Skidaway Institute presents ‘Chasing Ice’ at ocean film festival

Skidaway Institute of Oceanography will present the award-winning documentary, “Chasing Ice,” as the feature film at the 11th Annual Gray’s Reef Ocean Film Festival on Saturday, September 14, at 7 p.m. at the Lucas Theater for the Arts in downtown Savannah.

“Chasing Ice” is the story of James Balog, a photographer who directed The Extreme Ice Survey, an ambitious project to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth’s changing climate. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog deployed revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to produce a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.

James Balog with of his cameras at an Alaska glacier.

Balog and his team battled untested technology in subzero conditions to capture images that compress years into seconds and depict ancient mountains of ice as they disappear at a breathtaking rate.

“Chasing Ice” has won 23 awards at film festivals around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival Award for Excellence in Cinematography and the Environmental Media Association’s 22nd Annual Best Documentary Award.

The screening will be followed by a short panel discussion on climate change including several Skidaway Institute scientists and other environmental experts.

The screening will be sponsored in part by the Skidaway Marine Science Foundation.

More information on “Chasing Ice” can be found at http://www.chasingice.com/.

The 11th Annual Gray’s Reef Ocean Film Festival will be presented Thursday, September 12 through Saturday, September 14, at the Jepson Center and the Lucas Theater for the Arts. An encore presentation of selected festival films will be screened at the Jewish Education Alliance on Sunday, September 15. Admission to all films will be free.

More information on the film festival is available at www.graysreef.noaa.gov.

Skidaway Marine Science Day set for Saturday, October 20

An afternoon of marine science programs, displays, tours and activities — Skidaway Marine Science Day 2012 — will be held on Saturday, October 20, from noon to 4 p.m. on the campus of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography at the north end of Skidaway Island.

The Skidaway Marine Science Day is a campus-wide open house with activities geared for all ages from young children to adults. These will include programs, tours, displays and hands-on activities, primarily related to marine science. The University of Georgia Aquarium will be open free-of-charge with special displays and activities. Skidaway Institute of Oceanography’s ocean-going research vessel, the R/V Savannah will also be open for tours.

Visitors examine the controls of the R/V Savannah during Skidaway Marine Science Day 2011.

The event is open to the public and admission is free.

The event will be presented by the campus’s marine research and education organizations, including the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Education Center and Aquarium, the UGA Shellfish Research Laboratory and Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary.

All activities at Skidaway Marine Science Day will be free. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325, or visit http://www.skio.usg.edu.

Coastal threats focus of upcoming workshop

A Georgia Coastal Hazards Portal Training Workshop will introduce a new Web-based tool to study threats to the Georgia coast. It will be held at the Sapelo Island Visitor Center in Meridian, Ga., on Friday, April 13, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The workshop will focus on the Georgia Coastal Hazards Portal (GCHP) — a Web-based interactive tool designed to provide a better understanding of coastal resources, coastal hazards and the effects of rapid population growth and development. It was created through a partnership between the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and the Savannah Area GIS program with funding provided by the Georgia Coastal Zone Management Program.

“This online tool can be utilized in many ways, such as, identifying vulnerability to coastal hazards and identifying connections between hazards and natural resources,” said Skidaway Institute’s Clark Alexander, the lead scientist on the GCHP project.

The workshop is targeted towards community planners, resource managers, research scientists, outreach specialists and elected officials. They will have the opportunity to discuss current coastal hazard research, network with others from the coastal hazards community and learn how to use the new interactive GCHP website as a resource and tool for communicating the facts and risks of coastal hazards.

The workshop is sponsored by the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, the University of Georgia Marine Extension Service, the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Coastal Resources Division.

Registration is available on-line at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CGHPRegistrationForm.

Workshop participants will receive lunch and a flash drive containing presentations and GCHP reference material.

The American Planning Association has approved the GCHP Training Workshop for six credits.

For additional information, contact Angela Bliss at abliss@uga.edu.

High school students spend a day on the water

A group of students from Johnson High School in Savannah spent last Friday on a mini-research cruise on board the Research Vessel Savannah. It was part of a joint project among the local school system, Savannah State University and Skidaway Institute.

A photographer from the local CBS affiliate, WTOC-TV, went along. Here is a video of the trip.

We had a great open house!

We had beautiful weather and a great turnout for our open house, Skidaway Marine Science Day, last Saturday. If you did not attend, here are some pictures to whet your appetite for next year.

Skidaway Marine Science Day features ocean-going research vessel

The Research Vessel Savannahcarries scientists on research cruises from Cape Hatteras to islands off the coast of Venezuela. On Saturday, October 15, it will be at its home dock at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and open for tours from noon to 4 p.m. as part of Skidaway Marine Science Day.

Visitors tour the R/V Savannah.

The R/V Savannahis Skidaway Institute’s 92-foot, 300-ton ocean-going research vessel. It is used by Skidaway Institute scientists, as well as scientists from all over the world, to study the ocean. It was custom-built for Skidaway Institute and launched in 2001. Since then it has averaged between 150 and 180 sea-days per year, cruising to ocean-destinations ranging from the North Carolina coast, to the Gulf of Mexico, and to Curacao in the Caribbean Sea.

Visitors in the "driver's seat" of the R/V Savannah

Visitors will be able to tour all parts of the boat, and see how the crew and scientists live and work on the open sea. Several Skidaway Institute scientists will have demonstrations of their experiments in the R/V Savannah’slaboratories.

Skidaway Institute's Charles Roberson explains some science to visitors on the R/V Savannah.

The Skidaway Marine Science Day is a campus-wide open house with activities geared for all ages from young children to adults. These will include programs, tours, displays and hands-on activities, primarily related to marine science and the coastal environment. The event is open to the public and admission is free.

The event will be presented by the campus’s marine research and education organizations, including the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Education Center and Aquarium, the UGA Shellfish Research Laboratory and Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary.

In addition to the R/V Savannah, the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography will offer a variety of activities for adults and children, including science displays, hands-on activities and talks on current research programs.

The UGA Aquarium will be open to visitors with no admission fee. In addition, the aquarium education staff will offer visitors a full afternoon of activities including science talks, a reptile show, boat tours, touch tanks and behind-the-scene tours of the aquarium.

The UGA Shellfish Laboratory will provide visitors with displays and information on marine life on the Georgia Coast. Children will be given the opportunity to help protect the marine environment by bagging oyster shells used for oyster reef restoration projects.

The staff of Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary will set up their remotely-operated-vehicle (ROV) in a swimming pool, and teach visitors how to “drive” it and pick up objects from the bottom.

Skidaway Institute professor Bill Savidge will present a special program aimed at parents and students involved in science fair projects. The program, “The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fairs,” will be presented twice, at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. in the McGowan Library Auditorium.

For the second year in a row, Skidaway Marine Science Day will also be open to non-campus scientific and environmental groups. Organizations such as Clean Coast and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center will be on-hand to present, information, displays and activities.

School classes or other large groups wishing to attend Skidaway Marine Science Day can be accommodated only through advance arrangements. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325.

All activities at Skidaway Marine Science Day will be free. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325, or visit http://www.skio.usg.edu.

Marine animals fascinate visitors at Skidaway Marine Science Day

Both adult and children visitors to Skidaway Marine Science Day never fail to be fascinated by the marine “critters” at the University of Georgia (UGA) Aquarium.  The aquarium animals will be on full display for the campus-wide open house event which will be held on Saturday, October 15, from noon to 4 p.m. on the campus of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography at the north end of Skidaway Island.

Touch tanks amaze young visitors.

Skidaway Marine Science Day programs and activities are geared for all ages. These

include programs, tours, displays and hands-on activities, primarily related to marine science and the coastal environment. The event is open to the public and admission to all activities, including the aquarium, is free.

In addition to the marine displays, the aquarium staff will present a number of fascinating programs. Naturalist John “Crawfish” Crawford will present two programs — a reptile show at 2 p.m. and a program on Georgia sea turtles at 3 p.m.

For those who are not faint-at-heart, aquarium curator Devin Dumont will dissect a shark and explain their amazing systems in a special program at 1 p.m.

Other activities will include habitat explorations, fish feedings, behind the scenes tours and the opportunity to meet horseshoe crabs up “close and personal.”

Even young children are fascinated by what's under a microscope.

In addition to the aquarium, Skidaway Marine Science Day will include displays, programs and activities presented by the campus’s other marine research and education organizations, including the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, the UGA Shellfish Research Laboratory and Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary.

The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography will offer a variety of activities for adults and children, including tours of the Research Vessel Savannah and smaller research vessels; science displays and talks on current research programs; and hands-on science activities.

The UGA Shellfish Laboratory will provide visitors with displays and information on marine life on the Georgia Coast. Children will be given the opportunity to help protect the marine environment by bagging oyster shells used for oyster reef restoration projects.

The staff of Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary will set up their remotely-operated-vehicle (ROV) in a swimming pool, and teach visitors how to “drive” it and pick up objects from the bottom.

Skidaway Institute professor Bill Savidge will present a special program aimed at parents and students involved in science fair projects. The program, “How to prepare a successful science fair project,” will be presented twice, at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. in the McGowan Library Auditorium.

For the second year in a row, Skidaway Marine Science Day will also be open to non-campus scientific and environmental groups. Organizations such as Clean Coast and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center will be on-hand to present, information, displays and activities.

School classes or other large groups wishing to attend Skidaway Marine Science Day can be accommodated only through advance arrangements. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325.

All activities at Skidaway Marine Science Day will be free. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325, or visit http://www.skio.usg.edu.

Skidaway Marine Science Day — Saturday, October 15

The natural environment of the Georgia coast will be the focus of Skidaway Marine Science Day 2011, to be held Saturday, October 15, from noon to 4 p.m. on the campus of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography at the north end of Skidaway Island.

The Skidaway Marine Science Day is a campus-wide open house with activities geared for all ages from young children to adults. These will include programs, tours, displays and hands-on activities, primarily related to marine science and the coastal environment. The event is open to the public and admission is free.

Scientist Charles Robertson explains instrumentation on board the Research Vessel Savannah.

The event will be presented by the campus’s marine research and education organizations, including the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Education Center and Aquarium, the UGA Shellfish Research Laboratory and Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary.

The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography will offer a variety of activities for adults and children, including tours of the Research Vessel Savannah and smaller research vessels; science displays and talks on current research programs; and hands-on science activities.

The UGA Marine Extension Service Aquarium will be open to visitors with no admission fee. In addition, the aquarium education staff will offer visitors a full afternoon of activities including science talks, a reptile show, boat tours, touch tanks and behind-the-scene tours of the aquarium.

The UGA Shellfish Laboratory will provide visitors with displays and information on marine life on the Georgia Coast. Children will be given the opportunity to help protect the marine environment by bagging oyster shells used for oyster reef restoration projects.

The staff of Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary will set up their remotely-operated-vehicle (ROV) in a swimming pool, and teach visitors how to “drive” it and pick up objects from the bottom.

Skidaway Institute professor Bill Savidge will present a special program aimed at parents and students involved in science fair projects. The program, “How to prepare a successful science fair project,” will be presented twice, at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. in the McGowan Library Auditorium.

For the second year in a row, Skidaway Marine Science Day will also be open to non-campus scientific and environmental groups. Organizations such as Clean Coast and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center will be on-hand to present, information, displays and activities.

A young visitors examines microscopic marine life.

School classes or other large groups wishing to attend Skidaway Marine Science Day can be accommodated only through advance arrangements. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325.

All activities at Skidaway Marine Science Day will be free. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325, or visit www.skio.usg.edu.

 

Monday 2 May 2011 – Mystery Object

Today is another day of cleaning and packing. Before getting back to the packing job we decided to pack-up all our samples, get them into the dry liquid nitrogen shipper (See previous discussion in this blog.)  and attempt to send them home. If you recall we were concerned about this because the only shipper in Barrow, Northern Air Cargo, has temporarily lost their license to ship hazardous. Nothing about our samples is hazardous, but we were unable to procure official paperwork that documents this. Anyway, we thought it was best to ship as early as possible just in case we ran into a problem. Also, the earlier in the week that we ship the more likely it will be to have it arrive during the working week when there will still be someone at our home labs to receive them. So first thing this morning we packed up the samples and went to the NAC offices. They didn’t even blink an eye. So the samples we collected are now headed home to Savannah and we didn’t have to worry at all.

After our success at the NAC office we returned to continue packing. Our goal is to have everything organized and next to the packing crates where we will store them. Midway through the afternoon another group of scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who are investigating ice algae, arrived and began to set-up their labs for a month long visit. As is usual in scientific circles, it didn’t take long for us to find many common interests.

I was also very excited that, among their gear, they had brought some nice microscopes and agreed to let me use one to look at some water samples. Earlier in the week Lollie and Adriane, while filming with their underwater cameras, captured images of something that I couldn’t identify. They looked like they might be very large algal cells and one thought I had was that they might be ice algae beginning to bloom in the Arctic spring.

Mystery objects from under the ice. Frame capture from video shot by Lollie Garay.

I showed the video to the Juhl group, but they were a mystified as we were.  We came to the conclusion that perhaps they were developing eggs or larvae of something undergoing a mass spawning event. Unfortunately we don’t have a way of determining the size of objects in the images which might help us indentify them. Lollie is working on figuring this out though, so we should be able to determine size. Although the Juhl group had brought some nice microscopes,since we didn’t have fresh water samples our examination of water samples were also inconclusive.  If anyone out there recognizes these objects please let me know.

After this pleasant diversion it was back to packing.  Tomorrow all that is left is to clean-up the equipment and supplies that we are still using for Zac’s thesis experiments, finish our inventories, seal the boxes, and put them back into storage.

Speaking of Zac’s experiment, after packing and chatting with the Juhl group, it was time for us to take our last samples from those experiments. The incubations lasted for 6 days and we’re hoping that that will be enough time for us to see the effects of humic additions on bacterial activity, growth, and utilization of nitrogen and carbon. The samples are now all collected and Zac will be analyzing them over the next couple of months. We’re holding our breaths for the results.

Zac’s experiment. Bacteria inoculated filtered seawater with added humics (1), humics and organic nitrogen (3), glucose (5), and seawater only (7). Each bottle was duplicated, but only one is shown in this photo. Note that bottles containing humics are considerably darker than those not receiving humics. The bottles were incubated in the dark at just over freezing temperatures.

Finally, we are completely done with all our science activities and it was time for a celebratory dinner.  We invited the Juhl group to come with us to try out a relatively new Chinese restaurant in town; Sam and Lee’s.  It was fantastic, better than any Chinese restaurant in Savannah in my opinion.  I had a spicy duck dish that was both delicious and copious.  I took home a doggie bag for lunch for tomorrow.

Back to Barrow – January 22 & 23, 2011

Skidaway Institute professor Marc Frischer is back in Barrow, Alaska, along with grad student Zac Tait,  to conduct field work on his project into the effects of warming climate on the marine food web in the Arctic Ocean.

As he did with a prior trip last summer, Dr. Frischer will send updates on his “adventure.” To review his earlier trip, the first of his series of posts can be found here.

Hi all, we’re heading back to Alaska to complete another sampling expedition of the high Arctic.  If you recall, our last trip was during the summer time when temperatures were mostly above freezing and the ocean was liquid (if you missed our previous trip you can catch up from our previous blogs).  Things are a little different up there now.  Read on!

We began planning for this trip almost as soon as we got back from the last.  The minute details, especially getting necessary chemicals and other supplies in place require an amazing amount of organization.  But we mostly managed (thanks largely to Victoria Baylor’s hard work).  The goal is to never get ahead of your equipment and supplies.

With our gear shipped off, the day for our departure finally arrived.  This time Zachary Tait and myself are making the trip.  Zac is a graduate student from Savannah State University who has been making this project the focus of his MS thesis research.  Unfortunately, both Zac and myself are still getting over bad colds so we didn’t feel quite 100%, but we persevered.

Zac (left) and Marc at the Savannah airport

Leaving Savannah in the early morning we flew first to Atlanta (as usual), on to Minneapolis, and then to Anchorage.  We arrived in Anchorage at 6:00 pm local time (10:00 pm Savannah time) for a total of 14 hours of travel.  Weary, we checked into our hotel in Anchorage and headed out for a quick bite to eat at a nearby local restaurant; “Gwennie’s”.

Marc in front of Gwennie's

It was surprisingly good.  Both of us ordered the chicken fried steak and a locally brewed beer which Zac felt obligated to share with the restaurant’s mascot Brown Bear.

Zac and the bear

After a satisfying dinner, neither of us had a hard time sleeping and we got as much of it as we could before having to wake at 3:30 am to catch our next flight.  Leaving Anchorage we flew first to Fairbanks, on to Prudhoe Bay, and finally into Barrow.

In Barrow we were immediately shocked by the weather, stepping off the plane it was -42°F with a windchill of -67°F.  Even the natives think this is cold.

Once we collected our bags (everything made it) we hopped in the truck and headed to the Northern Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL) campus.  Since our last trip our logistical support team switched to a different group. Many of the people and procedures are the same, but there are several new faces (to us) and some of the facilities are different.  We’re optimistic that this will work out well (So far it has.).  Once we had a briefing and were introduced to the new folks, we quickly got to work rounding up all our gear and setting up.

We made a lot of progress but we didn’t get it finished.  For one, the temperature controlled environmental chamber that we will work in to filter all the water we collect wasn’t ready for us.  Apparently it had been used since our last visit to process whale meat.  We didn’t actually look at it, but we were told that they had to remove the floor (too much blood soaked into it), grind the scum off the walls, and finally sterilize the whole room with bleach.  Glad I didn’t have to do that job!  Hopefully, the room will still be suitable for our use and it will be available tomorrow.

But back to the day.  Today, it turns out, was the first sunrise in Barrow since November.

Barrow sunrise January 23

The sun rose at 12:38 local time and set at 2:46pm.  But it wasn’t at all dark for much of the surrounding hours because of the twilight time.  I was surprised at how bright the extended twilight period was.  Today twilight extended from 10:27 am to 4:54 pm.  This actually gives us quite a lot of light to work in.  But today was the first time the sun rose above the horizon.  Cool huh?  I had thought the locals would have celebrated at bit, but apparently not.  I asked Tony Kaleak, a native about it and he told me, sometimes, if they notice, they look at the sun for a moment and say “Right On”.  Anyway, we thought it was pretty spectacular.

By 5 pm we were pretty beat and decided to call it a day,  spending the rest of the evening discussing details with the logistics staff and picking up a new member of our team, Lollie Garay from the airport.  Lollie is a science teacher being sponsored by the Polar Trek program to accompany us and develop collaborative relationships with local educators.  Its pretty exciting stuff.  Lollie is also going to blog about her experience and as soon as I get her blog address I’ll pass it on.

But now its time for me to get a little shut eye.  Tomorrow will be another busy day preparing.

marc