Saturday, 5 January Yesterday I received an email with exciting news - Time Magazine had recognised Antarctic biodiversity research in its Top 10 scientific discoveries for 2007. At that moment, I was muddy and tired after working through the night with our team processing the animals from the Agassiz trawl. This news put a new perspective on the day! The discovery was reported in a Nature paper on biodiversity and biogeography of the Southern Ocean deep sea published in May 2007 by a team of 21 biologists. Right now, four of them are here at sea on RV Polarstern: Angelika Brandt (lead author), Brigitte Ebbe (polychaetes), Saskia Brix (isopods and molecular biology) and Dorte Janussen (sponges). They come from the University of Hamburg and the Senckenberg Inst...

Friday, 4 January Is today yesterday or already tomorrow? Hard to tell sometimes. It is daytime, isn’t it? Anyway, some time in the evening the first box corer brought a nice piece of sea floor onto the deck. A quarter of a square meter of a sandy something garnished with a few brittle stars. Could be from any place, but isn’t: in front of us is the first sea-floor sample from the plateau below the summit of Maud Rise, a solitary mound rising some 3,000 m from the Weddell abyssal plain. Still 2,000 m below the surface. An island in the vastness of the deep, so-to- speak. And possibly an oasis of life? The sand turns out to be a foraminiferan graveyard. Foraminiferans are single-celled animals with hard shells which can accumulate to thick sediment layers. And in it there...

Thursday, 3 January In between a lot of research on board of the R.V. Polarstern which is focussed on very small animals like nematodes, amphipods and all kinds of (epi) benthic and planktonic life there is the group of the Dutch Wageningen Imares Institute located on the island of Texel which is also working with animals up to 50 tonnes in weight. These are whales which roam across the Southern Oceans and the Lazarev Sea where the R.V. Polarstern is now finding its way through the pack-ice. My name is Bram Feij, 37 years old and living on the island of Texel. But for about 2 months, together wi...

12 Jan 2008 3251 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 26 to - 36 °C We received a very pleasant visit of an international VIP-group this morning. This group is supported by Antarctic Logistics Expedition and led by a Swedish explorer. They landed at our traverse with a Twin Otter on their way to the Pole of Inaccessibility. The group consisted of VIP persons from Australia, Canada, Dubai, Germany, Russia, Scotland and Sweden. Later this afternoon the transmission transfer-case on Sembla broke. Since we have no spare parts Sembla will be placed on a sledge and riding ...

Friday 11th January 2008 It is heresy to say this out loud when our key projects are dependent on being in open water - but I do enjoy being in the ice. We have shared the company of many large tabular bergs as well as some scattered bergy bits today. I have learned about the ship sinkers - the growlers, and correctly identified brash ice. I've seen pancake and fused and rafted, know a bummock from a hummock, and have seen frazzle, and grease and slush. It was Toby that pointed out an odd feature in the distant sea. He had his binoculars straight onto it. "It's black... sticking up out ...

11 Jan 2008 3273 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 26 to - 38 °C Roald Amundsen left his spare tent at the South Pole after his visit there in December 1911. The father of Finn Ronne, whom one of our modules is named after, made this tent for Amundsen. The tent Amundsen used on his way back from the South Pole is exhibited at the Fram Museum at Bygdøy in Oslo. Most likely his spare tent is located under about 15 meters of snow. However, due to airdrops during the building of the first South Pole Station in 1957 there are many other items buried in the snow in this area. At the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Stockholm in 2005 the tent of Roald Amundsen was protected based on a proposal from USA and supported by consensus among ...

Thursday 10th January 2008 I woke to the jolting and whoosh of the ship going through pack ice. We are working the CASO grid south again but the ice has forced a change, so we head westwards to skirt the pack and come in on a parallel that offers open sea. Icebergs and floes are the habitat of the beautiful, pure white Snow Petrel. It is hard to say which of the Antarctic birds is the most captivating but this small bird is a striking sight against sea or sky. The Cape Petrel (someone called it the 'magpie' of Antarctica) has careless splodges of black and white across its wings while...

Thursday 10th January 2008 I woke to the jolting and whoosh of the ship going through pack ice. We are working the CASO grid south again but the ice has forced a change, so we head westwards to skirt the pack and come in on a parallel that offers open sea. Icebergs and floes are the habitat of the beautiful, pure white Snow Petrel. It is hard to say which of the Antarctic birds is the most captivating but this small bird is a striking sight against sea or sky. The Cape Petrel (someone called it the 'magpie' of Antarctica) has careless splodges of black and white across its wings while...

Written January 10, 2008 Position: , 3350 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 27 to - 32 °C For the first time in weeks, strong winds and blowing snow were with us all day. In these cold, dry snow conditions, it takes a wind speed of approximately 5 m/s (10 miles per hour) for the snow to start being transported by the wind. As the snow particles bounce and roll along the surface they are exposed to the dry air above and continually sublimate (go from solid ice to vapor) as they move along with the wind. The snow particles can be blown about 3 km (2 miles) before they sublimate/disappear completely. ...

Wednesday 9th January 2008 The emergency stations muster signal is seven long and one short sounding on bells and whistle. The ringing alarm today marked the passing of another week on the 'Aurora Australis'. These musters are held regularly so that everyone on the ship knows exactly where to go, how to get there and what to bring. On hearing the bells I scramble into the freezer suit, stow the first aid and field manuals in my pocket, lace the big Canadian Sorell boots, drag the lifejacket over my head and grab the red survival bag with warm clothing. Now at twice my normal size, I make a clumsy beeline for my muster station starboard side of the helideck. ...