The cruise started from the port of Galway, Ireland. The expedition was to the Irish Margin in the Northeast Atlantic. I joined a team of marine biologists and marine geologists from the University of Ghent.

RV Belgica docked in Galway

After a tiring journey I arrived late in the evening to Galway.  As soon as I embarked on the Belgica I was handed a gin and tonic! There was a drinks reception taking place on the ship to which the mayor of Galway and the Belgian ambassador in Ireland were among the invited guests guests. I was not expecting this, and felt a little scruffy in my jeans.

The next morning we set sail on schedule and started to make the two day journey to the Irish margin. On arrival at the sampling site, things seemed to be running smoothly, apart from a few malfunctions with the megacore sampling equipment. However, during the evening the winds began to pick up and conditions became rougher. The next day, the weather was deemed too rough and we were unable to sample, nevertheless we were still optimistic that the winds would die down. The weather did not improve, in fact it became rougher.

Thank goodness for seasickness tablets! The constant lurching of the boat from side to side was extremely tiring, even walking around the boat in a straight line became an effort and eating without your plate sliding off the table was a real challenge. I remember one night being tossed out of my bunk bed onto the floor because it was so rough. Eventually it was decided that conditions would not improve enough to sample so we headed back for port in Belgium.

Our bad luck was not at an end . On the return journey, the box corer (a piece of scientific sampling equipment) which had been secured out on deck broke loose. In an attempt to secure it in the storm one of the scientists got his leg crushed between the box corer and the side of the boat.  At this point we were too far away from land for a helicopter to evacuate him. The scientist had to wait in agony overnight before we came close to the Isles of Scilly, then a British helicopter came and airlifted him off the back of the boat. This was a very impressive procedure to witness.

Box corer on deck

Helicopter winch lowered down onto back deck

As we reached the English channel the weather slowly ameliorated and walking in a straight line became easy again. At last after ten tiring days at sea we reached the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Although we were not able to collect many samples, the friendly people on board from the University of Ghent made it an enjoyable adventure. Fortunately, the scientist who was airlifted off the boat made a full recovery.

The scientific crew

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Morning: I Arrive at  the museum and enter through Gloucester road entrance (staff only) to avoid the crowds of tourists and school children streaming into the museum. My office and laboratory are in the Darwin Centre, a large new annex attached to the original museum building.

View of Darwin Centre

There is a lot of active research going on at the Natural History museum over a wide range of disciplines from zoology to meteorology, from botany to paleontology.  I work in the department of Life Sciences, within Life Sciences I work in the polychaete laboratory.
My morning is spent in the office answering emails and reading journal papers.

View from my office window, overlooking museum wildlife garden and Cromwell Road.

Afternoon: Laboratory work time (my favourite part!). I use the microscopes to identify polychaete worms to species level. Luckily for me there is a great amount of polychaete  expertise in the museum, lots of identification books and keys and people who are always willing to help.

The Darwin Centre houses 17,000 fluid-preserved specimens in the Spirit collections. Daily tours take members of the public around the spirit collections and behind the scenes to see the scientists at work. Tours often come right past my laboratory while I am working at the microscope. This is very strange and I feel a little like a monkey in a zoo!

Giant Squid in Natural History Museum Spirit collections

On Friday, there is a departmental lecture given by a scientist from another institution to talk about their research. These talks are very interesting and important way to discover what other research is going on around the country and the world.

The Natural History Museum is open late to the public on the last Friday of the month. This is a great opportunity to wander around the galleries and have cocktail standing under Dippy the dinosaur in the great hall, a fantastic way to end the day.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/after-hours/lates-master-card/index.html

The post A day in the life of a polychaeteologist appeared first on Exploring our Oceans .

For those of you unfamiliar with polychaete worms (bristle worms), they are segmented worms generally found in marine environments from shallow coastal waters to deep-sea abyssal plains.  On each body segment of a polychaete worm there is a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia, these bare many bristles called chaetae. Polychaetes range in size from 1 mm to 3 m long! Here are my top three pretty polychaetes:

1) Spirobranchus giganteus also known as the Christmas tree worm. This worm has a tubular segmented body, the two “crowns” shaped like Christmas trees are specialized mouth appendages that it uses to trap prey.

2) Eupolymnia cf. korrangia.  From the family Terebellidae, these are surface deposit feeders, catching falling particles with numerous elongate tentacles splayed out on the sea floor. The tentacles give them their common name of spaghetti worms.

3) Riftia pachyptila are found living next to hydrothermal vents (underwater chimneys). These worms can reach up to 2.4 m long. They depend on bacteria living inside them to supply food. The bacteria convert chemicals from the hydrothermal vents into organic molecules. 

These are just a few of many, many pretty polychaetes

Image credits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spirobrancheus_giganteus.jpg

http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Polychaete-Eupolymnia-cf-korrangia/

http://invertebrates.si.edu/Features/stories/vestimentifera.html

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Hi everyone,

My name is Laetitia Gunton and I am a facilitator on Exploring our Oceans MOOC.

I’m a third year PhD student at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton joint with the Natural History Museum, London. My PhD research is into deep-sea worms living in the sediment of underwater canyons.

I hope that you all have a fun time taking part in this six week course and learn a lot about the fascinating environments hidden beneath the ocean waves.  I’m very excited to be a facilitator on the course and look forward to some interesting discussions.

See you online!

Laetitia

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