You are browsing the archive for Antarctic Log Archives - The Plainspoken Scientist.
7 October 2022
#AntarcticLog: Back to the ice!
It’s springtime in Antarctica, and the scientists are heading back to the ice. Not only the scientists, but the support people working at the stations, and yes, even a few science communicators and artists. Among the first to travel to McMurdo and the South Pole in the wake of the Covid pandemic is Lauren Lipuma, editor of the U.S. Antarctic Program (and the National Science Foundation’s) newspaper, The Antarctic Sun.
30 September 2022
#AntarcticLog: The wombat connection
I’m in Crownpoint, New Mexico this week, researching future comics at Navajo Technical University– and learned that the campus here used to have more trees. Piñon and juniper have died because of recent drought, says Abishek Roychowdhury, who teaches environmental science here.
23 September 2022
#AntarcticLog: Why did the ship cross the Drake Passage?
Why did the R/V Laurence M. Gould cross the fierce, fearsome Drake Passage? To get to the other side — to the Antarctic Peninsula and Palmer Station.
16 September 2022
#AntarcticLog: The importance of research ships
I learn so much from drawing ships. Here is E/V Nautilus, from an artist-in-residence and science communications tour I did in 2015. Nautilus is the mother ship to Hercules, a deep-diving ROV.
9 September 2022
#AntarcticLog: A close look at a glacier’s edge
The Alvin Science Verification Expedition may be over (science? verified!) but the research and findings are ongoing. What’s more, the scientists aboard bring plenty of fascinating stories to the table — not all of them related to Alvin.
2 September 2022
#AntarcticLog: (Climate) refugees
More than the population of Australia. That’s how many people the United Nations Refugee Agency says are refugees. These numbers are unimaginable, inconceivable, and overwhelming.
26 August 2022
#AntarcticLog: Finishing up with Alvin
Hello from the tail end of the Alvin Science Verification Expedition, in which we worked to verify the submersible Alvin’s ability to carry scientists, their equipment, and samples to depths of 6500 meters. The upshot: human-operated vehicle HOV Alvin is ready, willing, and able indeed.
19 August 2022
#AntarcticLog: Alvin dive 5101
Greetings once again from sea, this time the Caribbean Sea, off the Cayman Islands to be precise, way down deep at the Mid-Cayman Rise. Today is Alvin dive 5101, on the Beebe Vent Field (named for the deep-sea pioneer William Beebe who, with Otis Barton, descended 417m in the bathysphere in 1930, the year Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was founded), the deepest known hydrothermal vents in the world. Wonder what we’ll find…
12 August 2022
#AntarcticLog: Diving on the Mid-Cayman Rise
Leg 2 of the Alvin Science Verification Expedition finds us once again exploring new territory. After all, that’s the point of certifying Alvin to dive 6500 meters — to give us access to much more of the sea floor. Today we’re diving on the Mid-Cayman Rise, a spreading center in the Earth’s crust at the deepest point in the Caribbean.
5 August 2022
#AntarcticLog: Greetings from the Puerto Rico Trench
Greetings from the deepest place in the Atlantic Ocean! So far I’m reporting from the surface, but every day human-operated vehicle (HOV) Alvin carries scientists deeper. I mean, if you knew you had access to 99% of the seafloor — where before you had access to 2/3 — wouldn’t you head for the deepest spots?
The Plainspoken Scientist is the science communication blog of AGU’s Sharing Science program. With this blog, we wish to encourage scientists to reach out to non-scientists and to do so with plainspoken discussion.