For our last two days on the field, we went back to lakes. On our to-do list was Lago Plomo and, because we had a reliable boat, a nice running engine, and a few hours to spare, we decided to add an extra glacier-influenced lake: Lago Bayo. During these two days we stayed at Puerto…
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, … 9:13 AM, February 3rd, 2018, the release code is sent. The acoustic release 200 meters below us sends back a faint signal. The rope at the bottom of the surface buoy starts losing tension. The onboard echosounder shows an object rising quickly. All eyes are on the surface waters…
This week was all about lakes. From shallow to deep: Lago Juncal, Laguna Confluencia and the majestic Lago Calluqueo. Although the start of the week was a bit slower then what we had hoped for, we still managed to finish all the activities that were on our bucket list in time. What should have been…
A quite comfortable 26-hour-travel brought us to Concepción, a city bordering the Pacific Ocean, where the overwhelming sound of seagulls wakes you up in the morning. Upon arrival we joined Carina (Lange) for an obligatory Pisco Sour! Seb(astien Bertrand) and myself (Loic Piret) visited Chile’s second largest city to meet our collaborators from EULA (http://www.eula.cl)…
That’s it, our Sumatran adventure has come to an end… Everything is packed to go, including ourselves. The cores are placed very neatly into two boxes, thanks to Bambang! Now we just have to wait until they arrive in Belgium before we can start analyzing the results. Patience is a virtue… But impatience is only…
We have already experienced at lake Singkarak that expectations and reality are two very different things. Turns out that the same goes for lake Maninjau. Beyond all expectations, the amount of gas present on the bottom of the lake is apparently limited, allowing us to collect good seismic data. We were very surprised, but also…
Due to technical issues during our first days at Lake Singkarak, we decided to not lose any more time, so we started with coring – blindly. Surprisingly, we were able to recover up to 1.5 meters of lake sediments. It seemed that finally our luck was turning! After some phone calls, we even managed to…
We successfully completed the administrative part of our survey in both Jakarta and Padang (the capital of West-Sumatra) and installed ourselves in a hotel along the shore of Danau Singkarak. Conveniently, the survey-catamaran can be docked at the hotel, allowing us to work from dusk ‘til dawn every day without losing precious time for transportation.…
After over 24 hours, 3 flights and a flash visit to Singapore, we arrived at our first destination: Jakarta. Before we can travel any further, arrangements have to be made with our Indonesian partner organization, forms need to be signed and our work permits need to be organized. Now that we instantly became multi-millionaires (1…
As the team aboard the Sur-Austral welcomed Helena, I (Loïc) met Jon and Mathew on the shore of Steffen fjord. For a few days, I joined our British collaborators from Bristol University, who were collecting water samples from the main tributary of Steffen fjord: Huemules river (https://twitter.com/cryopisces). We shared stories of our recent adventures as we…
After spending five days along Baker River and collecting nearly 40 meters of sediment, our beloved Russian corer deserved a good rest. So did our backs. Before hitting the road to Tortel to start the second chapter of our expedition, we decided to explore proglacial lake Calluqueo, one of Loic’s study sites. Reaching the lake…
Hola, “You’re early!” Seb said slightly surprised when he picked us (Eleonora, Elke and Loic) up from the airport in Balmaceda. He was already accustomed to the slower mentality of southern Chile. Eleonora and Loic learned this swiftly on their first day shopping in Coyhaique for ropes, straps, buckets, chains, etc. that will be needed…
