R/V Sikuliaq Cruise

Brittany R. Jones
Jun 12, 2017
2 min read

Today is Day 3 of our 20-day research cruise on the R/V Sikuliaq to the northern Bering and southern Chukchi Seas for the NPRB Arctic Program's (you can follow the NPRB Arctic Program on Twitter or Facebook) ASGARD project. This multi-disciplinary project includes studies of physical oceanography, water chemistry, phytoplankton, zooplankton, particle fluxes, and benthos.

I have been working with Dr. Sarah Hardy on the benthic component with 2 other graduate students. At about one sampling station per day, we are deploying the multi-corer 3 times. The multi-corer has 8 sediment tubes, so on each deployment we will ideally collect 8 sediment cores...although this doesn't always happen, such as when the sediment is too gravely. From the sediment cores, we are measuring sediment community oxygen consumption, analyzing sediment composition, counting and identifying macrofauna and meiofauna, estimating microbial biomass, and analyzing bioturbation, among other things. Most of the analysis will happen back in the lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Below is a map of sampling stations of the cruise with estimated dates. We will hit the yellow square process stations on our way north and the black dot survey stations on our way back south. The process stations (about 1 per day) will have more intense sampling, while the survey stations will be more rapid fire (many per day). We will be collecting core samples at the process stations and at the survey stations with a fish symbol next to them (fish bottom trawls will also be conducted at these survey stations, hence the fish symbol). So far, we are right on schedule!