Luana Lins

It has been a long discussion in the past week or so if we would have helicopter time to go to Cape Evans. With the helicopter flights to the ice edge getting delayed, the likelihood of going was getting smaller. Luckily, after a discussion with us, the decision was that if the helicopter flights could be booked, we would go to Cape Evans to explore the area and be aware of what it takes to do research in that area. We also wanted to see the melt pools with bacterial mats tha

That was one once in a lifetime experience. There are different factors that organisms living in the ice edge might be exposed to compared to organisms living under full coverage of ice, and we went there to get some zooplankton samples and to get an idea of how much light penetrates in the water column at different distances from the ice edge. We also collected data about the temperature and salinity in the water column at the ide edge. Overall a very productive trip. Apart

It was nice to have a day off, and it gave us a new perspective when coming back to work. I find it nice, and important to step out for a little when I'm working intensively on a project to give my brain the chance to absorb the information, and to rest for a while. Hiking definitely does the trick for me! Today went smoothly with a lot of data entering and counting colonies on our plates that were incubated at different temperatures. To our surprise, there were many colonies

The anticipation of the day off made us all very happy and more inclined to have a late night. After being all cozy in bed reading my book ready to sleep, I ended up joining the others at Southern Exposure for a glass of wine and what ended up being a hilarious game of foosball - mostly because I am not good at it. But I got extremely excited about playing anyway. Joe and Kate were great at it, but we all had fun for sure! Today was an incredible day! It was our only day off

Waking up was hard, but I am glad made it to the lecture which was very interesting. More lab work for me, I finished “dissecting” all the pteropods for the DNA extraction and took all the photos of the filters for microbial counts! As yesterday, the microscopy was fun! We have made good progress on counting the cells in our slides and tomorrow we will be able to not work. Tomorrow is officially a day off in the course! Most of us are planning on going out for a hike to the c

Today was even longer than yesterday, Tess and I left the lab after 12:20. But at least we got a chance to take a photo of the sun at midnight and Pat will be happy to see it! [edit I did!] The flight to the ice edge finally left today, after a few days of cancelation. The sky was very clear and they had a great experience there! Hopes are back that we will make it to the ice edge! I got photos of all the filters with bacterial cells of amphipods this afternoon, and it was ni

Today was a very long day in the lab, resting metabolic rate measurements, dissecting and preparing to count bacterial cells and getting samples for DNA extraction. I did not take any photos :(. But it was nice to get a huge part of the work out of the way. This morning we did not have a morning lecture for the first time, and it was nice to be able to sleep in for a little bit. I missed the breakfast at the galley (which finishes at 7:30) but it was worth it. I even had a lu

After a morning of lab work, incubating gut contents of amphipods and then filtering it for our control, our group visited the Arrival Heights area where there are many research projects happening. One of them is studying the Aurora. There was a magnet from WSU creamery there! Someone here must love cougar gold! The rest of the day was spent back in the lab. I’ve heard rumors that it was the last day that we would be able to buy alcoholic drinks in the base (including the bar

Because of the conditions of the ice our previous sampling area on the ice is closed. The canal the icebreaker made is open and there is polynya (open water area in the ice formed by the wind) forming between our base and the kiwi base and our sampling hole is in between these two areas, which makes the ice around it unstable and for safety reasons we cannot access this area anymore. As a consequence, we have to re plan our project and some of the treatments won’t be feasible

We woke up to white McMurdo, a beautiful white layer was covering the station and the observatory hill. Because of the low visibility, the flights to the ice edge were cancelled again, I’m group 6 and so far, only groups 1 and 2 have gone to the ice edge – I am really hoping the weather will help the flights in the upcoming days. The day was filled with lab work again, and in the afternoon I went to the ice hole in front of the station next to the jetty. It was great to be ou