A Research Cruise in 12 Animated Gifs

Hey everyone I went out on a research cruise in the Bering Sea!

We threw a lot of expensive shit in the ocean. Starting with this mooring. It was called Peggy.

Then we threw this drifter and its drogue into the sea. It follows all the currents.

And for good measure, we chucked in this ARGO float. OK I lied, we gently placed it in.

And then it was SUR-SUR-SURVEY time. And we were all like….

At each stop in the survey, we had definite plan of sampling attack.

Step 1: Get your water from the Niskin bottles on the Rosette.

Step 2: FILTER ALL THE CHLOROPHYLLS!

STEP 3: Capture the sea beasties zooplankton with our bongo nets.

STEP 4: Process the ensnared sea beasties.

STEP 5: Examine the rest under the embiggening machine (biologists call this a microscope).

STEP 6: Mandatory dance party.

But eventually it had to end. And we headed back into shore.

Because nothing is quite as nice after a two week cruise as having a beer and watching the trash eagles of Dutch Harbor.

I might have created this post because I love animated gifs. I might have created this post in response to this curmudgeonly post. In any case hope you enjoyed it.

This cruise was part of the EcoFOCI program, a joint program between NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center to study the physical and biological relationships in the marine ecosystem and the survival of commercial valuable fish in the eastern Bering Sea.