Day 7 - Arctic Expedition - Teachers at the North Pole

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Click to enlarge current status
Good day, Day #7! On-board USCGC Healy, it's windy, cold, and the ocean we are floating upon is just a wee bit perturbed.

Source: http://goo.gl/Wpu9LY
We are currently coring and sampling sediments in the Beaufort Sea, around the area where the Mackenzie River meets the Beaufort Sea, north of Tuktoyaktuk. [Click to enlarge map image to the right]

The science has begun to take an exciting turn. Not only are we tracking-down the signals for the icy source of the Younger Dryas, as explained in yesterday's blog, our principal investigators (PIs) have made an unusual and momentous observation.

Using the CHIRP instrument, a multibeam bathymetric surveyor, our PIs observed a "bench," on the continental shelf, with an abundance of what appears to be undisturbed sediment build-up that had been previously undiscovered. This non-tectonic build-up of sediment appears to extend for hundreds of kilometers, from about Barrow, AK to the mouth of the Mackenzie River.

This observation has raised the level of excitement within the science community here on Healy. If verified, this observation may lead to ground-breaking papers on the region's sediment history.

This blog will keep you posted.

Coring Ain't Boring
Click to enlarge Source: http://goo.gl/Fb6il2

The image to the left is a very good illustration of the type of coring we did on Day 7 (courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute).

Today's video is titled "Coring Ain't Boring." Day #7 was a fantastic coring day, using all the coring tools at our disposal to collect stratified sediment samples. Click here to learn more about coring.

[The following science team members can be seen in today's video: Akash Kataria, Ben Pelto, Chris Maio, Chris Moser, Danny Blas, Dave O'Gorman, Emily Wei, Mackenzie Roberts, Rachel Marcuson, Tara Ingalsbe, Christopher Griner and Thomas Cronin]

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