from Cape Verde Blog

POLARSTERN and I: 14 days into hands-on experience, resilience and sharing

Person wearing a helmet, container in the background

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 […]

from Cape Verde Blog

A Journey of Dreams, Science and Courage

Menschen schauen in die Kamera, eine Person hält ein Fernglas, Schiff im Hintergrund

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 […]

AL630 now posting from the Baltic Sea!

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, […]

from Cape Verde Blog

Stowaways!

Pigeon on the railing, ocean in the background

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 […]

from Ocean Voices Blog

FYORD Travel Grant Reports: April 2025

The 17th Deep-Sea Biology Symposium in Hong Kong  I am Véronique Merten, a postdoc in the Deep-Sea Biology Group at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. In my research, I focus on deep-sea organisms, with a particular interest in squids (cephalopods) and whales (cetaceans). By combining environmental DNA analysis with techniques like biologging, net […]

from Ocean Voices Blog

Navigating the Uncharted Waters of Marine CDR (Part 2): The Socio-Oceanography Workshop

As I mentioned in my previous post, every scientist has a different opinion on what success looks like for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). Some believe that the risks are worth the benefit because the risks of unmitigated climate change are far higher than the risks associated with mCDR. At the other end of the […]

from Ocean Voices Blog

FYORD Travel Grant Reports: Conferences in Asia

17th DSBS HKUST, Hong Kong I am Julian Stauffer, a third-year PhD student in the Deep-Sea Biology working group at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany. I work on benthic habitat mapping with hydroacoustic and imaging methods. My main study regions are oceanic island groups in the North-East Atlantic. I am mainly […]