was not at anchor in a harbor, but rather tied up alongside the dock at Punta Arenas, Chile. Our dock mates included many small bright ...

Our "other" team member

C Amsler — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 17:39:43 GMT

At Palmer and within the Antarctic Program in general, our group is known as S-022 for "Science group number 22." That is actually an old designation. Formally in current terminology we are known as B-022-L/P which indicates that we are a Biology group (the B) that works from Palmer Station (the ...

Southward Bound

Kevin Peters — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 14:54:23 GMT

Why is it that there is never enough time when you need it the most? I have known for about 6 months that I would be leaving this weekend to head back to Antarctica, but it seems like I left almost everything that I should have done in that 6 months until this week. I am going to work as hard as ...

Countdown!

Maggie Amsler — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:45:36 GMT

Countdown! T minus just a few hours now before liftoff from the Birmingham Airport and the start of trip Number Fifteen to Palmer Station, Antarctica. Typical of previous trips, life for the last few weeks has revolved around departing for a long field season. Prioritized lists of things to ...

Preparing For The Expedition

C Amsler — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 17:22:02 GMT

There are a great number of things we have been doing over the past months to get ready for our upcoming expedition to Palmer Station, Antarctica. As you'll read in our future journal entries, diving is an important part of our work there and we spend a lot of our efforts there on diving, ...

Preparing for Palmer 2004

Anne Fairhead — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 19:57:47 GMT

It hardly seems like a year has past since our last trip to Antarctica. Preparations are well underway for our return this year and I have been spending much of the last few months finishing assays and writing up results from the three months I spent at Palmer in the summer of 2003. Life in ...

Southern deployment - "second wave"

J McClintock — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 14:28:06 GMT

While UAB Marine Biologists Chuck and Maggie Amsler, Kevin Peters, and Anne Fairhead prepare to depart by ship from Punta Arenas, Chile in early February bound for Palmer Station, Antarctica, I will stay behind to join Dr. Bill Baker, our marine natural products chemist from the University of South ...