Sediment Traps

At the end of each season when the penguins have left to their colonies and the ground has not frozen yet the bird science group collects the rocks from their "sediment traps". The sediment traps are fine mesh screens that hold the preferred nesting rocks for the penguins with the hope that the penguins will build a nest near or on top of the trap. The mesh and rocks hold on to a breeding seasons worth of penguin colony poo.

The bird scientists collect these rocks and scrape the guano from the mesh into five gallon buckets and bring them back to station. The rocks are then scrubbed clean to remove all the guano. The resulting hot chocolate like mixture is then slowly decanted. A hose in the bucket on low will slowly allow the stinkier bits to float away while retaining the heavier items at the bottom of the bucket. 

What is left at the bottom of the bucket is then dried out and sorted through under a microscope. Most of the detritus left at the bottom of the bucket is smaller rocks, crushed bits of egg shell, and fish bones.

In these samples they bird scientists look for fish ear bones call otoliths and parts of squid beaks. This way they can see what the birds have been eating and feeding their chicks over the course of the whole season.

Fish otoliths are particularly interesting because each species of fish has a different shape of bone. The "rings" of bone as seen above can also be read like tree rings to tell you the age of the fish the bird ate. 

The bird scientists collect these fish bones from several other passive sources as well as from the penguin poop rocks. Here is what a bunch of fish bones look like. 

The clean rocks are then put back into the field for next year. They look a bit like a gross modern art installation. 

Nice Sunset

The back of this ice cave has melted through! I wonder how long the ice arch will last!

The adult Gentoo penguins  are in the middle of their yearly molting, they have to regrow all new feathers and during this time they do not go in the water.

This one has its tail feathers and is ready to get back in the water.  

This one has a surprise reentry into the water.

These little rock piles are the nests that the Gentoo's built this season for the very first time in this location. 

Feet for scale. 

Juvenile kelp gulls and adults. The juveniles can fly and fend for themselves but they still cheep like babies and still beg the adults for food. 

Lone skua keeps watch over the beach.

It's been a long time since we've had a calm and clear sunset. 

Very nice night for a walk.

 

Old Moss and the Glacier

Every year the terminus of the glacier is measured where the ice meets the rock in the backyard. The line is recorded using a very fancy, centimeter accurate backpack GPS. The red line on the right is from this year. The yellow line is last year. The glacier receded on average 8 meters in the last year. 

In some areas where the glacier has receded it has exposed old moss beds from before the last mini ice age when these rocks were last exposed to the air. The moss beds nearest the glacier have been dated to be from around 800 years ago, getter younger the further from the glacier you find them. It took the glacier about 400 years extend itself from the moss patch pictured below near the terminus to the moss patch they found near station. The glacier has taken about 60 years to recede from station to where it currently sits about 600 meters away.

One day 800 years ago this moss had been happily growing for several hundred years (probably) and then one winter it snowed and in the spring it did not melt. Over years snow accumulated and compacted and over time it became part of the glacier. The moss bed was then preserved under the ice, never having seen open air or the sun for 800 or so years. My foot also in the picture above for scale. 

The moss bits are still very well preserved even though they have been dead for almost a millennia.