Wednesday, 2 January Today is the second day of the year, it is cloudy and the sun isn’t shining. It’s really a grey day... But I don’t mind!! Because I’m on one of the best scientific ships, the Polarstern, making my dream reality. This is my first cruise... and for me everything is new and exciting. I meet people from different countries, discover the German customs, get used to life on the ship, and of course learn all I can about my work!! On board I’m working with the AgassizTrawl (AGT), a spectacular gear that provides samples for people that work with severa...

Wednesday 2nd January 2008 The view from the porthole is overcast and dull. The rise and fall of the horizon through the window tells me that the trawl deck is closed. This is a chance to read in bed and I am immersed in an account of Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition, “Lady spy, gentleman explorer: the double life of Herbert Dyce Murphy”, by Heather Rossiter. In 1911 in the same month as we visit these latitudes, a ship, also called 'Aurora', was on a scientific quest. With just 0.04% of the continent edge ice-free, there was jubilation when the rocks of Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay and its...

Thursday 3rd January 2008 The sun is shining, the sea is flat and we have been back in action since 0500 working the eastern section of the CEAMARC sampling grid. From the bridge I drink in a rare pristine environment. I see two whales, some Adelie penguins and I am thrilled to glimpse the mighty Mertz one last time. Station 52 takes us to a point around about 17nm from the tip. The horizon is a distant but brilliant white scar with big tabular bergs jagging the horizon. Harvey Marchant is a marine biologist based at the ANU in Canberra. In front of us is his book ‘Antarctic Fishes’. Harvey says he’s not especially a ‘fish’ man but confirms that he is a trout fishing enthusiast and has an obvious appreciation of nature. ...

Tuesday, 1 January First day of the year, welcome in 2008! This morning on the ship, the eyes were a little bit swollen, the features looked drawn, movements a were little bit slower than usually… Yes, on the Polarstern, as beautiful as the party might be (and it was!), the respite is short and the scientific work doesn’t wait very long. So, at 10 o’clock this morning precisely, the scientific activities started again. As far as I am concerned, I am lucky: the foraminifera, microscopic marine protists affectionately called “forams”, allowed me to sleep a little lo...

The 3rd International Conference on Polar and Alpine Microbiology will be held in Banff, Alberta, Canada from May 11 - May 15, 2008. The meeting sessions and official accommodation will be at The Banff Centre. Register for the conference will be via the Banff Centre Information on the conference program, travel and other activities are available on the conference web site Abstracts should be submitted through the conference web site. We hope you will be able...

Tuesday 1st January 2008 The day is overcast and sleety. Winds are at 40 knots, gusting to 50 and snow whips across the bridge windows. The ship is hove to, riding out the weather and the decks have been closed since 0900. Post party it’s a quiet morning. I have a lesson in marine geology. There’s a revolution going on in this field. We now have the tools to map the entire seafloor in the way that Geographic Information Systems have mapped the land. This is Dr Rob Beaman’s area. To show why this matters, he constructs a computer map of Voyage 3’s ocean section. Prior to the voyage he gathered data to construct maps of the ocean around Antarctica. Tables of geographic information, such as latitude, longitude and depths from the ...

Sunday, 30 December Lecture room, 10 a.m. “Can you deploy the corer a bit faster?” – “Sure, we try! One point five down is ok.” Time is in short supply, we are nearly at the northernmost point of our western transect at 62°S. To make good use of the workfree period on New Year’s Eve, we would like to steam eastwards during that time. That was a few days ago. The urgent requests of the expedition leader have worked wonders in the meantime. At the end of today, we are several hours ahead of schedule. The switching between the different plankton nets is running like clockwork, and w...

Monday 31st December The Mertz has vanished in cloud and snow storm and we can feel the motion of the sea again. The decision to sample the additional site close to the glacier has been rewarded, as Martin reports: ‘The scientific highlight of this site was the discovery on the high definition photographs of highly pigmented patches on the sediment surface. The colour is very like the patches of photosynthetic microorganisms found on sediments in shallower places but at this depth (1300 m) no light penetrates and so photosynthesis is not possible. The most likely explanation is that they are caused by organic material from the upper waters that has sunk to the bottom fast enough to retain photosynthetic pigments. This explanation is consistent...

The IPY exhibit at the Exhibition on Earth observations during the Ministerial Summit of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) 27-30 Nov 2007 in Cape Town, South Africa was well attended by ministers and visitors. Dr Pierre Cilliers from the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory and Mr Michael Nxumalo, professional officer of the Souith African IPY office at the National Research Foundation set up and attended to the stand on behalf of the International IPY office. The stand also featured several posters on topics related to the South African IPY programme. The themes of the posters were among others "The Hermanus Magnetic Observatory, Contributions to Global Observations of the Earth's Geomagnetic Field", "The Hermanus Magnetic Observatory, Space Weather Observation for disast...

30th December 2007 I’m looking carefully at my map of sampling stations because today we come closest to the continent and the Mertz glacier. We have been tantalized by the awesome and mysterious continent but have not been closer than 9 or 10 nm. Station 47 takes us to a depth of 1200m while at 49 we will sample at 180m, the shallowest site.There is great interest in what these different habitats will reveal. At 47 I watch Rob guiding his deepwater video camera over the seabed. He explains how the shape of the sea-bed reflects the ancient drift of the Mertz glacier. It’s rough country down there, the gouged and scoured valleys are scattered with rock carried by the ice. Life in the abyss is sparser but how wonderful it is to observe this ne...