Danny Baza Blas

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...

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...