Danny Baza Blas

Today is the last day of coring operations for this cruise! It's a significant day because three weeks of science have come to an end. Now we're cleaning up the ship and compartments, and preparing to disembark in a few days. This morning many of us on-board saw land for the first time in three weeks. Barrow was in sight on the starboard side, and what a great feeling it was to see good ole land. During this cruise, the Coast Guard team, or "Coasties" as they are known affectionately, were highly professional and extraordinarily helpful to all of us on the science team. One of the cooler happenings is to discover individuals with exceptional talent on-board. One such exceptional persons on-board Healy is Command Master Chief Sullivan, who's official work is to be the "liaison between the ship's enlisted crewmembers and the command." Master Chief Sullivan is an outstanding photographer, who also owns impeccable knowledge of the U.S. Coast G...

Our current location and status can be discerned from the above image. Day 8 gave the science team a little precipitation, 30-knot winds, and rough seas. Today's workload was a near-exact carbon copy of yesterday's--multicore, piston core, gravity core--with the only difference the rougher seas and a different sampling station. This afternoon the sun made a brief appearance. The keyword here is brief. We are currently underway, headed east on the Beaufort Sea, to our next sampling station. by Steve Walters Look for a new video tomorrow. Today was spent re-editing Day 7's video to give it more context to the outside world. If you have any questions, please send it to: danny.blas@healy.polarscience.net

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 th...

Click to enlarge current position [Today's video (below) "In Transit" includes appearances by: Martin Reedy, Akash Kataria, Lloyd Keigwin, Neal Driscoll, Woody Sutherland, Steve Walters, Chris Griner] The image to the left displays our current position (latitude and longitude) as well as the current temperature, wind speed, and barometric pressure. Our current position is on the Beaufort Sea at a point near where the Mackenzie River empties into the Beaufort Sea. Click here to see a map . The ship, the crew, and the science team are engaged in full-bore instrument deployment at the moment. The gravity core , multi-core , and piston core instruments have been in-and-out of the water all morning and afternoon. Marti Jeglinski 's team are busy taking the cores, labeling and storing the cores. Brendan Reilly has been scanning the cores, using an assortment of instruments, to determine the contents of the cores. Brendan does this without opening the core...

This blog post was written from the upper most observation deck (Aloft Conn), which is the 08 Deck, above the bridge. The Beaufort Gyre source: http://goo.gl/7scLp6 This is what it looks like from the Aloft Conn (D. Blas) Today (Monday) is purely a transit day. We are making our way east from Barrow, AK to the Beaufort Sea, where we will begin sampling around the Beaufort Gyre. When we finally arrive to our desired location, the science team and the Healy crew will begin the deployment of the core sampling tools to collect sediments. Our expectation is to arrive to our location between 8-10pm. Not much new to report at this time, other than rougher oceans than the previous days. Signing off from the Aloft Conn. Your blogger, Danny Blas (D. Blas)

Day Three, August 17, 2013 of Healy Mission 13-02 was an exceptional day for the science team and the crew of USCG Healy. We finally raised our anchors, after three days on the ship, and began movement on the Arctic Ocean. The earlier parts of the day were spent unpacking and setting-up all the equipment that will be dropped into the ocean to collect data and sediment samples. Saturday was also the day we practiced: (1.) man-over-board, and (2) abandon ship drills. "Better safe than sorry" is what mom taught us. Saturday was movie night, which was hosted by ENS Follmer, MSO in the helicopter hangar. There was one movie, The Grey and a Weather Channel documentary on USCGC Healy titled Breaking Ice . Saturday was a good day.  Check out the video about Day 3 on USCGC Healy as we begin our journey around the Arctic Ocean, collecting the things we need. And finally, expect more blog posts about the science our science team is working on. Currently we...

Barrow, Alaska, very cold desert is the most northerly point in the United States  http://goo.gl/R1K8Ym Day one of the Arctic mission objective was--pretty much--getting onto the ship, the United States Coast Guard ice breaker  USCGC Healy . If you read my previous blog post, you already know the trip from San Diego, CA to Barrow, AK was a long one; however, the ending of Day One was worth it. I'll get to that in a moment. When the Alaskan Airlines flight landed in Barrow, we were met by a convoy of pickup trucks and vans, which collected the members of the science team, and delivered us to the Search and Rescue Hangar (SAR). (Take a peek of the SAR in the video below.) The first order of the day at SAR?: order lunch! And we did, and it was surprisingly good. It never occurred to me that good pizza could be had in Barrow, a very cold place with zero paved roads. (Another person on the science team, Mackenzie, who will be a senior a...

USCG Healy is an icebreaker ship, home-ported at Seattle, WA Hey readers. I just landed on the ship on which I'll be part of the science team, collecting sediment samples in the Arctic Ocean. I'll be onboard the USCG Healy, which is an icebreaker ship, operated by the United State Coast Guard. The mission will take three-and-a-half weeks, and I'll be absent the first week of school. The flight from San Diego to Barrow, AK was a long one! I departed San Diego on Wednesday, August 14th at 7:00pm, and arrived in Barrow at 11:30am on Thursday, August 15th. You don't have to be a mathematician to know it was a long, long flight, with a long, long layover in Anchorage, AK. (16.5 hours total)!