Danny Baza Blas

Click to enlarge invitation Amanda Netburn, a PhD. candidate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, co-taught Kearny High School (School of International Business) earth science students this year, and brought a tremendous amount of great science insights into the classroom. On Friday, May 16th, Amanda will present the mesopelagic biome lessons we co-developed during our time in the GK-12 Program. More information on the poster.

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.

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 two was an opportunity to get to know the ship better, its crew, and some of the protocols related to having a successful time on board USCGC Healy. Day two had me visiting sick bay because prior to my departure flight from San Diego to Barrow, I "tweaked" my knee, and it became inflamed and was quite painful. Doc, who happens to be Chamorro (just like me, from the island of Guam) hooked me up with an ice bag and some anti-inflammatory and pain reduction meds. Today I awoke almost pain free. Pictured to the left is USCGC Healy source: http://goo.gl/6ZOBDw Today the science crew members are busy setting up and staging the instruments which will be deployed from the rear of the vessel, using the A-frame to lower it into the ocean. A science crew, pictured to the left, sending sensing instruments into the water: source: http://goo.gl/g2WH51 I hear we will be headed to sea this afternoon. In the meantime, I'll be recording videos to edit for the next blo...

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...