Collecting zooplankton and microplastic samples

Hello! It's 12/21 and we are starting to get the hang of life at sea! The waves are definitely much rockier than the beginning of the cruise and its fun to see everyone walk around. When I am not busy playing darts (which on a rocking boat is very interesting) or just hanging out outside looking at the waves, I am busy running and collecting my samples. I am using a verticle net tow and a manta net tow to collect both zooplankton and microplastics.

We haven't found many microplastics which is good to see although it would be interesting to find them for my research project. Once I collect the zooplankton, I keep them in a jar for 30+ hours then size fraction and filter the sea water to isolate their fecal pellets. These fecal pellets are a really important part of the ocean's biological cycle. Once I get back to Seattle, I am going to run them through a mass spectrometer and see if we find any traces of pollutants. It's interesting to figure out how to do all this when the boat is constantly rocking back and forth. It's a fun adventure and am excited to see what the next few days hold!

- Denise D 

PS. The garbage patch is as big as my home state, Texas!