Weeks 9, 10 & 11: The Trace metal team arrived

Trace metal project.
There we were on the 2nd of January at Schiphol airport. Still digesting the champagne and olliebollen we met around noon, finally for our departure to Rothera. After a journey of more than 30 hours that took us via the magnificent airfields of Frankfurt, Sao Paulo and Santiago the Chili we finally reached Punta Arenas at 18:00h local time. At the airport of Sao Paulo we meet our British colleagues who were also on their way to Rothera and traveled via London Heathrow.

We could clearly see the red Dash 7 from the British Antarctic Survey when we came in on the airport, ready to bring us even further then we had already traveled. Punta arena is known as the final departure city for Antarctica but also the last city before exploring Tierra del Fuego. However our flight was scheduled for the next morning if weather permitted. The weather at Rothera decides if the flight will take off or not and meteorologists give a go or no go for the Dash 7 to fly or not. Briefing at 8:00 in the morning we are getting excited!

After breakfast we had the briefing, the weather at Rothera was good! Check out at 9:00 and straight to airport for our last stop, Antarctica!

Special boarding pass	The Dash7

After a very nice and comfortable flight we were able to see Antarctica, the weather was extremely good! All were excited by the first iceberg and lots of pictures were taken. As the captain had the door open we were all able to have a look through the cockpit and enjoy the amazing views of ice and mountains. The last part of the flight we fly through the mountains of Adelaide Island and I believe 1000 pictures have been taken.

After being welcomed by the base commander we were invited for a cup of tea, after all they are British! After that we had a tour through the accommodations and it was clear that it is a real nice and clean and well organized base. On base around 100 people live with a peak around mid January where around 120 beds are occupied. During winter this drops to 18 persons who live there and keep the base alive in this hostile environment. In winter temperatures of -10 are pretty normal and the days remain dark. Now however we had a perfect blue sky full sun and 24 hours of sunlight. Although it seems very friendly it is not. For instance you can and will be sunburned within 15 minutes if you do not use sun block. Water temperatures are around freezing point and the snow covered mountains are full of crevasses. Therefore we need to follow a whole training program, which covers everything from camping in a tent on the glacier to driving a skidoo and more importantly, driving a powerboat. We will use this powerboat to get our trace metal clean water samples from various depths.

We are here to look at the influence of the rapid melting of the glaciers on the trace metals concentration. On the ice covered Antarctica continent there is very limited plant growth (a few lichens and mosses). The vast majority of plant life is the microscopic small single cell algae in the sea. These algae are the basis of the Antarctic food chain, all animals from krill to penguins to whales live from these algae.

Special campsite!	The Dirck Gerritzlab	Preparing the winch

Every living cell of every organism requires some trace amount of iron (Fe) for various enzymes and other biological functions in the cell. The surface waters of the Southern Oceans contain a very low amount of iron. In large parts of the ocean we have found that this is not enough: the growth of algae is limited due to the lack of iron.
From our previous work in the Amundsen Sea we know that the Pine Island Glacier by the erosion of the iron rocks brings in quite some dissolved iron that fuels the local blooms of algae and can therefore be sustained for a very long time.

Here at Rothera the local glacier Sheldon is retreating due to global warming and we will look in detail how this retirement of the glacier influences the amount of trace metals. To do so we will collect water with a powerboat, the so called Searover. This Searover is equipped with an all titanium winch that contains a non metal, all plastic fiber cable to exclude any contamination from the sampling.

After we collected the samples we will analyse the amount of Fe in the seawater in our brand new laboratory in the Dirck Gerritzs laboratory. This is a brand new facility that is situated next to the analytical Bonner lab at the south point of Rothera base. It is a beautiful building in which 4 lab containers are placed and all different kinds of Dutch Antarctic research is done. We are very lucky and happy with these new facilities.

At this moment we are getting everything ready to deploy our instruments for the very first time.
The trace metal team has arrived!