Fresh off RV Alkor and back in Kiel, I’m excited to share another blog post about our scientific research cruise AL630. I’d like to tell you something about one of the sampling methods that we used during the cruise. To track the daily movements of zooplankton in the water column at our station BB23 – […]
Hello blog readers, It’s another exciting day aboard the ALKOR630 cruise! The sun is rising, and the bongo nets and water samplers are ready to go. Greetings from Station BB23—one of the most sampled and ecologically important hotspots for phytoplankton, copepods, and fish eggs/larvae. Today, we’re exploring a technique called Lagrangian particle tracking (LPT)—a powerful method for tracing the path of a water parcel in […]
Hi readers, We have successfully completed cruise AL630 on April 16, 2025. After one day without work due to strong northwesterly winds 7-8 Beaufort, during which we entered Rönne harbor on Bornholm Island, the last 5 days of the cruise were packed with work, running continuously in 24-operations in shift work. We therefore were not […]
Last month 150 years ago, on the 23rd of March 1875, the participants of the Challenger expedition plumbed out the deepest point of the Earth, which is now called the Challenger Deep in their honour. This expedition was different from previous endeavours, as scientific exploration was its primary objective, not just a useful side-quest to […]
This adventure has broadened not just my scientific knowledge but also radically changed my perception of research, cooperation, and my role as a scientist. Before this expedition, my learning was shaped primarily by textbooks and lectures, with the occasional practical thrown in. Deploying instruments in the deep ocean, receiving live data, and discussing real-time results […]
Hello again from Alkor! We are on day 9 of our research cruise in the Baltic Sea and today we would like to tell you more about the flatfish world. But let’s start from the beginning. Have you heard about metamorphosis before? It describes the transformation of a body form and structure after hatching, just […]
I’m a dreamer. One of those who believe that life makes sense when lived with intensity, emotion and a touch of adrenaline. Ever since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to discover the world, travel to unknown places and, above all, do science that could transform realities. When the opportunity arose to embark on […]
Hello from Bornholm Basin in the central Baltic Sea! With a team of 12 scientists and 11 permanent crew, we are currently operating in Baltic waters (see Figure 1) with research vessel Alkor to improve understanding of this beautiful but also heavily impacted and rapidly changing system. For this purpose, we measure physical parameters (temperature, […]
Flap! Flap! Coo…. These pigeon noises, perfectly normal in any congested city, are entirely unexpected here. We are sailing through the eastern tropical North Atlantic on the German icebreaker POLARSTERN that is our home for two weeks. Water to the horizon in all directions and then… a pigeon! A quick look to portside solves the […]
Things got serious for us on the morning of 1 April. It was slowly getting light on the Cabo Verdean island of Sao Vicente, the local trade wind from the north-east was pushing waves into the bay of Mindelo as a research vessel turned around the corner after many months of its expedition in the […]