Portrait of a Research Ship…

A series of guest blogs by Alex Ingle, resident filmmaker and photographer.

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As we’re now on a long transit/survey over Dogger Bank, I thought I’d use this time to give you an impression of the ship from the bridge right down to the engine rooms. It would probably be logical to start from the top and work down, but as I’m just about to go and grab a coffee and a bite to eat I think we’ll start in the galley.

Fuelling research…

When I joined the James Cook for the first Britice-Chrono cruise, I think one of the biggest surprises (definitely the most pleasant!) was just how good the food was and the tremendous effort that goes into making sure everyone is catered for day and night. The guys in the galley are great, the team work hard to make sure nobody goes hungry. I’ve spent quite a lot of time behind the scenes here, learning about their work, picking up some culinary tips and having a snoop around the storerooms.

Wally in one of the chillers, checking the stocks…

The most interesting time I spent here was during a really rough patch of weather on the previous Britice cruise. There was a pretty high swell as the tail end of a hurricane hit us, and I was up in the galley with Head Chef John and his team. You might assume that being out on deck is the most dangerous place to be in rough seas, but when the ship’s being tossed around in a storm, and there’s pans of boiling soup, sharp knives and sizzling hot plates here there and everywhere – the galley can be one of the more intense places to work. Unlike the aft deck, which, in the worst weather, might get closed off, the galley team’s work never stops. Everyone relies on these guys.

John multitasking during a choppy spell…

If you wander down the ship’s corridors towards the ‘Forecastle’ deck, and keep heading up the stairs you’ll reach the bridge. As one of the most advanced research vessels currently in service it’s no surprise that stepping onto the bridge feels like you’re walking onto a Star Trek set… especially at night.

A splash of colour around the main console.

The Captain and his officers oversee all operations from up here, with each decision and observation made out on deck or in the labs being relayed to the bridge deck via radio. The views from up here are fantastic, and it’s by far the best vantage point for spotting wildlife. For that reason, it’s where the Marine Mammal Observer (MMO), Marian, also spends most of her time. She’s got the somewhat enviable task of keeping lookout for any marine mammals and conducting surveys to ensure their protection. In my downtime it’s nice to do some wildlife spotting, and Marian is always the best person to go to for the latest updates.

Marian, our MMO, on lookout for marine mammals.

Meanwhile the captain discusses the day’s plans with his team on the bridge…

Above the bridge, up a very steep set of stairs, is one of my favourite spots on the ship. There’s a small deck which holds some of the ship’s radio masts, and it’s just about the highest point I can get to with my camera gear. It gives you an excellent vantage point for the ‘vibrocorer’ on the aft deck, and it offers panoramic views of the ocean. I came up here one night recently during fantastically clear skies and saw two shooting stars… pretty impressive stuff.

From above or below, the top of the ship offers a unique perspective.

Head back down a few flights of stairs, take a few turns here and there down to the science bunks, and wander through an inconspicuous door or two and you’ll find yourself in the engine control room.

The engine room as seen from the control room.

The engine room is a fascinating place for me; when you’re up on deck it’s very easy to forget what’s down here in the belly of the ship. It’s an incredibly loud place with machinery everywhere, you need to duck and skirt around pipes, and navigate through watertight doors everywhere you go, and there’s the ubiquitous smell of diesel. There are no portholes and it’s quite disorientating when the sea is rough; it’s an assault on the senses, but a photographer’s paradise!

Miles of cables require regular checks.

Of course, it’s a really dangerous part of the ship that demands utmost care. I feel privileged being allowed to explore down here, but as I mentioned before – with noise cancelling earmuffs and camera gear in hand, it’s a tricky place for me to work. Before you’re allowed to set sail, you need to attend a safety briefing and by far the most harrowing pieces of equipment for all visitors are the watertight doors. They are extremely heavy mechanical doors that are used to prevent flooding from one part of the ship to the other in case of an emergency. During your briefing you see various gory images of accidents involving these doors – you operate them with a lever and they move pretty slowly, but you most certainly don’t want to take any risks when stepping through them! I find most visitors (including myself) try to avoid using them where they can, but down in the engine rooms they’re a necessity. I’ve become pretty used to them now, but I have to admit the hairs on the back of my neck still tingle when I have to put my arm through to hold the lever as I step through these automatically-closing doors.

A watertight door opens slowly as Lee heads towards the control room…

Heading back up a few flights of stairs, past the science teams cutting and analyzing cores in the ‘wet lab’ and through the ‘hanger’ and you’re on the aft deck. This is where I spend the majority of my time, trying to capture images in the heart of the action.

All hands on deck as the vibrocorer requires attention.

This is where all of the ‘hands on’ science happens. Here the crew, the British Geological Survey (BGS) engineers and the science teams work together to operate the ‘vibrocorer’ and ‘piston corer’, which are lowered into the sea to retrieve samples from the ocean floor. It’s another fascinating area for photography, and it’s a great feeling standing out here in the bracing sea air as seabirds fly past.

A young gannet soars above the aft deck.

John sends tools up to a colleague on the a-frame above before carrying out some maintenance.

I’m out here a lot, straddling different shifts at different times to capture a true picture of life on deck. As soon as night falls, it becomes a totally changed place. Floodlights light the deck, illuminating seagulls in the darkness as they speed past. As the ship bobs up and down, and there’s darkness as far as the eye can sea, looking over the side is quite an eerie but humbling experience. You try not to think about ‘what if’ but inevitably end up considering how different it would be out there compared to a well lit and pleasantly warm swimming pool where you do your marine survival training.

Standing on the Aft Deck, looking out into the dark…

Activity on the aft deck, much like the rest of the ship, revolves around the scientific operations. It’s a hive of activity once we’re about to deploy/retrieve the corers; teams appear from every corner of the ship and it’s all go, but during transits between sites it can become really quite deserted. The crew return inside, the BGS engineers disappear into containers to service equipment, and the science teams head to the labs. There’s a very set routine on board, and it’s really interesting being able to observe it – at times, especially during longer transits, there might only one person left on deck… and that’s usually the lone photographer!

John passes ropes up to his colleague while the Vibrocorer is on deck.

Of course, the quietness is always short-lived and before you know it, the crew reappear, ready to redeploy. One thing that strikes me about everyone on board, especially the crew, is the importance of positivity. A good sense of humour is a key attribute for anyone working at sea. When you’re living in a confined space, working in a hazardous and strenuous environment with the same people, day in day out for weeks or months at a time, humour diffuses tensions, passes the time and helps teams work together. That means there’s always a lot of good ‘banter’ out on deck, and for days when humour doesn’t quite cut it, there was always the punch bag hanging in one of the storerooms!

When the gym is too busy, or when rowing and running just won’t cut it, there’s always the punch bag.

Now to where the science happens – the ship’s labs. Head back in from the aft deck, through the hanger, and the first of these is the ‘wet lab’. Where fresh cores are processed.

Dave labelling fresh cores in the wet lab…

Head through there and down a corridor and you’ll reach the ‘dry labs’ where banks of computers and geophysical equipment are being studied meticulously, and, if you time it right, there’s usually a slab of Toblerone or a packed of Haribo being shared around…!

Geophyical watch…

At the back of the dry lab, a CCTV station allows you to keep an eye on things.

Before I wrap this up, I should point out that one of the reasons I love what I do is my clientele. Scientists (at least the ones I’ve met) tend to be very positive, welcoming and down to earth people, so it’s a pleasure dealing with them on a day-to-day basis.

Part of the science team back at the start of the cruise.

One reason why this area of photography/filmmaking was a natural progression for me, is it followed on from my own scientific background. Having studied glaciers in Iceland and Greenland during undergrad and postgrad research, I have a fairly broad understanding of a lot of the topics that the Britice-Chrono team are investigating. This is essential for knowing when and where to shoot, and definitely helps me understand the teams’ enthusiasm for mud!

‘Oooooh’

 

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Connect with Alex on social media:
Instagram: @alexinglephoto
Twitter: @alexinglephoto
Facebook: http://facebook.com/alexinglephoto

 

North, beyond Shetland: A Daysleeper’s diary

by Tom Bradwell (Day 15: Friday, 04:44) (with some photography by Alex Ingle)

The last time we ventured into Shetland territory it was in pursuit of far-travelled rocks laid down by the last ice sheet, strewn across hard-to-reach islands – Foula, Papa Stour, Out Skerries, to name just three. Our successful 10 island-tour of Shetland took place in 11 carefully planned days in May last year, when the 6-strong team worked from dawn til dusk to ensure that they didn’t return home empty handed. Those precious rock specimens have since been analysed at Glasgow University; their exposure age is helping to unravel the ice sheet history of Shetland and the surrounding area. This time the Britice-Chrono team are on the high seas, aboard the RRS James Cook, looking for glacial seabed mud and ice sheet imprints along the extreme edge of NW Europe, from the Outer Hebrides to the Norwegian Channel.

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In this part of the UK, in July (at 61.5 degrees N and still within the offshore Exclusive Economic Zone) dusk stretches beyond midnight and the sun reappears before 3 am, after only the briefest of nights. That being said, working on the night shift is still a challenge. The geophysical data collection and seabed coring programme on the James Cook works 24/7. The ship’s crew operate on 4-hr ‘watches’, and the science team are divided into day and night shifts (8am to 8pm) to allow around-the-clock working. Punctual, brief, morning and evening meetings allow seamless handover between shifts, an update on the day’s progress, and an all-important weather forecast for the next 48 hrs. Day and night shifts for the science team are similar in content but different in the details. Apart from the darkness, the cold, the nocturnal fatigue and the daysleeping, we have dinner for breakfast and sometimes breakfast for dinner; which mixes up the body’s normal everyday cycle and turns the daily routine on its head. But after 2 weeks on the night shift, having a roast beef lunch at midnight seems almost normal. Although going to bed when the sun is at its warmest will never feel quite right to me. And the AM vs PM confusion is always there, nagging away.

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As we collect geophysical data, recover seabed samples and describe cores well into the night, the daysleepers perform the same rituals as the nightsleepers but just in a different time zone. We say ‘good morning’ to people instead of ‘goodnight’; we cheerfully get down to work on Wednesday night and carry on into Thursday morning; we relax on deck after some ‘early evening’ exercise; and drink a beer instead of pouring that first cup of coffee. But perhaps my favourite bit is not really ever knowing what day of the week it is. Waking up after a full ‘night’s’ sleep to find it’s still the same day as when you went to bed. Confusing, but curiously liberating!

My room with a view at sunrise (late afternoon in my world)

Dawn (or late afternoon)

Anyway, back to the science. Yesterday’s leg of the cruise took us 60 nautical miles (or roughly 111.11 kilometres) north of Muckle Flugga lighthouse, Shetland’s northern tip – a point on the Greenwich meridian still in UK waters but on the same latitude as Narsarsuaq Glaciers in east Greenland and Suduroy in the Faroe Islands. We took 9 seabed cores during a 12 hour transit back towards Shetland, each one penetrating different sediment, and each one hopefully holding its own clues as to when the last ice sheet retreated and when sea levels rose. The spectacular sequence of moraine ridges on the seabed NE of Shetland is unique within the British Isles, both in its unusual shape and the number of landforms preserved. Although we’ve known about the moraine pattern for a while, and what it means for the last ice sheet to cover Shetland and the northern North Sea, the age of these features remains elusive. What we find when we analyse these cores will hopefully help clear things up.

For me, the crucial part of the Britice-Chrono project comes when linking geological evidence onshore and offshore — something that has often proved difficult in the past. As an Earth scientist, interested in glacial processes, the distinction between terrestrial and marine is a blurred and relatively unimportant one. A bit like the difference between morning and evening when working the night shift at this latitude…

A Photographer’s Perspective…

 A series of guest blogs by Alex Ingle, resident filmmaker and photographer.

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A new perspective on things.

Now that we’re done with introductions (blog here), and as we’re just about at the halfway point of the cruise, I thought I’d share some insight into life on board the ship from a photographer’s perspective; what it’s like being the ‘odd one out’ and some of the unique challenges that this environment presents me with.

Docked in Southampton, getting some final shots on the evening before we left.

Life on board a research ship is a 24/7 operation, there’s always something happening, people are always working, and there’s always a photograph opportunity or two. This is the first challenge for me, whereas the science teams and crew have set shift patterns that rotate every 12 hours, I’m in charge of my own schedule and must decide when and where to photograph. I could choose to only shoot on blue-sky days for a few hours and spend the rest of my time with my feet up, but this wouldn’t be a true representation of ship life (and, honestly, it wouldn’t be much fun). In order to portray a more realistic picture, and to document the ups and downs which come with this line of work, it’s my job to experience both day and night shifts, across the whole ship come rain or shine.

This far north, when the sun rises early; the photographer stays up late.

Sometimes I’ll be out on deck at night – sitting with the crew as they exchange stories during horizontal rain, watching the science teams jump into action as fresh cores are hauled up from the sea floor in the early hours. At other times I follow the day shifts – the chefs and porters in the galley, the engineers beneath deck or the science teams processing cores in the labs. Some days I do a bit of both. It’s an intense environment, especially when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and making sure that I’m always in the right place at the right time to get the shot is a constant challenge, as is making sure I get enough sleep in between it all!

Vibrocorer repairs on the aft deck.

 

However, by far the biggest challenge for me revolves around safety. Shooting an assignment in a complex and dangerous offshore environment requires much more consideration than most of my work on dry land. Traversing glaciers, or navigating gorges whilst following scientists isn’t without its dangers, but here on the ship you really have to stay on the ball at all times. This is particularly challenging as a photographer/filmmaker coming into an environment like this for the first time. Now I have the benefit of last year’s offshore experience, but when you first step on board it’s not difficult to get caught up in a shot without realising that you’re in danger of falling overboard or getting caught in a winch cable. With ‘viewfinder vision’ it’s all too easy to forget what’s happening around you while you’re focussed on getting the shot.

The aft deck.

You find photo opportunities wherever you look, but you have to have eyes on the back of your head, and be completely aware of everyone and everything around you. This is especially the case beneath deck in the engine rooms. Down there you wear noise-cancelling earmuffs, it’s deafening without them. Losing one of your senses makes a dangerous place even more so, particularly when navigating through watertight doors and past moving machinery. But, if you keep your wits about you, listen to the advice of the crew, drink plenty of coffee and make sure that when one eye is behind the viewfinder, the other is always focussed outside the frame, then it’s a thrilling place to work.

Another challenge that springs to mind involves capturing 24/7 coring operations on film. Being immersed in this environment, it’s easy to get a sense of scale first hand, but it’s quite a logistical and technical challenge to capture that on film for others to see. The fairly straightforward task of shooting time-lapse sequences suddenly requires a lot more thought when you’re on a ship. In addition to the usual technical considerations, you need to consider how high the swell might get, strapping everything down with cable ties and ballast and making sure it’s protected from the elements. I don’t attempt these long time lapses very often out here largely because of the impact it has on my sleep – I tend to lie in bed imagining my gear out on deck sliding overboard, and end up checking on it every hour throughout the night. I haven’t (yet!) encountered any major issues but since I shot a few successful 24-hour time-lapse sequences of ‘vibrocoring’ on JC106 last year… I don’t think there’s any need to tempt fate (or disturb my sleep) this time around!

On a side note, being the one behind the camera means there’s not a lot of photos featuring me – the exception being the slightly unflattering ‘checking to see if the GoPro is running during a time lapse’ shot:

 

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Connect with Alex on social media:

Instagram: @alexinglephoto
Twitter: @alexinglephoto
Facebook: http://facebook.com/alexinglephoto

Gripped in the jaws of the Minch

By Richard Chiverrell and Tom Bradwell (photography by Alex Ingle)

1292 km, 51 cores, 177m of sediment, not a bad haul

We, the science crew of RRS James Cook Cruise JC123, sailed from Southampton Friday 3rd July bound for the last three transects of the NERC funded Consortium Britice-Chrono, our aim is to work out the timing of the last deglaciation of Britain and Ireland. After a quick stop outside the Solent to test the BGS vibrocore we made hast (10 knots) northwards through the North Sea running geophysical surveys for the North Sea sector (Transect 2) as we went, and in the early hours of Monday 6th July we rounded the northern tip of Scotland on schedule for our speedy (19 knots) tide-assisted passage through Pentland Firth between Orkney and the Scottish Mainland onwards to Transect 8 and the delights of the Minch palaeo-Ice Stream extending north from Skye between the Scottish Mainland and the outer Hebrides towards the edge of the continental shelf and the North Atlantic.

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The Minch seaway ~28-25,000 years ago received ice flow from the major fjords in NW Scotland feeding palaeo-ice stream, which extended north and northwest across the continental shelf. This ice stream dominated the northwestern sector of the British Ice Sheet (BIS). The land- and sea-scape probably developed over multiple glacial episodes, but the sea floor landforms and uppermost geology reflect the most recent deglaciation after 25,000 years ago. The aim of Britice-Chrono is to work out the timescale for this deglaciation, and this has involved fieldwork on land, dating outwash deposits on the Isles of Lewis, Skye and on mainland, and glacially eroded bedrock and boulders across the region. The offshore phase of this research has occupied us, so far, for the last seven days and nights, and involved surveying the sea floor for the morphology and the sediments using acoustic sounding techniques, but critically sampling the sea floor sediments. We have two coring systems on board, a percussive vibrating corer that can sample down to 6 m below the sea bed penetrating the tough materials laid down beneath and in front of former glaciers, and a gravity powered piston corer capable of sampling up to 18m in softer sediments. Our aim is to find shells in these glacial sediments to radiocarbon date and work out the timing of deglaciation.

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The success of the efforts for both our cruises relies on the excellent 24 hour work ethic, diligence and company of the cruise team, science crew, BGS and NOC Piston coring teams and the RRS James Cook captain and crew, all of whom do everything they can to help us. The middle 2-3 days of T8 were particularly nerve-wracking as the BGS crew toiled night and day to fix a particularly truculent problem with the vibrocorer, part of the solution to which lay in finding and removing an electrical break in the 1500 metres of cable that winches the BGS vibrocore to and from the sea bed. Thankfully time was spent obtaining important piston cores in the inner Minch and collecting valuable geophysical data, as the BGS team worked around the clock. As ever in Britice chrono’s experience, the BGS team, had everything needed on board to solve the problem, and cheers greeted the announcement of ready to go, and there followed ‘an in at the deep end’ test of the repair in 500-600 metres of water off the continental shelf fronting the Minch ice stream. Success, with 4.14 metres of glacimarine muds recovered, and on leaving the waters of T8 a further 11 vibrocores were recovered containing the key shell-rich glacimarine and subglacial muds our project requires.

Calm seas, epic sunsets

Looking back on the Minch experience, it is certainly one of the prettiest (former) ice streams we have worked on during the Britice-Chrono cruises, with land in view and visiting the Inner Hebrides passing the Isles of Skye, Lewis/Harris and Raasay amongst others. The leg has been a considerable success, we have collected 1292.6 km of geophysical data (multi-beam and sub bottom profiler), 51 sediment cores (39 vibrocores, 12 piston cores) and 177.2m in vertical sediment profile; who said the Minch was a small ice stream? Our travels have taken us from Raasay Sound in the south over the edge of the continental shelf at 59° 15’ N, and into near shore waters fronting Cape Wrath and the Summer Isles. The answers to the Britice-Chrono geochronological questions must wait on many months of laboratory analysis, but we leave the Minch with all teething troubles behind us, and a growing bounty of cores in the locker. We are ready for the delights of Shetland…!

A 12m piston core (Tom Bradwell for scale ~ 1.74m)

Here we go…

Here we go, here we go, here we go, HERE …WEE …GOoooo…..

The RRS James Cook, towards the end of mobilisation. Just the ‘Vibrocorer’ is left standing proud on the dock – ready to be lifted into position.

The Royal Research Ship (RRS) James Cook gets ready for her geophysics and coring cruise as part of BRITICE-CHRONO’s investigations into the speed of ice sheet retreat. Just back from Mexican waters she needs to prepare for the North Sea and the continental shelf and fjords of northern Scotland. Our resident filmmaker for the cruise, Alex Ingle, has captured the mobilisation process. Witness much dockside crane-work at the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton, loading the drilling rigs (vibro- and piston corers) and containers of kit including our impressively-refurbished containerised core scanning laboratory, which comes complete with scientist Sally Morgan. So much deck manipulation was required that a small ‘cherry picker’ was craned onboard for the delicate manoeuvring. Food and water for a one month journey also made it onboard, although I noted at breakfast this morning that we are drinking bottled water from Mexico, very nice too.

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Mobilisation of the science team was much easier, with 25 of us travelling by train, plane, and automobile and climbing the steep gangway. This brings the ship’s complement to 52, all of whom are ready for a voyage of some discovery. Colm is our captain of science for the trip (Principal Scientific Officer) and is hoping for a nice and steady start to our adventure. For me, the long-awaited cruise started on my birthday, very fitting timing and more so because it was also on my birthday, high in the Italian Alps, that I first learnt that our BRITICE-CHRONO project got the go-ahead when NERC chose to fund it. Clearly a precedent has now been set for sizeable scientific treats on my birthday that I hope to enjoy in the future years. I am just back from a marvellous lunch, with stop-press news, we have now run out of Mexican water, our new supplies are from Conwy in North Wales.

The science team watch on in anticipation as the Vibrocorer is lowered into the water for the first time this cruise.

So we finally set sail 9am Friday 3^rd July, setting off on a 3 day transit up the east coast of England and Scotland, through the hazardous Pentland Firth, westwards across Scotland’s north coast to our first target cores near Cape Wrath. Let there be shells of treasure in them there cores……..

Chris Clark.

A Photographer’s Introduction

A series of guest blogs by Alex Ingle, resident filmmaker and photographer.

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To begin with, I guess an introduction is in order. My name’s Alex Ingle, a filmmaker/photographer from Stirling, Scotland, specialising in multimedia outreach for scientific research and field expeditions. I joined the Britice-Chrono team in 2014 to document their first research cruise, and, after a very successful trip all round, I am delighted to be back on board. On that note, a sincere ‘thank you’ is in order to everyone for inviting me back!

On the James Cook I’m in a pretty unique position to be able to experience and document all aspects of ship life, floating between day shifts and night shifts on all parts of the vessel as the crew and science teams work around the clock. From the chefs in the galley to the engineers beneath deck, people from all walks of life work together to make research projects like this happen, and I’d be delighted to offer some insight into this intriguing world through this series of blogs. Working in this environment presents some pretty unique challenges for me as well, which I’d also like to share with you over the coming weeks.

Now that I’m settled in – my camera gear is unpacked, the BGS equipment is nearly mobilized and ready to go, and we’re waiting for the science team to arrive – I think I’ll take this opportunity to paint a brief picture of my work, and explain how on earth I ended up working on research ships…!

Let’s start way back. I grew up in rural Scotland, and have lived there for much of my life since. I’ve never had any formal photography training, but when I think back, my love of photography (which later transitioned into filmmaking) began when I was five. I was given my first disposable film camera on holiday in France, and, after finding some catfish in a pond, used an entire roll of film within a few short minutes. That’s where it all started, when a love of wildlife overlapped with a newfound hobby. As a kid, I dreamt of becoming a nature photographer. I always had my head buried in my collection of National Geographics and ‘Wildlife Fact Files’ and watched all of the old BBC natural history documentaries religiously. I spent my spare time outdoors with my Dad’s Olympus OM1 as well as countless Polaroids and disposable cameras, stalking family pets and wild birds as I learned the art of photography through trial and error.

Despite those early aspirations, it’s only in the last few years that photography/filmmaking has become more than just a hobby. In brief, over the course of several years, I travelled to Iceland and Greenland to research glaciers, ice caps and the impact of climate change. This was to be a turning point in both my personal life and career, but not as I could ever have expected. In Iceland I met a girl who later became my wife (it’s a long story involving glaciers, kæstur hákarl [rotten shark] and a chance encounter on the country’s southern coast) and in Greenland I met a photographer and filmmaker called Chris Linder. At that point, whilst camped in a remote corner of Greenland, I finally decided to take the plunge and turn filmmaking and photography into a career…. and I haven’t looked back since.

Combining my passion for science with a love of filmmaking and photography, I began working with researchers across the UK to produce multimedia and to run outreach campaigns that would engage with the public by showing the ‘human face’ of science. This unusual career path has taken me to some remarkable places, but, until 2014, these were exclusively on dry land. Early last year, after a discussion with Chris Clark, Britice-Chrono’s Principal Investigator, I received my first offshore assignment – to document the life and work of those onboard the James Cook (JC106).

I’ve got to admit, it was a daunting task having only ever been on rather tame ferry crossings before but it turned out to be an awesome experience which has led my work down a really exciting path. Over the coming month, as well as shooting some documentary footage for Britice-Chrono, I’ll be spending time on board developing some of my own work during the first of three offshore artist’s residencies. Last time, I found my sea legs pretty quickly and avoided any sea sickness… here’s hoping for the same this time around!

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Connect with Alex on social media:

Instagram: @alexinglephoto
Twitter: @alexinglephoto
Facebook: http://facebook.com/alexinglephoto

A smooth encounter with a Porcupine’s back

By Rich Chiverrell

Thirty seven days ago we sailed from Southampton, a journey that has seen us tackle five of the target transects for the NERC Consortium Research Project Britice-Chrono. As the days and nights of hard work pass we have ticked the transects off one-by-one, T4 Irish Sea West – Celtic Sea (53 cores), T3 Irish Sea East (35 cores), T6 Donegal Bay (21 cores), T7 Malin Sea (43 cores). 06:44 hours Friday 22nd August the last of the transects bit the dust, 65 cores stretching from inner Galway Bay, the coast of Connemara out to the Outer Edge, the Porcupine Bank, many many miles of survey line and hundreds of dolphins (keeping Marion happy where is a mammal observer without mammals)……

T5 in the bag

Our strategy was to collect three survey transects radiating out from Galway Bay, the first involved our skirting the northern sector and sampling enigmatic ridges fronting the continental shelf break, recovering diamict and shells, but as we progressed west diamict proved harder to find, though we have had some successes. We wonder and debate what age is this glacial terrain? It could be old, very old? Or maybe not, I guess we will find out. Journeying landward we completed one of many criss-crosses of the large ‘Olex’ moraine that appears to front Galway Bay. Popularly named after a survey system fitted to ships, the Olex system collects sea floor morphological data and is fitted to many commercial and private vessels sailing waters around the globe contributing a commercial data collective and providing a valuable window on our sea floor. This moraine often mooted as the maximum limit, but some of the outer moraines we encountered and the shells within their sediments may challenge that conclusion. The terrain that caps the moraine is hard and we expend some time trying to capture datable materials. It feels a little like being between a rock and a hard place, but as night-watch passes the baton onto day-team and vica versa, we are all in the same boat…..

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Weather and sea state intervenes and interrupts our sampling, with the vibrocorer becoming too challenging to safely recover to deck. No rest for us, we head for calmer waters in the shadow of Connemara, with the Twelve Pins in view. A chance occurrence driven by the weather but very useful, as we collect vibro and piston cores from these waters recovering glacigenic materials and some inner marine datable materials that will link well with terrestrial fieldwork in the mountains and rocky lake-strewn lowlands of coastal Connemara. NOC team set the piston core record for the Cruise at just under 8m, we some very enigmatic coarse shelly units in stratified sands…. Eventually the seas relent and a grand voyage to the outer edges of Porcupine Bank is planned to test an extensive glaciations hypothesis, sadly we are confounded by sands, but there is certainly some diamict on the inner sectors of the bank that need explaining. Our final transect is our departure route from Galway Bay, southwest flanking the coastline of County Clare and across a series of moraines, potentially the southern equivalent of the ‘Olex’ moraine, more cores, more diamicts and shells ensue. We are complete 5 transects, 218 cores slightly over the pre-cruise conjectured 75 (?), ‘scientists!!!’ A very big thank you to the BGS and NOC core teams on both legs, the crew of the RRS James Cook for their friendship, good will, humour, company and fantastic support throughout this endeavour. The core length guessing competition has two winners: Stephen during the Day and Riccardo at Night. All that is left is our journey around southwest Ireland, crossing the Celtic Sea once again, but can we resist the lure of the moraines of Bantry Bay………….

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Cruise 1: Our looking glass onto the sea-floor…..

Dr. Fabio Sacchetti from the Marine Institute (INFOMAR program) has joined the BRITICE-Chrono survey cruise as Irish Observer and multibeam/geophysical support. As Irish Observer Fabio is overlooking survey operation when in Irish water and makes sure that the survey does comply with Irish standard practices. From a scientific point of view, Fabio has spent the last 11 years mapping the seabed offshore Ireland and the last 4-5 years studying its glacial geomorphology. Back in Ireland Fabio works for the INFOMAR program as hydrographic team leader and onboard the RSS James Cook looks after the multibeam and geophysical data acquisition and processing during the night shift.

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So far the collection of good quality multibeam data has been quite challenging for a number of reasons. The ship is equipped with 2 Kongsberg multibeam systems, the EM710 (for shallow to medium water) and the EM120 (for deep water). The data from both systems are routinely collected day and night and they need to be quickly cleaned and tidally corrected in order to be able to create useful bathymetric surfaces. These info are then used for many purposes including geomorphological interpretation, core site selection and ultimately to make sure that the sampling gear are not deployed over risky seabed. At the start of the survey both multibeam systems had to be calibrated in order to provide the best data quality. After few days and with the weather picking up a bit it was also obvious that the motions sensor (which is needed to precisely correct the swath data) wasn’t performing properly. Further modifications to the standard setup had to be done in order to remove motion artefact that were affecting the usability of the data.

3D image of a canyon head used to calibrate the multibeam systems.

Fabio says: so far this has been an exciting scientific cruise simply due to the sheer amount achieved by the scientists and crew aboard the RSS James Cook, especially in light of anticipated challenges posed by the type of glacial sediment required to be cored, which is proving to be incredibly hard to penetrate. Working with some of the best marine glaciologists in Europe is exciting and challenging at the same time. Data are not just collected but analysed and interpreted on the fly and this contributes to a more hectic, clever, and scientific hands on approach, which makes the all survey way more interesting. It is also a pleasure to see how much projects such as INFOMAR can support and help the scientific communities providing top quality multibeam and geophysical data free of charge, which has been fundamental during the planning of this ambitious research project. The RRS James Cook is an exceptionally good platform for survey and sampling operation with top class facilities and lab space. This is an incredible experience and allows me to learn how things are done onboard one of the best research ship in the world.

Fabio: more than just geophys, a dab hand at DIY…..

Minching about on a sunny Isle of Lewis

By Rich Chiverrell

Port Skigersta delta

One of the smaller ice-masses draining the former British-Irish Ice Sheet, the Minch palaeo ice stream drained much of the NW sector of the British–Irish ice sheet (∼15,000 km2) feeding sediments to the large Sula Sgeir fan fronting the continental shelf. But if this is small, standing on the east coast of Lewis (Outer Hebrides) looking across the sunlit, blue seas and skies east to the feeder fjords and mountains of the Summer Isles and Wester Ross helps one visualise how large this former ice sheet really was. Our aim for this ongoing Briticechrono Transect 8 fieldwork was to secure a series of targets for Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating from outwash sands from Lewis, one of the outermost land-masses on the western flank of the Minch Ice Stream. This work will support previous sampling efforts targeting boulders on the Scottish Mainland and the Hebrides for cosmogenic nuclide dating. Previous OSL sampling had targeted the inner sector of the Minch on Skye and north of Ullapool. The team (Rich Chiverrell, Matt Burke, OSL Postdocs Rachel Smedley and Alicia Medialdea) set off first thing on Tuesday morning to join Transect Leader (Tom Bradwell) on Lewis. Departing a cloudy Manchester via Glasgow Airport we landed before lunchtime to blue skies, sunshine and searing temperatures at Stornoway Airport.

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Inspired by our surroundings, the weather and the prospect of excellent sediments the four newcomers sped off to meet up with advance team Tom Bradwell, Adrian Hall and Maarten Krabbendam (from the Netherlands) at Port Skigersta in the far north of Lewis. The site an embayment on the western flank of the Minch Ice Stream gave stunning views across the water back to the ice source areas in western Scotland and beautiful turquoise seas. The sediments were very impressive with the sequence a stacked delta sequence with steeply dipping fore-set sands capped by top-set horizontally stratified gravel. Intriguingly the basal delta is buried by laminated bottom-set muds, in turn buried by a second delta fore-set and top-set couplet. The repeating delta suggests changes in water level probably lake level, dammed between the ice stream and bedrock rise into Lewis. We sampled both deltas close to the fore-set – top-set contact. And then for some geological tourism, the raised beach at Galsom guided by Adrian Hall, stunning and confusing sediments, all contributing to produce a plethora of hypotheses. Difficult to address under the banner of Briticechrono, the beach deposits (guess the isotope stage) appear altered by over-ride by ice, locally there is a surface diamicton and the beach pea/rounded gravels are probably thrust or stacked. We have targeted an outwash (ish!) deposit above a glacial diamicton, fingers-crossed for contributing to the debate. Excellent food followed at the Cabarfeidh Hotel our home for the next few days (well some of us!).

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Day 2, still warm, still still (no winds) and the sunshine popped in later! After an epic breakfast (Lewis did us proud) back to the north and just south of the Butt of Lewis the west coast Swainbost Sands offered much promise. The sections were epic more glaciotectonics, tills, shells than you can shake a stick at, and the beach!!!! One of the best beaches I have seen in the British – Irish Isles…. Selecting targets was challenging, much of the outwash deposit was rich with shells, thrust, tectonised and not where it was deposited! How? Well by marginal movements and override by ice and at a substantial scale. Three sample locations were found and in the back, along with crucial in gamma detector comparisons, duplication with different detectors at some of the samples. The sampling completed our targets after ~36 hours on the islands, and so we racked our brains for other targets. After a quick visit ~5/6km south down the west coast of Lewis where we encountered convincing striae in steeply foliated Lewisian gneiss, where the glacial lineation trends cross obliquely the metamorphic structure heading northwest. We also prospected for sites further up-ice around Stornoway; another fine meal at the hotel and some gin-assisted colour-by-numbers approaches to former ice geometry and let’s see what tomorrow brings for our last 3-4 hours on this eye-opening island (hopefully a final sample)….

Tired: the not blog of the day…..

Day 8 and we are all a little tired, but another successful day 12 samples, nice beers in Voe and a good meal, but here are some piccies mostly in the sun…..

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