{"id":1276,"date":"2026-02-03T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/?p=1276"},"modified":"2026-02-03T18:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T18:58:07","slug":"antarctic-dispatch-2-aboard-the-rrs-sir-david-attenborough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/?p=1276","title":{"rendered":"Antarctic Dispatch 2: Aboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7Iu_McZQpG8\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bigelow Laboratory Senior Research Scientist <strong>Ben Twining <\/strong>is taking part in the <strong>IRON-MAN expedition<\/strong> in and around the southernmost continent. Today, we are excited to share a few video updates from his time aboard the RRS <em>Sir David Attenborough<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ANTARCTIC DISPATCH 2: ABOARD THE RRS <em>SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When we arrived in Ryder Bay, IRON-MAN science took a back seat to surfacing, splashing <strong>whales<\/strong>. What an amazing show to behold!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once we left Chilean waters, the <strong>trace metal \u2018fish\u2019<\/strong> was deployed. This is a titanium torpedo that is towed outboard from the RRS <em>Sir David Attenborough<\/em> and allows us to collect surface seawater that isn\u2019t contaminated by the hull of the ship (which is made of iron!). The water is brought on board and pushed to the clean laboratories with an air-powered teflon diaphragm pump. You can just turn on the tap and get some of the lowest iron water on the planet: an ocean scientist&#8217;s dream come true! Luckily, we\u2019ve been able to leave the fish in the water while on station, and it\u2019s been fun watching it bob with the waves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, here\u2019s a time lapse video showing how we collect uncontaminated seawater from below the surface using a <strong>titanium rosette<\/strong>. It\u2019s as cool as it sounds! <em>(Curious about why Ben&#8217;s measuring ocean iron? <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bigelow.org\/news\/articles\/2020-05-11.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.bigelow.org\/news\/articles\/2020-05-11.html\"><em>Check out this Bigelow.org article<\/em><\/a><em> about his trace metals research!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to Ben for these video captures! And keep an eye on <a href=\"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\">Currents<\/a> this February for more details about his Antarctic expedition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bigelow Laboratory Senior Research Scientist Ben Twining is taking part in the IRON-MAN expedition in and around the southernmost continent. Today, we are excited to share a few video updates from his time aboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough. ANTARCTIC DISPATCH 2: ABOARD THE RRS SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH When we arrived in Ryder Bay, IRON-MAN [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","css_class_manager_body_classes":"","css_class_manager_use_in_post_loop":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[101,50,86,75,96],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-ocean-function","tag-antarctic-dispatches","tag-ben-twining","tag-megafauna","tag-trace-metals-gases","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1278,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions\/1278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}