Ice Stories: Dispatches From Polar Scientists » jellyfish http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:40:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 End of Our Icebergs http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/end-of-our-icebergs/ http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/end-of-our-icebergs/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:48:45 +0000 Maria Vernet http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/?p=395 ICEBERG A43K, SOUTHERN OCEAN– Today is our last day of science. This evening we are leaving at 6pm (or 20 GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, which relates to the zero meridian that crosses Greenwich, United Kingdom. GMT time is commonly used on ships as we cross many East-West time zones and it can become confusing to keep to any one time.)

Everyone is busy trying to take that one last sample.


Me analyzing a sample under the microscope.

The last zooplankton net tow collected abundant gelatinous zooplankton, drifting animals whose bodies are almost entirely made up of water and have the consistency of gelatin.

Jellyfish, courtesy of Stephanie Bush
The gelatinous zooplankton jellyfish, affectionately dubbed ‘eyeballs.’

Besides jellyfish, we have seen salps, arrow worms (chaetognaths) and comb jellies (ctenophores).


A ctenophore from a previous season at Palmer Station, Antarctica.
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