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Spring Time in Antarctica
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(L-R) Alison Rellinger (MS Student), Jennifer Meeks
(Research Technician), Daniela del Valle (PhD.
Student), and Doris Slezak (Post-Doc) |
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Dr. Ron
Kiene is guiding his research team from afar – with e-mail
and satellite phone communications. His team of two
graduate students, a post-doc and a technician is about as
far away as you can get without leaving the planet. They
are aboard the 310-foot icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer in
the Ross Sea, Antarctica, where they are studying how
important sulfur compounds like dimethylsulfide (DMS) are
cycled in the rich plankton blooms that form in Antarctic
waters. DMS is a gas that plays a critical role in the
Earth’s climate system after it is emitted from ocean waters
to the atmosphere. The study of DMS also offers insights
into the ecology and chemistry of the oceans.
The cruise departed the
port of Lyttelton New Zealand on October 26 and sailed 2200
nautical miles to the study area in the Ross Sea. Ph.D.
student, Daniela del Valle, is making her third trip to
Antarctica where she is studying how microbes consume DMS.
Results from Daniela’s work show that microbes eat a lot of
the DMS that is produced in the ultra cold waters around
Antarctica and that process limits how much DMS gets into
the atmosphere. Alison Rellinger is a new M.S. student who
is experiencing her first oceanographic cruise. She is
studying the phytoplankton that produce DMSP, the precursor
of DMS, and the factors that make these phytoplankton sink.
The sinking of phytoplankton is an important export of
carbon and sulfur from the surface waters and a source of
food for microorganisms in the deep waters of the Ross
Sea.
Although Dr. Kiene traveled
to New Zealand to help set up for the cruise, he was unable
to participate in this 48-day cruise because of teaching
commitments, and also because he is scheduled to deploy to
Palmer Station Antarctica for five weeks in January-February
2006. Dr. Kiene’s Antarctic research is supported by the US
National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs.
-- Dr. Ron
Kiene
Senior Marine Scientist, DISL and Professor
of
Marine Sciences, University of South Alabama
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