64PE370 - Diary 6

From “micro” to “nano”, when the small matters.

Hello and thanks to all those who are following this diary, and taking their time to read these lines. Let me introduce myself… my name is Joaquin, from Cadiz, southern Spain, but I am coming from the National Oceanography Center of Southampton (NOCS, England), where I currently work as technician in the biogeochemistry department. In my case I joined Pelagia in Lisbon as many of my colleagues, for this amazing Geotraces Medblack cruise along the “sunny” and “calm” Mediterranean Sea. Right now we are already sailing for the station 22, in between Greece and Turkey, I know it sounds like having a good holidays when you talk about those places, but so far away from that, It is 5am and still in the lab, thanks to those typical lab issues that make much more interesting the technician’s everyday life…  and I am not the only one around who did not go to bed yet.

As introduction about what we do, I could say everything involved with the prefix “micro” means problems, with “nano” means more problems, and with “pico” or “trace” means “you like making your own life harder than the normal people”, our “trace metal colleagues” can talk longer about this topic maybe. Concerning me, I came with the aim of measuring nutrients in pretty low concentrations (nanomolar). Within an environmental context, we can say nutrients mean all those inorganic compounds required in the primary production step, and in this case we will point nitrate and phosphate due to they play an important role in this match, being normally limiting factor for the phytoplankton, so when the algae bloom comes over they will almost disappear from the photic zone, and we will be there sampling!

Joaquin behind his nanomoalr nutrient instrumentarium in the chemical lab of RV Pelagia (Photo: Micha Rijkenberg).

In that point, here I am, to get further in the limit of detection and better accuracy in those low concentrations, for a better understanding of what is going on in the biological pump when this decrease is present in marine environments. In Pelagia, life on board is easier thanks to the warm welcome given by our colleagues from NIOZ, and the crew who are doing a great job, looking after every detail. It is a pleasure to share this kind of projects with so many professional workers. Before coming here, we all knew this was going to be a really busy cruise, we are measuring a considerable number of stations with a high resolution profiles in most of them, and they are getting closer and closer to each other conforming we are heading for Istanbul, but how we say in Spain: “it is what there is….” So lets take over!

Ok my friends, I just run my last sample! It is “siesta” time!!!

Cheers!!

Joaquin Pampin Baro