Emily Shaw prepares gear for sampling invertebrates at the harbour.
Adelie penguin.
Visiting a penguin rookery.
The previously unexplored waters around the Mertz Glacier tongue may reveal how climate change is affecting the biogeochemistry of the Southern Ocean.
One of the first icebergs encountered on the voyage south during an amazing 4-hour-long sunset/sunrise.
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Antarctic fieldwork for CCRC research students
24 March 2011
CCRC research students Emily Shaw and Graham Simpkins have returned from scientific research expeditions to Antarctica.
Emily Shaw, who investigates seasonal and diurnal variability of carbonate parameters in southern Great Barrier Reef waters at CCRC, worked at Casey Station as a volunteer research assistant on a project investigating human impacts on the Antarctic ecosystem.
That study aims to understand the sources, transport and eventual fate of toxic compounds of contaminants of concern for Antarctic wildlife, such as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
The focus of work conducted this summer was determining whether Antarctic research stations could be a potential local source of polybrominated diphenylether (PBDE) contamination. Samples were collected from soil, dust, effluent and marine invertebrates.
Graham Simpkins, who is studying ocean-ice-atmosphere interactions at the Southern Hemisphere high latitudes for his CCRC research project, spent 5 weeks on board the Aurora Australis as a volunteer biogeochemist.
The voyage involved taking measurements of conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) along a transect from Hobart, south to Antarctica.
This was followed by studying the previously unexplored region surrounding the Mertz Glacier tongue.
The area has only recently become accessible since the gigantic iceberg B-9B - about the size of the city of Canberra - knocked into the Mertz Glacier Tongue, causing it to break off in February 2010.
Graham worked with the onboard "Carbon Team" to measure pH, total-CO₂ and alkalinity of water samples to improve understanding of how climate change is affecting the biogeochemistry of the Southern Ocean.
While providing a dramatic setting for important and exciting research work, the Antarctic wilderness also gave the researchers ample opportunities to observe penguins, seals, albatross, ice and glimpses of the southern lights.
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Announcing the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013-2014
06 May 2013
To mark the centenary of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by the great scientist and explorer Sir Douglas Mawson, Professor Chris Turney and Dr Chris Fogwill of the CCRC are leading a privately-funded voyage of discovery to the Antarctic during the Austral summer of 2013-2014. |
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New website will let you Adrift away
24 April 2013
Dr Erik Van Sebille along with David Fuchs and Jack Murray has created a new website, Adrift, which allows visitors to track the path of flotsam for the next 10 years from almost any place by the ocean. |
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