Articles tagged with: Malaspina Expedition
Ocean exploration, from empire to empirical
Creatures in chloroform, musty maps, and navigation by brass instruments. That was ocean exploration 18th-century style. Nowadays it’s satellite links, mandatory life vests on deck, and flow cytometers measuring minute lifeforms from the murk below …
Spain’s ship comes in
Here’s my overview story about the Malaspina expedition for Nature’s news section. See the original at Nature’s website [html] or as it appeared in print: [pdf].
In the age of networked buoys and remote-sensing satellites, a …
Fieldwork: Close quarters
In the scientists’ lounge aboard the BIO Hespérides one evening last March, Jordi Dachs points at the schedule for the next day’s oceanographic observations. The Spanish research vessel is chugging across the Indian Ocean at …
Malaspina Expedition: Pausing in Perth
Made it to Perth!
My last blog post on the cruise for Nature should appear here later on Monday: http://j.mp/eWh0W8
More stories from the journey to appear after my return to Europe.
-Lucas
Malaspina expedition: Cosmopolis of specialists
The showers overflow when the ship rolls. Lunch often resembles the previous night’s dinner, and one researcher slouched on the sofa in the scientist’s lounge grumbles, “My four-year-old and her friends party harder than we …
Malaspina expedition: Not an obsession
One winter’s evening in Callao, in Spain’s viceroyalty of Perú, Luis Née packed his botanical equipment for a voyage. The 59-year-old botanist had arrived in Perú with the Malaspina expedition from Australia in late July …
Malaspina expedition: Persistent pollutant pursuers
A dorado shimmers below the surface, flitting its radioactive blue fins and flicking its yellow tail as it circles a vertical net dangling from the Hespérides. The dorado is the largest animal we …
Malaspina expedition: Deep sea -omics
The sun returned to the Hespérides Saturday. Scientists sprawled on the flight deck after lunch, indulging in short siestas or playing a little foosball in the hangar. Just before 3pm, an alarm clock rang and …
Malaspina expedition: Catching our breath
On Sunday the researchers aboard the Hésperides woke to frothing waves rushing past their portholes. The ship had rocked and rolled through the night, but it had not stopped for its normal pre-dawn observations because …
Malaspina expedition: Life on the inside
This is day 4 of an enforced wait aboard the Hésperides. The ship ran into a windstorm south of Madagascar over the weekend. We experienced it as more pitching, which sent some folks to their …
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