Check out what we were up to on this past cruise! More coming soon...

Friends of Oceanography Join me and make a gift for UH Giving Day!

Being a graduate student has always been hard, but seems even more difficult these days. Please consider supporting UH Mānoa Oceanography students: give.uhfoundation.org/schools/Univ... @uhmanoa.bsky.social

Beneath the Surface | SUBSEA Part 1 YouTube video by Schmidt Ocean Institute

Our latest video story for the #OBVI #SUBSEA expedition with @schmidtsciences.bsky.social is live — check it out! youtu.be/EPcPzG4f59Q?...

A rainbow showed up for our 100th TM rosette sample on the SUBSEA cruise aboard the Falkor (Too)

First main station done and stopped for a quick short station for a few ctd casts and a beautiful sunrise TM casts 🌊

Mattia Da Fieno holds an oxygen glass bottle in front of a porthole during setup at the main lab aboard Falkor (too).

Telescopic crane deploys sediment trap aboard Falkor (too).

Captain Peter Reynolds and Chief Scientist Mathew Church on the aft deck of R/V Falkor (too).

Small work boat with scientists on calm seas

Another expedition underway! During #OBVI #SUBSEA expedition w/Schmidt Ocean Institute & @schmidtsciences.bsky.social Ocean Biogeochemistry Virtual Institute, Dr. Matthew Church and a team of international collaborators are investigating nutrient exchange w/in the South Atlantic subtropical gyre.

Our second container of gear came in and we hit the ground running with deployments of a full 60 PIT sediment trap, trace metal and rosette, and McLane pumps. All of these (and more) will help us characterize export of particles as part of the SUBSEA project 🌊 @schmidtocean.bsky.social

Recovered our sediment traps yesterday and redeployed them this morning. Re-recovering them tomorrow before we head back to port to *hopefully* meet our container to really spin up operations 🌊

The small boat is definitely the most fun way... And probably cleanest! We saw a few things on the filter that were *probably* not from the ocean, but 🤷🏻‍♀️

Enter creative sampling for some trace metal clean surface water in absence of our rosette. Feat: crane+ carboy and small boat + carboy (following a glider deployment). 🌊

First sediment trap cross deployed! Making due with 12 of the planned 60 PITs we happened to carry on the flight here while we wait for our container 🌊

And we're off on part 1 of our SUBSEA cruise in the South Atlantic aboard the Falkor, Too. One of our shipping containers is delayed so we're improvising (see the air conditioning size HEPAs and making some new sediment trap brine) for a shake down station before the container arrives 🌊

My current strategy of researching tubing is flawed

Science friends! We recently started using an inherited dynamax rp-1 peri pump (with a single spare peri pump tubing) to help circumvent clogging with our mass spec.... But I'm in tubing misery and can't seem to find the right bridge length (seems to be 180mm??). Anyone have a tubing part no.?

Happy international day of women and girls in science! Grateful for this powerhouse of a postdoc group that I work with 💗🥳

Silly side observations of my cats help lighten life sometimes. Here, I present, the growth of my cat olive's fur from 7 days before she got shaved against my wishes (miscommunication), day 0, and day 365! We made it

Phew, have spent the last few months grinding away at cruise prep and am officially packed in containers and done for the year!

Some acid washing stats:
~800 L of bottles / carboys
~7 m² of filters

180 L of trace metal clean sediment trap brine packed away today! 🤞🏻 For a safe shipment

Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.

Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.

Spent the last two weeks in a workshop on ocean primary production funded by the @schmidtsciences.bsky.social as part of the Ocean Biogeochemistry Virtual Institute. Now time to finish cruise prep!

Localized nutrient colimitation of phytoplankton growth rates across the subtropical South Pacific Ocean | PNAS The simultaneous depletion of multiple nutrients in seawater potentially leads to colimitation of phytoplankton growth across large oceanic extents...

Localized nutrient colimitation of phytoplankton growth rates across the subtropical South Pacific Ocean www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #jcampubs 🌊

Thinning Antarctic glaciers expose high-altitude nunataks delivering more bioavailable iron to the Southern Ocean - Nature Communications Iron-rich sediments are transferred from Antarctic mountains to the coast by glacial systems. Sediments that reach ice shelf fronts provide iron to ocean phytoplankton, increasing CO2 uptake; this cou...

Iron release into the Southern Ocean from thinning Antarctic glaciers could boost carbon absorption.

Iron leached into seawater from exposed mountain tops boosts phytoplankton which take up CO2 through photosynthesis. The question is how much and over what timescales.

#climate 🧪

Last HOT cruise of the year (for me) ✅

Underway for HOT361!

The amount of ice flowing from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica has doubled in the span of three decades. These satellite images from 2001 and 2019 show the fracture and retreat of the glacier ice tongue floating on the Amundsen Sea, as it's melted from below.

🛰️ NASA

It's been a whirlwind of the last few months simultaneously sailing on HOT cruises and preparing to ship things for a S. Atl cruise.

Honestly.... I'd rather rewrite my thesis than wash another bottle right now 🤣🙃. But today, I loaded for another HOT cruise AND moved my last items into acid. 💃🏻🥳

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫

This week, I cleaned 100L of carboys, 36 L of bottles, and 360 McLane pump filters 🙀. Trying to catch up on desk work today, and...

#CatsOfScience

💥California marine biogeochemists!

So Cal BOOM* is at UCLA on November 22, 2025 (*Biogeochemical Ocean Obs & Models). This is an event for grad student and post-doc marine biogeochemists of all kinds. More senior peeps (like me) are also welcome!
💥
Register here: socalboom.wordpress.com

Modeling the Deep Modeling the Deep: An ambitious mission seeks to map the flow of crucial chemicals through marine food webs in far-flung oceanic gyres.

Check out this write up describing what we're working on to understand biogeochemical cycling across different layers of the euphotic zone. The SUBSEA team is currently out on HOT-360 deploying SIX sediment trap crosses and McLane pumps this time 🎉
nautil.us/modeling-the...