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Sondas de oxigênio e ORP (Oxygen and ORP probes)

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Estou me preparando para ir para a Antártida. Uma coisa que quero entender é como a química da água vai mudar durante o longo inverno. No verão, a fotossíntese produz oxigênio. Mas no inverno fica escuro por meses e não há fotossíntese. Outros organismos usam oxigênio todo o ano todo. Quero medir como o oxigênio na água muda do verão para o inverno e para o verão do ano que vem. Vou usar sondas de “O2” e “ORP” que vou deixar na água por um ano. Comprei sondas de O2 caras porque essas medições são muito importantes. Comprei sondas de ORP baratas e eu preciso construir-las. O primeiro passo é substituir seus conectores. O video baixo e no Instagram mostra o processo de substituição dos conectores. I'm preparing to go to Antarctica. One thing I want to understand is how the chemistry of the water changes during the long winter. In the summer, photosynthesis produces oxygen. But in the winter, it is dark for months, and there is no photosynthesis. Other organisms use oxygen all year.

Vou para o Lago Fryxell, Antártida! (português e English)

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Tenho uma viagem muito emocionante chegando. Vou para a Antártida no dia 20 de novembro de 2024. Primeiro vou ir ao Novo Zealand e então para a Estação McMurdo. Em dezembro, vou voar para um acampamento na beira do Lago Fryxell . Vou ficar lá até janeiro. Vou voltar à civilização no final de janeiro. Planejo compartilhar algumas postagens de blog em português sobre minhas aventuras. I have an exciting trip coming up. I'm leaving for Antarctica on on November 20, 2024. First, I will fly to New Zealand and then to McMurdo Station. In December, I'll fly to a camp on the shore of Lake Fryxell. I'll stay there until January. I return to civilization at the end of January. I plan to share some blog posts about my adventures in Portuguese and English this time!  Uma foto do gelo no Lago Fryxell (novembro de 2023)

Day 14 in Antarctica

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December 10, 2013 Today was sunny all day with 25 knot katabatic winds in the afternoon.  It was warmer. I spent all day on microscopy, photography, and sorting photos.  It was a very productive day. The quad bike quit starting, and Devin, Anne, and Tyler pushed it back to camp.  None of them new what to do to figure out what was wrong.  I got ready to help when Ian came back to camp.  He has a lot of experience with engines, and once we found the tool kit and pulled the spark plug, we solved the problem:  the plug was fouled.  A new one fixed the problem.  We can add "engine repair" to the list of field skills needed! Our only means of transport besides walking is a quad bike (ATV).  We have a sled to help carry gear between the huts/sleeping tents and the science tent and dive hole.  It is also good for carrying the drill and other gear around the lake.

Day 13 in Antarctica

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December 9, 2013 Today was mostly sunny and calm, with beautiful snow on the mountains. Mt. Oden with Lake Vanda in the foreground. Tyler and Ian dove today, and I handled the rope as usual.  The rope pulls for Ian's dive went badly, as in the signals weren't clear.  That put me off for most of the day.  I don't like doing a poor job on something like handling a diver's line.  There was too much slack, and the rope might have gotten caught on something.  I need to really concentrate when handling the line.  At least it only caused stress and didn't actually put Ian in any danger. I did a lot of microscopy work and wandered back to camp along the south shoreline.  I was very tired.

Day 12 in Antarctica

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December 8, 2013 Happy Birthday, Dad! There is more snow on the peaks and the Onyx River is really flowing. I spent the morning programming in Python to look for trends in our preliminary thermister data.  I don't do enough programming to remember all the data reading and processing tips.  And without the internet to look them up in an instant, it took me much longer to actually get to the data.  I worked on sorting out how to do a Fast Fourier Transform to look for cycles.  This was really fitting for today, my dad's birthday, as a key part of his Ph.D. thesis was implementing a FFT technique to understanding nuclear data for cobalt. Helping Tyler prepare for a dive.  I'm holding the rope, Ian is checking his air, and Devin is preparing to attach his inflator.  Anne is the photographer. Tyler dove and collected samples for me to photograph and for Anne to subsample for genomics.  Anne and I spent all afternoon on the samples, and Anne worked late into the evening

Day 11 in Antarctica

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December 7, 2013 Snow!  We had flurries all afternoon.  It was amazingly beautiful. We also had an amazing thing happen: The Onyx River started flowing.  The Onyx is the largest river on the continent of Antarctica, and it ends in Lake Vanda, right next to our camp.  It "usually" remains frozen until late December, but it started flowing on a cold snowy day, early this year.  It is true that the sun was shining up valley, so snow and ice were probably melting there. The Onyx River - the largest river in Antarctica.  It's really only a babbling brook... The Onyx River flowing into Lake Vanda past our camp and the Vanda huts.  The stick in the water is part of a system to measure the river flow. In the morning, we cleared out some of our holes in the ice to take video of the lake floor.  Ian did his third dive, retrieving the thermisters so we could see if they were working.  Anne and I talked about sampling protocols for genomics, lipids, and photographs.  

Day 10 in Antarctica

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December 6, 2013 Today was cold and windy. We drilled more holes and took more video in the morning.  In the afternoon, I worked on a dive tracker.  The dive tracker was made by a group of students at Hobart College, Tasmania.  They are working on using Arduino electronics, accelerometers, a magnetometer, and GPS to track under water autonomous vehicles.  They build us one to try on Tyler to see if we can track his dives.  The tracker saves the data to an SD card.  We tried it out, but didn't understand the data and broke the magnetic switch.  I bypassed the switch.  I also did some test to see if it was actually working.  I didn't come to a conclusion. Me, working on electronics in the dive tracker... For dinner, I fixed soup (using leftover pasta water from the night before) and hash browns.  They go amazingly well together after only a week in the field.