My primary research interests are the interactions between marine microbes and their environment. My work with Dr. Charlie Trick is focused on describing the different components of the marine microbial community and identifying the factors, like nutrient supply, light, or predation, that control the growth and abundance of these ecologically important organisms. So my usual hat is something to keep the salt water from going down the back of my neck (the picture is from a lovely day in the North Pacific Ocean). However, I have donned the toque (a watch cap to my American friends) to study microbes in ice-covered lakes in Antarctica. I am fascinated by the enormous diversity of microbial life and all the ways these organisms live and thrive in a challenging world. Whether th...

The German research vessel Polarstern is now about 500km north of Prydz Bay. The engineer Konrad Kopsch from the Alfred Wegener Institute Potsdam is getting instruments (such as the so-called “bird”) ready, together with his colleagues and the geophysicist Detlef Damaske from the "Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe" (Federal Institute for Geosciences and Raw Materials) in Germany. "The bird" is a torpedo-shaped probe that is suspended by a cable a few meters below a helicopter flying over the ocean. The measuring equipment itself, which measures the magnetization at the ocean floor, is located inside the helicopter. The researchers are looking for anomalies in the magnetization data in order to be able to record and make detailed reconstructions of co...

Polarstern has arrived at Prydz Bay, the primary research area of the expedition ANTXXIII/9 of the Alfred Wegener Institute. The first task is to take sediment samples from the ocean floor at a depth of more than 700 meters. Geologist Bernhard Diekmann from the University of Potsdam stands on the ship's bridge and watches the monitor attached to the parasound equipment. This Sonar system graphically represents the layers of the sea floor sediment under the Polarstern. Diekmann is looking for areas where the sediment layers are even and parallel to each other, so that an interference-free baseline measurement can be taken. Icebergs dating back to the last ice age have left deep grooves in the ocean floor. The literature, however, does not describe the location of these areas very accuratel...

On March 1 2007, students at schools around the world marked the advent of International Polar year by conducting an ice experiment. They then told the IPY community and the world by pinning a virtual balloon onto a web-based map showing exactly where they were. It proved to be quite a success, with hundreds of schools contributing so far. IPY enthusiasts also joined in, turning the map into a riot of red balloons. See the whole map here. For technical reasons, browsers don't like it if you show too many balloons at one time, so only the most recent 200 balloons are shown. However, you can see all contributed posts directly by browsing the directory from ...