64PE370 - Diary 2

So far this cruise seems to become one of opposites. I am typing this with slightly sunburnt arms from a few days ago, trying to hold myself down on my chair, catching some stray bits trying to fall off my desk. We are currently near station 10 southwest of Sardinia and the wind seems to be slacking off after the force-9-to-10 of last night. All quite different from what I imagined a cruise through the Mediterranean sun would be like. We aren’t getting the expected jealousy-inspiring treatment it seems.

I have joined Pelagia as a fresh PhD student and am working on the detection of iron binding organic ligands in seawater. These compounds are responsible for keeping iron dissolved in the water column, something elementary iron does not do very well on its own. Ligands thus make iron available for use by phytoplankton. This is of importance because iron is an essential trace element for phytoplankton growth, which forms the basis of the marine food web, and in a large part of the world’s oceans lack of iron is limiting growth. The sources of these ligands and their fate over time is the main focus of the PhD project I have just started at the NIOZ about 1,5 months ago. For this purpose I will firstly fill three large tanks of 1 m3 with seawater from different areas in the Atlantic and Mediterranean as stock for use back home on Texel.

Hans Slagter working on his titration data in the dry lab on RV Pelagia [Photo: Micha Rijkenberg]

Apart from that I am assisting in tapping the ultra clean CTD, samples for ligands get frozen for now. I am trying to get my measuring method up and running, right now it does not yet yield the sensitivity required for the concentrations in which these ligands are present in the seawater. Our (almost) always-on internet connection is a big help, allowing a lot of contact with the home front.

So, not only the weather fails to develop entirely as planned, but then this is part of doing research at sea. While I am typing the English translation of this blog the sun is starting to come back, maybe we will be getting our summer after all.

Hans Slagter