One of many large chains of the diatom Chaeotoceros now blooming in Arthur Harbor.
Yesterday morning the Gould returned to Palmer Station, which means that it’s time for Jamie and I to take off. I’m looking forward to getting home and working through all the data we’ve collected (and who wouldn’t want to spend Christmas sick in the Drake Passage?), but sad to be leaving at an ecologically interesting point in the season. After a particularly windy spring we’ve had a week of calm conditions. As expected this resulted in a huge increase in primary production. The water at our regular sampling stations has turned green almost overnight. In an ideal world we would have seen those conditions two weeks ago, at the height of our sampling, but there’s no predicting the timing of these events! Consistent with what we’ve seen in the minor blooms all season this major bloom is composed mostly of Chaeotoceros. Instead of short chains however, we’ve got dense chains of many tens of cells. If these calm conditions persist a little longer it bodes well for the krill (and everything else) this season. To keep track of what the Palmer LTER group is up to for the remainder of the season you can check out Nicole Couto’s blog here.
All in all it was an extremely busy and productive early season. Many thanks to everyone at Palmer Station for making it happen!
Celebrating the summer solstice: a new species of penguin clusters along the shoreline near Palmer Station.
