May 22 2008
May 22 2008
Final samples on board
Greg Buikema and Jenny White bring in a box dredge with a beautiful sunrise as backdrop.
The painstaking picking of fossils corals.
Today was our final day of sampling, and we certainly went out with a bang! We dredged throughout the night, and recovered some beautifully preserved fossil corals, live corals (although slightly fewer sponges than yesterday, which was probably a good thing...). Our final dredge came up just as the sun was beginning to set on what was a beautiful day for Drake Passage.
Now all we have to do is pack up and clean up as we transit back to Punta Arenas. Phew!
John Swartz, Rhian Waller and Kate Hendry empty the box dredge of corals, with the nearly full moon in the background.
After all the picking though, this is what we end up with – lots of fabulous fossil corals for analysis back at the lab.
Another important aspect of collecting the samples is photo-documenting them.
The last dredge on the last day of science emptied in the doorway of the aquarium room so we could get underway quickly back towards Punta Arenas, Chile.