The Knorr before leaving port.

My sleeping quarters for the next two months...dun dun dunnnnnn. I woke up in a fit of claustrophobia the first night but am getting more used to it.

The lab :) I'm working in a clean van on the main deck. On the left side a technician from Old Dominion University is analyzing seawater for Fe(II) (iron 2 isotope). On the right side myself and Carl Lamborg from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute are doing all of the mercury analysis. It's a tight space for three people but we are making it work!

The frame in this picture is called a rosette, it holds Go-Flo bottles that are programmed to close at selected depths to collect seawater samples.

Day 4

We’ve completed station one and are currently steaming to the next location. We’ve had beautiful weather the last couple of days, hot and sunny during the day with beautiful sunsets leading into the night. With so many different projects going on there is always something happening around the boat. My water samples come from Go-Flo bottles so I help on deck to prepare, deploy and recover the rosette whenever I am not busy in the lab. Besides the GoFlos, there are other larger bottles called Niskins deployed to collect unfiltered water. Specially designed pumps collect particle samples onto filters at each depth and another device called the “fish” constantly pumps surface water into one of the vans (I’ll try to post some pictures of these different devices soon). We actually have someone onboard in charge of "data management" to help keep straight all of the operations, samples Ids and results. Everything is posted online so all scientists can have easy access.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRISTEN HART!!!!!! :)