By Kelsey Bisson For a while the ocean existed to me as an abstraction. I grew up in Ohio and I’d never been. I imagined it to be the deepest, darkest, scariest, most enchanting thing on Earth and even so, I couldn’t quite imagine it exactly -- it was just too big, too distant, too... Continue Reading →
Life in the Clean Van
By Maitreyi Nagarkar, CCE LTER This past April I went on the CCE LTER El Nino Rapid Response cruise, and it was my first ever time on a research cruise. My own research focuses on samples that I collect right off the Scripps Pier in La Jolla, California, so this was a new and exciting... Continue Reading →
Look at the Filters on that Rack!
I am a biological oceanographer and I study plankton - microscopic floating plants and animals. That means to do my research, I filter seawater - liters and liters of it. Why? Well, in order to study the small plankton in the ocean, you can’t use a net; they’ll slip right through even the smallest net.... Continue Reading →
Follow along with the El Nino Research Cruise!
The CCE LTER researchers are heading out on Tuesday for a 3 week long research cruise focused on investigating the effects of El Nino on our study site: the California Current. We are excited to get some sea time and check out what this recent atmospheric phenomenon means for the biology, chemistry, and physics of this productive region.... Continue Reading →
What do you do at sea for a month without good internet?
For our research in biological oceanography, we often have to go to sea to collect our biological samples or to measure the temperature, salinity, and chemical components of the water at different depths. We often have to go to sea for days, even weeks at a time without coming into port. Going to sea is a very fun... Continue Reading →