DAY 1: Off to Hornsund

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After a farewell of 'West Spitsbergen Campaign' crew we sailed off to Hornsund. There we collected sediment samples for molecular analyses of modern and ancient foraminifera at four stations located along the fjord's axis. The living foraminifera were chosen for DNA sequencing, to create a database of modern foraminifera DNA sequences from Svalbard. Moreover, we picked surface sediment samples for environmental DNA analysis.

DAY 2: Storfjorden, here we are!

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After 12 hours of sailing we reached Storfjorden, a fjord on the East coast of Spitsbergen. We planned to take sediment samples for benthic fauna and geochemical analyses. Unfortunately, we were not fortunate with the weather. At the outer station (ST1) waves were too high to take samples. Luckily, inside the fjord weather conditions allowed us to take macrofauna Van Veen grab samples and box corer sediment samples for meiofauna, foraminifera, geochemical and molecular analyses. We also did some dredging to collect calcifying organisms for POLNOR project.

DAY 3: gravity corer

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Today, we continued our sampling. We planned to go back to station ST1 to take sediment core with gravity corer, but waves were still too high to do so. Therefore, we decided to add one station to our sampling plan, and try to take sediment core. And we did! It was not easy to operate gravity corer on a pitching ship, but we succeeded.

DAY 4: Microscoping

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We spend the last day of the sampling campaign on microscoping and picking foraminifera for molecular analyses. Busy day for scientists, time to relax for the ship's crew.

DAYS 5, 6, 7...: Going home

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The AREX 2014 crew was over, but we still had a long way to go. After more than 10 days of sailing we reached Gdańsk. It’s time to start analyzing samples!

Author: Joanna Pawłowska