Danny Baza Blas

Dr. Mike Purcell, WHOI The search continues for Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people that disappeared in route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing this month. In June 2009, an Air France flight from Brazil to France was lost over the Atlantic Ocean. It crashed without very little every found, until oceanographer Mike Purcell used his specially-made underwater machines to locate the wreckage and black box. Here's a great story on what happened.

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...

A ship's morale is often times based on food quality Current ship status : latitude: 71.40N; longitude: 150.54W; temp: 32F; speed: 4.7k; winds: 32k; water depth: 1450m Yesterday (Day 18) was Labor Day on the ship, meaning the science team and Healy crew labored all day, dropping our coring instruments into the Arctic Ocean from morning to dusk. Today we are experiencing rough seas again, and because of the sea situation, our science--meaning coring--is taking a brief pause. Teacher On-Board Today is the first day of school in San Diego Unified School District . Steve Walters (Mission Bay High School, San Diego) will have a brief respite from coring operations today due to rough seas . Yesterday, Steve's Labor Day did not include barbecue or relaxation; coring was the order for Steve's day. Danny Blas (Lincoln High School, San Diego) did not write a blog post yesterday in observation of Labor Day; however, did conduct video interviews with the entire Healy Fo...

Click to enlarge the tracks map Day 18: Our science team deployed one jumbo piston core and one gravity core. Tomorrow (Monday) is Labor Day, and we're planning to do more coring at a new location. We're currently in-transit to our new location. Slow day today. The new media for your consumption is an image of a map of the locations our science team has cored and collected sediments. (Maps like these are available here if you're on-board the Healy.)

London's Arsenal defeats arch-rival Spurs 1-0 today Sang Tan/Associated Press Today, the 18th day of our science cruise, was a fantastic day. Reason #1: Arsenal extend the winning streak to four with a big-time win against arch rival Tottenham Hotspur 1-0, with Olivier Giroud, my fantasy soccer team captain, scoring the winner! Reason #2: The storm is over! All day yesterday and evening our boat was rocking to-and-fro, atop some of the roughest seas we've experienced during the past two-and-a-half weeks. The rough seas are over for now; however, there's word circulating on the ship that another storm is on the way. Today was another day of coring for sediments; a typical coring day. The science team and the Healy crew are working well together, with this coring thing becoming "old hat." Last night, during the rough seas and storms, the helicopter hangar hosted the first-ever music/karaoke night on the Healy (during this cruise to be more exact). You...

The Healy is one of many cutters in the Coast Guard http://goo.gl/DhWdYJ Current status: latitude: 70.13N; longitude: 138.39W; temp: 38F; visibility: cloudy; sea depth: 414m; current speed: 2.4k The U.S. Coast Guard, the owner of the ship we have been living on the past two weeks, is an institution of dedicated people. The crew serving on this ship have been hospitable and highly professional. As a high school teacher in San Diego , I know my students--many of whom are seniors--are considering their options for next year. As young adults, many seniors are looking forward to their next stage of life, be it college, work, trade school, or the military. However, I have rarely heard a student at Lincoln High speak of the Coast Guard. They talk about their plans for the Army, Marines, or Navy, but rarely the Coast Guard. Having been exposed to the people serving on the Healy, I began thinking that some of my students would probably be interested in knowing more about careers i...

The view from the bow of our icebreaker USCG Healy (Master Chief Sullivan) Ship's current status: visibility: low, foggy; temp: 37F; latitude: 70.39 N; longitude: 137.30 W The third straight day of sunshine and more vitamin D for a crew with good morale. Very little coring today (relative to previous days of core, core, and more coring). We are transiting west, towards an area with very shallow waters and geologic features called pingos , which are mounds "of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic and subarctic that can reach up to 70 metres (230 ft) in height and up to 600 m (2,000 ft) in diameter." What we seem to be more interested in, however, are pingo-ish, underwater hills that "form when methane hydrate (a frozen mixture of gas and seawater) decomposes beneath the seafloor, releasing gas that squeezes deep sediments up onto the seafloor like toothpaste from a tube," according to Charlie Paull and William Ussler, MBARI geologists. Our goal i...

Polar bears are enjoying the "abundance" of Arctic sea ice this year According to many people in-the-know, Arctic sea ice is relatively abundant this year. Towards the end of July 2013, " Arctic sea ice actually expanded by 20,000 square kilometers ," according to Jason Samenow of the Washington Post. This is not to say Arctic sea ice is healthy as it has ever been; quite the opposite . In a NOAA report , 2012 was one of the warmest since climate records have been kept. The Arctic, according to the report, is warming faster than other places on Earth. This year's better-than-expected sea ice seems to be really welcome news to polar bears, however. During this cruise, I have personally made visual contact with five polar bears. While others on the cruise--mainly Martin Reedy, Arctic wildlife observer for U.S. Fish and Wildlife, whose job is to count these beautiful creatures--have probably seen double what I have. Polar bears are lovely; polar bears...

Current position: 71.31N latitude 131.22W longitude; Temp. 27F; conditions: sunny View from Healy's Aloft Con camera (click to enlarge) Day 13 was the greatest polar bear sighting day ever (more on that on another post). This guy, who I named "Jasper," came within 100 meters of our ship. Every other step Jasper took, his nose was aimed our way, getting himself a waft of our taco Tuesday lunch. The Inupiaq People of Barrow Gabriel Tegoseak is a native Inupiaq Alaskan from Barrow, Alaska, who is part of this expedition serving as the community observer. Gabe's responsibilities on this cruise are to observe the condition of the animals--whales, polar bears, seals, walrus--the Inupiaq subsist upon. In addition to animal sightings, making note of the condition of the ice, which is critical to the lives of these animals, is part of the community observer's job. Gabe recently gave a well-attended talk on the culture of his people, which included an audience ...

Day 12 gave the science team mellow seas and above freezing temperatures on the Arctic. Our current location is: 71.20N latitude 126.45W longitude; speed 12.8 knots; temp 31.38 F Today was a full day of coring activities, which are now completed. We are currently underway, headed west, and I just read an email that we have full internet connectivity.  The crew aboard this mission are a creative and talented bunch. Here are some pictures taken by a member of the science team. The following images were shot by Akash Kataria (pictured): by Sarah Kaye 1. One of the cores on a multi-core coring instrument; the multi-core attempt to capture the interface of the ocean water and the ocean floor, and often times living creatures are captured alive in the coring process 2. Gabriel Tegoseak and Brendan Reilly enjoying "Ice Liberty" on Saturday, August 24, 2013; the seafloor is over 1000 meters below th...

Today, like yesterday, is a transit day. We're headed east on the Beaufort Sea. Our current location is 71.24 N latitude, 126.45 W longitude, well out of satellite reach of internet connectivity. Pretty much we are unconnected to the greater outside world. The above image was from yesterday's ice liberty. In this image are the two teachers from San Diego Unified School District, representing their respective schools--Danny Blas (your blogger) of Lincoln High School and Steve Walters of Mission Bay High School. In the background is our huge icebreaker ship, the USCGC Healy. For many on-board, Sunday is a laundry day; for some a reading day; for others a afternoon nap day. We have the team trivia competition on the mess deck tonight at 7pm, so that's something to look forward to. Other than team trivia, it's not a day filled with much excitement; however, anytime I'm on a ship, like the Healy, it's pretty exciting.  If you would like to ma...

Day 10. That's our fun day.  We had "Ice Liberty," Science Team Cook Day, bingo, and movie night in the hangar. Pictures and videos from this day will be forthcoming; however, since our Internet connection to the outside world has kinda went kaput, there's nothing to show at the moment (until we get in range of our satellite again). Today was a no-science day, thanks to our principal investigators, Lloyd Keigwin and Neal Driscoll. We've been working really well on the science the past nine days, so we finally had a chance to catch on sleep, relax and recreate. Thanks co-PIs! Ice liberty, ahhhh. As you can imagine, we stopped our gigantic ship next to a humungous piece of ice real estate, and we ran around like little children, and played. Responsibly, of course.  The ship's leadership, CAPT John Reeves and CDR Greg Stanclik, did a stupendous job preparing all-hands for the this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The way in which ice liber...

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...