I started writing this blog post on t15, the day of the deep-water addition. I had some thoughts that I needed to write down. Yet, I never found the time to go over the post again, to make it publishable. Shortly after t15, COVID-19 hit Peru. I want to put the thoughts that I had […]
Fragments
Our lives, my life, have been halted in so many ways. But nothing, not even this, is black or white; and amidst the uncertainty and heartache, life keeps unfolding before our eyes. The blood-red and golden hues of every sunset keep shining just as magnificently, the reflections of the sunlight on the ocean keep dazzling […]
Tracing silicon to learn about diatoms
I first heard about the CUSCO project when Dr. Mar Fernández-Méndez approached my advisor, Dr. Jeffrey Krause, about sending a member of his lab to participate. The project itself is investigating how changes in a certain physical process, upwelling, will affect the world’s most productive marine fishery off the coast of Peru. Upwelling, for those […]
Watchman, watchman, do you copy?
It is 8 am in Peru, the sun is shining up in the sky and the boats are out on the water sampling. I relieve Toralf, who has been awake since 5am, from his position as watchman for the next 4 hours. Little by little the members of the KOSMOS-CUSCO team are trickling in and […]
Be flexible
The KOSMOS-CUSCO project focuses on the links between upwelling intensity, primary productivity, export and trophic transfer efficiency in a changing climate. They seek to understand the reasons for the out of phase seasonal cycle between nutrient supply and phytoplankton productivity, an unexplained phenomenon unique to the Humboldt upwelling system. In a complementary way, Humboldt Tipping […]
Packing an extra of lessons learned
This morning, while packing my suitcase for the upcoming KOSMOS 2020 experiment in Perú, I read that there is currently a red tide in front of Miraflores (Lima, Perú), and this brought warm memories from our last year’s cruise to these waters. Last year, I was on the magnificent research vessel Maria S. Merian celebrating […]