Polarstern / CAML expedition: neverending sunset
Permanent sunset on the ice
© G. Chapelle / IPF / Alfred Wegener Institut
Getting back to the presentations today. These are an opportunity for me to reconnect with old friends. This time it was through the speech of Cedric and Henri, my collegues from the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, who presented the amphipod crustaceans (the group to which belong the sandhoppers). Numerous species of this group show gigantism in Antarctica, this is what brought me on my first Polarstern expedition in 1996.
After two other presentations, one about food webs of the bottom animals, the other about cetaceans, Julian Gutt, our chief scientist has assigned one responsible per sample device for the whole expedition: fish trawl, "Rauschert" dredge, box corer, traps, ROV, all of them were attributed.
This draws us closer to the awaited scientific campaign !
And then the night... The first real "non-night", now that the polar circle is really far away behind us. A night during which the Antarctic ice reveals itself in every shades and shapes. Ice's chaotic look when the Polarstern crashes and lifts big sea-ice pieces contrasts with the softness of icebergs worn out by time and of Sastrugis (surface irregularities resulting from wind erosion, saltation of snow particles and deposition). All this is bathed by the orange light of a neverending sunset. A night we all enjoy, but to which we must bid farewell in order to recover for the next day.
