Follow along as participants in the cruise provide updates and reflections on their experiences, the science, the technology, and other elements of the expedition.
September 17, 2012 | By Bodil Bluhm and Katrin Iken
Bodil Bluhm and Katrin Iken from the University of Alaska Fairbanks share a few additional photos collected over the course of the second leg of the 2012 RUSALCA mission. Enjoy!
Read moreSeptember 15, 2012 | By Kate Stafford
We are on our last full day at sea, all the stations have been sampled and samples sorted and we are ending our voyage with the long transect home along the Russian coast and through Bering Strait.
Read moreSeptember 14, 2012 | By Kate Stafford
The main goal of this Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) cruise was to document marine mammals along the Chukotka coast of Russia. Unlike the U.S. Chukchi that is surveyed by plane and boat annually, there are no systematic surveys of the Russian coast.
Read moreSeptember 13, 2012 | By Jackie M. Grebmeier, Lee W. Cooper, and Monika Kedra
The objectives of our benthic program are to evaluate macroinfaunal abundance and biomass of animals living within the sediments and their relationship to environmental variables within the Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) study area.
Read moreSeptember 11, 2012 | By Maria Pisareva
Once again, the RUSALCA cruise seems more at home to me than anywhere else. Same cozy ship, same skilled crew and intelligent team, same intriguing science, same delicious desserts. What else could a PhD student dreaming of running away from institute and her thesis for a bit to have a rest possibly need?
Read moreSeptember 9, 2012 | By Russ Hopcroft
During the Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic 2012 cruise, our four-person team (Ershova, Hopcroft, Kosobokova, Rutzen) is studying the distribution of the small animals that drift within the water called zooplankton.
Read moreSeptember 7, 2012 | By Arve Lynghammar
This is the first time I’m in Pacific waters. Normally I work with fishes in Atlantic waters near Svalbard or Greenland, but several species I see here are very similar, or the same species, as we have back home.
Read moreSeptember 6, 2012 | By Kate Stafford
After days of high waves, wind, and fog, we awoke this morning in the lee of Wrangel Island. For the first time in what feels like a very long time (but is only four or so days), the sun was shining and we could see Wrangel 12 miles away.
Read moreSeptember 3, 2012 | By Kate Stafford
We are at a science standstill right now, hostage to two low-pressure systems, one currently in the southwest Bering Sea and the other over Norton Sound.
Read moreSeptember 2, 2012 | By Bodil Bluhm and Katrin Iken
Anyone from kitchen staff to cleaning personnel, winch operator to our fellow scientists, including even the geologists and ‘clean water’ colleagues come to take curious peaks when we empty out the trawl net and spread out the treasures from the seafloor in sorting dishes on deck.
Read moreSeptember 1, 2012 | By Aleksey Ostrovskiy
Just prior to the current leg of the Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) expedition, a small team of intrepid explorers headed over to the Russian side of Bering Strait to try to recover three oceanographic moorings that had been there for two years. Aleksey Ostrovskiy was on the cruise and describes the experience.
Read moreAugust 30, 2012 | By Kate Stafford
We have a day at sea behind us, the first big biological sampling station done and a few Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) casts to boot, so everyone was starting to get into the routine that is life at sea (work, eat, work, sleep. Repeat).
Read moreAugust 29, 2012 | By Kathy Crane
Through pictures and video, U.S. mission coordinator for the Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic project, Kathy Crane, shows us how the second leg of the 2012 cruise got underway.
Read more
