Kick-off for SCANS-III aerial survey

3 July 2016 | Category: Aerial survey cetaceans

– By Meike Scheidat, aerial survey co-ordinator – The aerial survey component of the SCANS-III survey officially started on 27 June! A lot of people have worked towards this moment and the last weeks and months were filled with intense preparations. Getting equipment ready, finalizing transect lines & protocols, designating…

VIP: important visitors at the research station

1 July 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Martine van den Heuvel-Greve – VIP guests The research station of Ny-Ålesund is a popular place for visiting VIP s. Recently Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and our minister of Foreign Affairs, Bert Koenders, visited Ny-Ålesund. The place is popular because many nations have their own…

How toxic is oil at sea in the Arctic?

28 June 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Martine van den Heuvel-Greve – Resembling an oil spill We use small crustaceans to test their sensitivity to oil, when dissolved in water, resembling an oil spill at sea. We conducted similar tests in the Netherlands with related Dutch species. The results will tell us whether the tests…

Collecting deep and shallow Spitsbergen sediment

27 June 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Tinka Murk – The sediment sampler During 2 sampling trips we had the opportunity to collect some deep (300 m) and shallow (30 m) sediment samples with a Van Veen – sampler. With its ‘big mouth’ opened the sampler is lowered. It closes as soon as it bumps…

Lab work in Ny-Ålesund

25 June 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Isolde Puts – Lab with a view Making long nights in the lab under the nordic midnight sun is not as hard as it sounds. While monitoring our test every half hour throughout the night, we have a view over the harbour area and Kongsfjorden. A group of…

Fieldwork between floating glacier ice

22 June 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Isolde Puts – Fieldwork; sampling water and dirt On a small research vessel, Teisten, we went out to sample algae and sediments. Surrounded by several sea-glaciers it is a pretty sight floating amidst many icebergs. Puffins are floating on the fjord on our way to the sampling station….

Collecting Arctic algae for a sea snow production test

21 June 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Tinka Murk – Do Arctic algae make ‘sea snot’? We found out that in the tropical climate of the Gulf of Mexico (Deep Water Horizon blow out in 2010),  and experimentally with Dutch algae (in temperate climate) marine algae make ‘sea snow’ and ‘sea snot’ in combination with oil…

Sampling in the harbour

21 June 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Martine van den Heuvel-Greve – Sampling gear For our test we need to catch small crustacean type invertebrates, gammarids. We hope to be able to catch these directly in the harbour next to the marine laboratory. Wearing a neoprene wading suit to keep us warm we enter the…

Field work at Svalbard

20 June 2016 | Category: Svalbard

– By: Martine van den Heuvel-Greve – Arrival at Svalbard This year we have a 3-women’s team of the Wageningen University and Research Centre conducting fieldwork in Ny-Ålesund, the research station at northwest Svalbard: Tinka Murk (professor in Marine Animal Ecology at Wageningen University), Isolde Puts (former student of Wageningen…