Science for Everyone

HICSL Attends Atlantic Partners EMS Seminar

This fall we partnered with Wilderness Medical Associates to host a booth at the 35th Annual Atlantic Partners EMS Seminar! The purpose of the Seminar is to bring together emergency medical professionals from all over New England, and to offer courses that fulfill continuing education hours.

So what was Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership doing there? Because Hurricane Island is considered a “wilderness context” we are very aware of the importance of the local medical services that we have available to us 12 miles out in Penobscot Bay. We are grateful to have Vinalhaven’s Islands Community Medical Services center close by for minor injuries, and luckily have a landing pad on the South End if we ever need to activate Life Flight. Members of our staff are trained in First Aid and CPR, Wilderness First Response, and Sam, HICL’s Director, is an EMT. In short, safety is extremely important to us!

In an effort to run a diverse set of programs on the island we offer a variety of wilderness medical training courses through Wilderness Medical Associates. Everything from Wilderness First Aid to those who simply want to be prepared while enjoying the outdoors, to Wilderness Advanced Life Support for licensed medical professionals. It was our hope in attending the EMS seminar to spread the word to local EMS practitioners about the courses that we provide on Hurricane, especially since as of right now Hurricane is currently one of only two places offering Wilderness Advanced Life Support in the entire United States! We met some incredible people who volunteer with their local fire department and EMS crews. Thank you for all that you do for your communities and beyond!

If you are interested in learning more about our WMA courses check out our website!

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Eastern Maine Skippers Program kicks off with amazing event

It feels like there is so much background to tell you on this story so just bear with me for a little bit as I fill you in. 

The Eastern Maine Skippers Program (EMSP) is an amazing effort that provides future commercial fishermen, and other students interested in marine careers, the knowledge and skills needed to be successful in the 21st century landscape.  This project is a collaboration among many schools in Maine’s Zone C fishing area and is currently spearheaded by the Penobscot East Resource Center (PERC).  Incredible amounts of curriculum and coordination support also come from the Rural Aspirations Project in addition to many other community partners including local fishermen, scientists, fisheries organizations and regulators.

Appropriately called the "spaghetti" model - all the possible paths of the hurricane that threatened to hit Hurricane Island in Oct 2015

Every year the Skippers have a driving question that guides their studies and this year it is a multi-part question: “Who and/or what eats/buys lobsters?” and “What impact can I/we have?”  In previous years, Hurricane Island has hosted the EMSP kickoff and that was the plan this year… until…. way back at the beginning of October, a hurricane threatened to head up the East coast and slam into New England much as it had just barreled through the Bahamas.  The end result saw the hurricane heading off the coast and across the Atlantic before its effects could truly be felt in the Gulf of Maine.  Unfortunately, the specter of a major hurricane was enough to seriously alter program plans on Hurricane Island (funny how that works!).  We were not surprised but still sad when we finally got the call from PERC that the oncoming weather was too unpredictable and potentially dangerous to push ahead with the kickoff on Hurricane Island.  We all lay on the floor of the mess hall for a while before we got our feet back under us and then proceeded to close up the Island for the fall.

Coming to grips with not hosting the EMSP kickoff

Lobster trap and oil gear relay!

Flash forward to November and our spirits were raised again when we got the opportunity to participate in the EMSP kickoff that was being held on the (much less unpredictable) mainland at the Schoodic Institute.  Schoodic was a wonderful host location and the weather was beautiful for students to be outside and moving between buildings for activities.  After a brief orientation the day started out with high energy as the students were put into mixed school groups to compete in the world renowned Stern Man/Woman Olympics.  Several students were veterans of the program and were eyed nervously by their new cohort as true Olympic threats but everyone gave their all across all events and it was a spirited way to spend the morning for sure. 

Students working on the map reading/navigation challenge

Olympics was perhaps a misnomer because the competition ran more like a biathlon… I mean triathlon… I mean…. What do you call a competition where people have to compete in 8 events?!   An octathlon?  Students cycled through a rope coiling/tying/stacking event, lobster trap pyramid and bait bag filling relays, and challenges in lobster trap part naming/function, mapping/navigation, boat hull identification, marine organism identification, and marketing/accounting. EXHAUSTING!

Students working on their dissection

The rest of the day couldn’t really be called restful by any means as the students moved through a variety of workshops they signed up for and ended the day with a wonderful Skype session with Trevor Corson, who is the author of The Secret Life of Lobsters.  I got to run one of the workshops that was a lobster dissection. It is amazing to actually dissect a lobster and realize that just because you cook and eat them all the time or catch them on your boat that there is still soooo much more that you don’t know about them!  For instance, did you know that lobsters pee at each other when they fight?  Its true!  Next time you eat a lobster, look for the urine ducts that face forward under each antenna.  Or did you know that lobsters have teeth in their gut?  You don’t want to really eat much up in the head region of the lobster but if you really get in there and follow the gut back from the mouth and into the body you will find the grinding teeth that help to break down the lobster’s meal (you might even find remnants of that last meal!).  Students had a great time learning new things about lobsters and those were frequently the items students referenced at the end of the day as ‘cool things they learned’ during the kickoff.

All told it was a busy but wonderful day and it was great to keep our involvement with the Skippers going.  I'm already excited to see how they address their questions this year and looking forward to continuing to work with EMSP, PERC, and Rural Aspirations even more in the future!

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Back in the swing of things

Palmer Station as seen from a nearby glacier. Flags mark a trail from the Station to the top of the glacier so hikers can avoid dangerous crevasses.

I’ve been back in the northern hemisphere for almost a month now and my trip to Antarctica is beginning to seem like a distant memory among the holiday bustle. It’s good to be back in Rockland and settling into our off-island season – applying for grants, analyzing data collected during the 2015 field season, and prepping for implementing monitoring projects on Hurricane next year. Before it became too distant of a memory, I wanted to take time to reflect on the month-long expedition to the southern hemisphere with the Waller Lab.

Overall, the trip was an incredible experience. I traveled to a part of the world I never thought I’d have the opportunity to see, learned new field techniques, worked at a much larger scale than I normally do (i.e., I typically dive off of 40’ lobster boats compared to using trawling equipment off of a 230’ research vessel!), and met some amazing people.

I came away with a much deeper respect for those who do fieldwork in the hard to reach places on our planet. Successfully carrying out fieldwork in the Southern Ocean requires careful planning and a large, competent team for logistical support. I am still amazed at the sheer volume of supplies and equipment that Jay and Maggie had to make sure were shipped down south in time for our cruise. The logistics don’t stop there because once they wrap up collecting the samples from the experiment, those samples will need to be packaged, kept at a specific temperature and shipped back to Maine.

The trip reinforced a mantra I live by – fieldwork is unpredictable and you need to be ready to roll with the punches and develop contingency plans! Fortunately, we collected all of our adult samples in a single trawl which is atypical, but we ran into issues with how to keep the adult coral alive and well until we reached Palmer Station.  This meant we couldn’t use all of the collected individuals and had to adjust how we stored the adults while in transit from the collection site to the station. I’m sure Jay and Maggie have had to make additional adjustments as the experiment continues…  

Finally, I renewed my awe for the diversity of habitat types and ecological communities the planet supports. The Southern Ocean and Antarctica often seem like vast, desolate environments; however, a wide variety of life exists from the smallest phytoplankton to the large marine mammals and everything in between if you have the equipment and training to find all of it.

A gorgeous sunset from Palmer Station.  The Gould is seen in the background just over the Station roof.

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Travel Log: Caitlin Cleaver, "Life at Palmer Station"

Approach to Palmer Station

Palmer Station was established in 1965 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year! It’s located on Anvers Island (latitude: 64.7 S, longitude: 64.0 W) halfway down the Antarctic Peninsula and is one of three U.S. Antarctic research stations. The campus is relatively small with three main buildings and a series of shipping containers used for storage of waste, science equipment and other supplies. The main building houses the Bio Lab on the first floor equipped with a flowing seawater lab, two environmental rooms where the temperature can be manipulated and maintained for different experiments, and dry lab space. The galley and administrative offices are on the second floor while the third floor serves as a dorm. The GWR building provides a first-floor garage, shop, and doctor’s office while the second floor has dorm-style rooms, a lounge, small bar and gym. The Terra Lab is another lab space where terrestrial and atmospheric work takes place. The overnight capacity is approximately 45 staff and researchers. The majority of activity takes place in the summer months – November through April; however, 15 or so staff typically winter over and some research is done during that time.

From my time here, it seems as though it’s a tight-knit community where everyone is in good spirits, gets along well and are passionate about their work here. They host different activities throughout the week including drawing classes, yoga, and evening science talks. It definitely reminds me of our community on Hurricane.

This week, we were fortunate to have three science talks, each highlighting a researcher who traveled with us from Punta Arenas on the Gould. The first was the Terra Lab Open House on Tuesday evening. We were given a tour of the facility and shown instruments that are used for the different long-term monitoring efforts underway. These include monitoring air quality, seismic activity, weather, and the Palmer Deep water mass. The latter is being done in an attempt to better understand the potential connection between upwelling and the location of penguin colonies. It’s thought that the penguin colonies thrive in areas where upwelling is occurring, which increases the productivity and, in turn, increases the amount of food available in that particular area – pretty cool! We also heard from two Boston College research scientists who are setting up a new system of antennae in Palmer’s “backyard” to monitor interactions between the ionosphere and other layers of the atmosphere. Apparently, when the earthquake hit Japan and caused the Fukushima disaster, they were able to measure the impact in the ionosphere – basically, the earthquake creates a ripple effect that manifests as a tidal wave in the ocean and also creates a similar result in layers of the atmosphere.

Source: http://avilaearth.weebly.com/

On Friday night, Dr. Waller and Jay gave a shared talk about Cold Corals in Hot Water. Dr. Waller talked about the importance of studying deep sea corals and how little we actually know about the deep oceans. Jay continued with an explanation of the experiment and the analysis methods that will be used. After the coral discussion, an associate scientist (Dr. Colleen Hansel) from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute talked about her research with reactive oxygen species (ROS) and in particular, an instrument they will be using to measure ROS during phytoplankton blooms as part of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) effort. Very little is known about the positive and negative effects of ROS. It’s thought that they may contribute to coral bleaching, harmful algal blooms, and other negative events; however, some preliminary work in the marine realm is showing that there may be a bit more to all of this. Colleen is working to figure out who is producing the ROS’s and when. 

The LTER project here at Palmer is one station within a network of 26 LTER sites in the United States, Tahiti, and Puerto Rico.  The research focus on each site corresponds to the particular ecosystem in which the station is located. Here, the focus is on the polar marine biome, “including sea ice habitats, regional oceanography, and terrestrial nesting sites of seabird predators.”

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Travel Log: Caitlin Cleaver, "Fieldwork on the Gould at Station AA"

Last Tuesday (October 24th), we spent the day doing CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth) casts to collect bottom water at 600 m depth. We did a total of 8 casts – 6 solely dedicated to collecting water to fill 5L, 20L and 50L carboys and twenty-five 5-gallon buckets that we would be using to store the adult coral samples of Flabellum impensum we would be collecting later in the week. We did two additional casts for Maggie’s capstone project where she was collecting water samples from 10 different depths to determine the nutrient profile for phosphate, nitrate and nitrite as well as preserving the phytoplankton community from water collected at the surface and at the chlorophyll max. On the last cast, Jay preserved some water to do a carbonate chemistry analysis, which would tell us something about ocean acidification at Station AA (the location where we would be collecting the corals).

Waiting on deck for the trawl net to be hoisted on board.

The CTD has 24 Niskin bottles and each one holds 12L of water. You prep the CTD by cocking the niskin bottles so that they are open before the CTD goes overboard. Once the CTD is overboard, it slowly descends to the deepest depth that needs to be sampled and then as it is brought back up, the Niskin bottles are fired at certain depths where water needs to be collected.

Wednesday arrived with absolutely perfect conditions for trawling – calm seas, little to no wind, some ice but not enough to prevent us from putting the net overboard, and sun! We even caught a glimpse of the mountains on Smith Island (the second highest mountains in the South Shetland Islands). The Marine Technicians helped get the net ready – making sure that the net wasn’t tangled, that the floats were at the top and the chain at the bottom.

The anticipation amongst the team was tangible – everyone was anxious for a good tow. In the past, Dr. Waller has had some tows where they’ve only gotten a single coral polyp and others where they’ve gotten more than 50. We were all hopeful that it would be on the higher end of the range.

Far exceeding our own expectations in terms of total number of coral polyps collected!

From the net leaving the deck until it’s return was about three hours. We hit bottom around 600 m. When the net was coming back up, we all got on our sorting gear (bibs, steel-toe boots, etc.) and headed out to the deck to meet the net. Once the net was on board, the sorting frenzy began. Everyone pitched in – the marine techs and other scientists on board. The end result was over 100 corals and very little bycatch - just a few skates, an octopus, some sea stars, brittle stars, sea urchins, sea cucumber, anemones, a fish, and isopods.

On Thursday, we woke up early to see the Neumayer Straight, an extremely narrow passage and absolutely beautiful with sheer mountains on either side of the ship. Shortly thereafter, we arrived at Palmer Station and the unloading process began. Everyone was working to get the cargo off so fresh foods could be unpacked and we could have access to our aquarium tanks and other equipment. The crew worked late into the night and as soon as the tanks were unloaded, we got to work. Jay set out to put together the four aquaria for the experimental treatments while Dr. Waller, Maggie and I setup to start dissecting the adult corals we had collected the day before. We dissected into the wee hours of the morning (3:30 am) and got 832 larvae from 20 female adults – enough for the experiment! It was a rewarding and exhausting experience.

Working far into the night processing all the animal and water samples

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